(no subject)

[snapdragon76]

Well, this was an interesting week-end, that's for sure. Remember when I talked about "The big revelation" in Fruits Basket (see the second lj-cut on Friday's entry). Remember when I said I'd with hold judgement until I saw the full scans and read the translations? Well, I have and... yes, it really is true. But was that the end of the surprises? By no means. As it turns out, Kureno and Akito are... close (and yes, I do mean that close). o_O Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised and slightly disapointed. Let's just say I was rooting for Kureno and Uo-chan.

Also, I've been looking through the volumes of FB that I have trying to look for clues. Needless to say, I've always thought Akito looked a little "girlie," but I was just attributing it to the family genes of how the guys in the jyuunishi looked pretty as it was. Some in the ML were complaining about how the Tokyopop translations used the wrong pronoun. I can certainly understand, especially since Akito used "boku" to refer to herself. *sigh* They really should lighten up. Chapter 98 should be veeery interesting...

Lessee, anything else happen this week-end? Nothing noteworty at any rate.

Man, my eyes hurt from them popping out all over the place...

Quote of the day: "The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Comments

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I feel pretty bad for the Tokyopop translators--I can't think of what they should do in this situation, or even what they should have done if they'd known in advance. :/ English just doesn't allow the misdirection that the Japanese did. *shakes head*

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

I can see it now, "Stop the presses! We've got to change the pronoun to a neutral one!" Of course, if they outright used "She" it'd ruin the surprise. However, there are few "gender neutral" terms in English. They could do like the rest of the jyuunishi do and just use her name (except for the ones who don't know of course). ---

I think I just confused myself...

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, going with "she" would be a big mistake, I think (although I would be interested to see how a new fan would interpret the series if they knew Akito's gender all along).

It'd be *possible* to be vague in English, but the awkwardness would either make it look like a poor translation or make it obvious that something was being obscured ("I went to see Akito-san, and Akito-san said that Akito-san had been thinking--"). -_-

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

You know, the mystery of it is intriguing to say the least. Someone once said that they read an entire novel where one of the character's gender was hidden until the end. I for one think it would have been interesting to see how they were able to pull it off.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

My mum's genre of choice is mystery novels, and she's read a . . . book? series? where the detective's gender is never revealed at all. I can't imagine how difficult that must be (I mean, I assume the author has made a decision one way or the other, and not ever slipping up . . ?).

At least it's an interesting idea--some writing gimmicks are just odd, like the novel that was written entirely without the letter 'e'. I haven't read it myself, but WHY would someone do that?