(no subject)

[rachelmanija]

I fled to a Borders with an attached Starbucks, and decided to browse and read manga until the weather got less cold and wet, as all my other plans involved a great deal of outdoorsiness.

I just spent the entire day in Borders. I have now read through volume 6 of Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura.Bautiful smudgy-pencil art, somewhat in the tradition of Lone Wolf and Cub (so is the story, come to think of it) but even better, or at least even more to my taste.

Last night I had some lovely flaky fried fish and soggy chips. The waitress asked me if I wanted "mushy peas" to go with it. My God! I thought, they do that on purpose! How horrible!

"Don't like the mushy peas," said the waitress wisely, before I could respond verbally.

I have been watching some of the Naruto anime that telophase was kind enough to send me before I left, and have some non-spoilery thoughts regarding language.

1. Apparently "Kakashi" is the best name ever to say in slow and gloating tones. It sounds really great when spoken that way, which is why all the villains who confront him tend to have dialogue like this: "So, Kakashi... I have found you at last... Kakashi... Heh heh heh."

2. Does "dattebayo" or "-te bayo," which Naruto uses so much, literally mean anything? Does anyone ever use it in real life, or is it purely a made-up character thing? It reminds me of Chichiri's "no da," which I think does have some sort of meaning but is basically just a speech tic. (Last night while at ish and chips the young Japanese woman at the next table, who was talking on her cell phone, ended half her sentences with "da yo!" It sounded similar enough (and her voice was pitched a bit similarly to Naruto's) that it really startled me for a moment.)

3. I had a 3, but I seem to have forgotten it. Hmm. Perhaps that Orochimaru sounds even creepier and more pedophilic when he has an audible voice than he did in the manga.

4. I think my all-time favorite of Kakasshi's lateness excusesis, "I got lost while walking the road of life."

ETA 5. I remembered 3! That thing Shikamaru says, "mendokusei," that gets variously translated as "how bothersome," "what a pain," etc. Is there a literal meaning?

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

On 4--I totally agree.

As I've said before, I don't love the Naruto anime, but I do love how it gives you a sense of the speech tics that you just can't get from translations.

[sarge-5150.livejournal.com]

Google yields (http://www.mostlytrivial.com/index.php?post_id=82634):

"mendokusai", which means "troublesome"

[ewein2412]

"mushy peas" are a "Northern" thing--most "southern" English think they're disgusting too! I would say they taste like pea soup--they're a sort of intermediate stage between tinned peas and pea soup. I have a soft spot for them because we lived in Cheshire for 2 years. In some places they are served up FLUORESCENT GREEN.

[ewein2412]

Incidentally, you've got rain forecast for the next two days in London, although the Metoffice is increasingly unreliable these days.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I love Kakashi so much-- bought a keychain of him reading on vacation.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

As you're in a manga mood (and when not?) and in London, perhaps you should pop round to the British Museum to view the exciting life of Kid Jesus, Superhero. It's a series of red-and-yellow medieval tiles showing extremely unlikely scenes of early super-power manifestations. It has its dark side, too, just like any good comic.

I do not remember which room these were in. Thanks to Google here is so much info one hardly needs bothering to see.

The Guardian on the Tring tiles (http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1670642,00.html): "Every year, almost all of the museum's 5 million or so visitors pass them by, unaware of the potent lessons that the tiles offer." This is true because I stood there for half an hour, suppressing my laughter until tears came when I saw them, and nobody else looked at them twice. In fact very few people look once.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Drat, I should have done that yesterday. I don't think I'll have time tomorrow.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have been told that "datte bayo" is basically a speech tic, and that it emphasizes ... er, well, I should imaging Naruto jumping up and down and punching the air at the end of every sentence. I don't actually remember who told me that, so take it as it is until someone who knows better drops by.

I have an mp3 of the woman who voices Orochimaru mangling opera. I shall send it to you after you get back, so that the dread fear of it will color the time between now and when you get back.

[weirdquark]

I've seen it get translated as "I'm tellin' ya", so yeah, speech tic for emphasis. Or so I gather.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

...ye Gods.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

PH33333333R THE OROCHIMARU OPERA OF DOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

manga lady gave me naruto.

finally, ok, i will start.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Standard disclaimer: I don't think the first volume is especially good, and the whole series gets better and better as it goes along, so do persevere.

[elyndys.livejournal.com]

As a Northerner, I hate mushy peas too. My Southern other half loves them, and he likes to claim them as a filthy Cockney foodstuff. ;)

I once knew all about mendou kusai, as someone explained it to me very throughly, but it's 3 years ago and I've forgotten. ^^'

[greenapple2004.livejournal.com]

"Mendou kusai" literally means, "it reeks of being a bother." Mendou is a verb, meaning "to care for/be concerned with," in a somewhat troublesome way, (so you will often apologize for being a burden on someone, using "mendou") but throwing in the "kusai," or "kusee," as Shikamaru says it, makes it come across as a really cranky way of saying, "this is a pain in the ass." :-)

"Dattebayo" is kind of a nonsensical emphatic statement, very much like "no da," but I think "no da" may have been used a bit more archaically, whereas "dattebayo" just sounds juvenile and perky. :-) I've gotta say, from what I've heard of the English dub, they did a very impressive job of handling the various speech patterns.

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

What greenapple2004 said, and adding that I understand -tteba to be a fairly commonly-heard ending amongst young OL-type women, and I've heard it once or twice from female characters in anime, but only when they're being coy.