Kosaka-san Remaster
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS AND IT'S INTENDED TO TALK ABOUT THEM. IF YOU HAVENT READ THE NOVEL WE ADVISE YOU TO LEAVE AND COME BACK ONCE YOU'RE DONE READING!!
So, this is the first TT post ever! At least for a release…
The Idea of this entry is to give the team thoughts about the product, in two parts, the first one in a technical aspect intended for other aspiring translators or people interested in that side of translation! After that is spoiler talk, just the team general feelings about the product.
Let's start!!
Translator Side
This was a terrifying product for me to translate, your first time is always like this… I hope. In addition, there was a precedent for this one! I read MDZAbstraction translation, and liked it! I noticed the re-release of it, and the other 2 novels weren't translated. And I decided to start this little journey here! To translate all the products that Shatou Sombrerou had released.
As this was my first real translation ( I've translated some doujins and stuff like that before) I didn't know how formal to be, or if things were being properly conveyed in English… So I took my time, and after finishing a section, tried to read everything again and maybe changed things here and there where I felt I could be a little more clear or express things more naturally.
As you can probably see i took a different approach than the translation from MDZ, I used honorifics, I don't really think they are necessary, but the product is called Kosaka-SAN, so I felt it was more fitting, hopefully that end sequence made you guys feel something! Going foward I will probably use honorifics in everything unless something weird comes up.
At the end, I think I released something good, could be better, probably. But at the end of the day is my first translation, and the more people that read the more feedback i get the better translator I'll be!…hopefully.
In terms of weird vocabulary or Japanese we had interesting things, at some point Kosaka says "we are going to eat prison food together" or something in that sense, well, this is the way I found to translate what she really says, which is more like "We'll eat stinky food together" 臭いメシを食う which is an expression that means their are going to prison… It was something new for me!
Other than the translation, I had to understand how TyranoScript works, for those that don't know Tyrano script is the engine that this game uses! In this engine scripts are easily accessible and everything is easily modifiable, not a lot of crashes after I got the tools to open it up and pack it back again!
I also did my first image editing! (Maybe you didn't realize) a config screen that no one is going to see… BUT! I once heard that translators have to be selfish and do things that they feel like doing, this was good practice and… I think it paid off in the following projects!
Thoughts Side
This novel really affected me, like more than I thought, to the point that I couldn't hear the music after I finished it, And then I had to read it like 5 more times(and for the spanish translation as well…), so be the end of it the music even made me nauseous. The reason it affected me so much, I think, is that things like this happen all the time, we could avoid them by doing, simple normal things we do all the time but sometimes is too late… And I know, it might sound preachy, but… it really made me appreciate the little things again, and hopefully I can appreciate people when they do little things! Everything helps… right?
The first time I finished the novel I was angry… "WHY?!" "THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE!" And then I realized, maybe that's the exact feeling that Tokoroten-sensei was going for, that feeling of loss and not being able to do something was what I got from this product… And trying to be conscious to everything around me, just a little more, maybe that way I can save someone, before their meteor crashes…