Those are great questions! It might be helpful to think of the Japanese somewhat like "Easter Eggs" that writers will put in media. There's a bigger meaning or experience for those who have the context to access for it, but a simple translation won't detract from the story if you don't have that context. If you read the comment below yours in this chapter, that person mentioned that they can "hear" the characters' voices in their head when I drop in the Japanese, which is what I'm going for (I have hyperphantasia, so *I* want to hear them in my head when I read). So if there's a phrase that we hear a character say a lot in the anime, especially if it's pertinent to the social situation, I'm likely to leave it in as a kind of audio easter egg. As for cultural context, Japanese culture is complex, with layers of nuance, so I like to leave a relatively simple translation in the glossary for those unfamiliar, so it's not too overwhelming. I promise I will provide appropriate context for the big pivotal moments, though, so you won't miss anything crucial, and I am happy to talk about any of it at length if prompted lol
For example, "thank you" and "you're welcome"--thanking culture is a big deal in Japan. It's important to thank people and respond to thanks in appropriate ways according to the social hierarchy you're in at the moment. So when I have Sakura say "arigatou" in this chapter, I'm pointing out that she's with her in-group (family and friends), in this case, Touya, Yukito, and then Yue. She does not say, for example, "arigatou gozaimasu", which she would use toward her teacher (her superior in a more formal relationship). I like that when she talks to Yue, she speaks to him as family/friend, even though she started out intimidated by him and still considers him more in same social tier as Yukito (slightly above her, note the -san she adds to both Yukito and Yue), yet she still makes this effort to invite closeness in their relationship. The "-san" says (in this context) "I respect you as older and wiser than me", and the casual level of expressions like "arigatou" say "I feel close to you, you're part of my family/friend group." (By contrast, Sakura puts Kero in her "social equals or below" group by calling him -chan, and by speaking to him with much less emotional containment.) Plus, Sakura says "arigatou" so much that I can distinctly hear her sweet, earnest little voice in my head, and I hope my readers can too.
Tomoyo, on the other hand, is more formal with even her friends and family, because her family is rich, and it's carryover culture from when being rich was a direct result of having rank and power (nobility) in Japan. So as a child of a rich family, she uses -sama with her mother, and more respectful language toward everyone. We will hear her say "arigatou gozaimasu" even to her friends, but her friends know it's not an indicator that she feels emotionally distant from them, but rather that she is honoring her family's status. In Clear Card, Akiho also speaks very formally because this is the Japanese that she learned, and her new friends comment on it--"why are you talking like Tomoyo?"--because it's weird and a little distancing to be so formal if you're not a rich kid (Akiho is, in fact, a rich kid, but she's also foreign and her family lacks the Japanese socioeconomic prestige and notoriety that Tomoyo's family has).
So that's like... a slice of the cultural context of "arigatou" XD
"Douzo" is a phrase I absolutely love in Japanese. It's often translated as "please go ahead" or "help yourself". There's a sense of gift giving with this expression--"this is a thing that is mine/I made that I am offering you to use/enjoy/partake of". We hear "douzo" when someone invites you into their home, when someone offers you a meal, when you ask permission to do something and someone gives that permission. It has such a lovely feeling offering and trust--the person saying "douzo" is placing something in your care because they trust that you will treat it well, and they hope that you will enjoy it. So receiving a "douzo" comes with a social responsibility to be a good guest or a good receiver, treating the gift (and thereby the gifter) with the respect it deserves.
In this chapter, Yukito is asking for the gift of seeing Yue's brush and haircombs, which he knows just by looking at them are precious items. Yue says "douzo" (he acutally says it twice, but I went ahead and translated it the second time), offering that gift with the trust that Yukito will understand their importance and be careful with them. They're able to deepen their emotional bond in this exchange, a rare moment where Yue gets to be the vulnerable one and Yukito is respectful and caring of his feelings through the surrogate objects of the brush and haircombs. They then have almost the same emotional exchange without the buffer of the surrogate objects, when Yukito asks directly about Yue's feelings for Clow, and at that point Yue feels safe enough to share because of that trust built just moments before with the brush and haircombs.
So as you can see from these examples, Japanese is HIGHLY contextual. I watched CCS as a kid, when I had zero Japanese, I could feel these deeper cultural significances without being able to fully understand and articulate them. I felt like I was standing on a cake. The frosting was great, but there were layers of cake underneath that I could sense but not access. Twenty years later of studying Japanese later, I feel like I'm able now to access about half the layers of the cake, and watching CCS now is so much richer an experience--and yet I know there's still more. I hope while you're reading fic, you can get a good taste of the frosting. If you want me to expound on what I've put in the cake, please do drop me a comment with specific questions, like you just did. As you can see, these explanations can get quite lengthy, depending on how much context you want, and writing an extended glossary in each chapter would get cumbersome and inaccessible to those who want a subtitle-style translation.
Thanks for continuing this dialogue! It's helping me understand where you're coming from, and I hope what I've written here is helpful. Please do continue to comment if you have other questions ^_^
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Ranae_des_Roses on Chapter 2 Sat 09 Mar 2024 07:32PM UTC
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