Despite being such an important work in Japanese literary canon, it somehow completely slipped by English Orientalists.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

As previously stated, the phrase that comes up in the MDZS text is 雪月風花 setsugetsufuuka (the beauty of nature). Other variations I have found on it trying to track this phrase down are 風花雪月 fuukasetsugetsu, and 花鳥風月 kachoufuugetsu which seems to mean the same thing in Japanese, but in Chinese hua1 niao3 feng1 yue4 means “flowery language and empty prose”, according to Kotobank. The assumed origin of that extra character is that Japanese literati decided they wanted to extend it to all four seasons to round it out: the snow for winter, the moon for autumn, wind for summer, and flowers for spring.

Before I get to the poem, I need to mention a weird tangent that Wikipedia insists we all know as a side bar. The same sequence of “snow, moon and flowers” can be found in a poem composed by Ootomo no Yakamochi 大伴家持 (718-785) (Man'youshuu vol 18 poem 4134). Ootomo no Yakamochi predates Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846) by nearly a century.

Some sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow,_moon_and_flowers https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%AA%E6%9C%88%E8%8A%B1 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A2%A8%E8%8A%B1%E9%9B%AA%E6%9C%88 https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E9%9B%AA%E6%9C%88%E9%A2%A8%E8%8A%B1/ https://japanese.china.com/hanyu/poetry/20002181/20170906/25507999.html https://skawa68.com/2021/09/28/post-56876/

Standard procedure with Classical Chinese prose and poetry (漢文 kanbun and 漢詩 kanshi respectively) is to first translate the Classical Chinese into Classical Japanese (書き下ろし kakioroshi), and then translate the kakioroshi into Modern Japanese. If I were doing this in my college Classical Chinese class, we'd just skip that intermediate step. There's no good reason for a ladder translation, and I will get to that shortly.

A really cool thing about Chinese poetry is that it rhymes. Japanese poetry, unfortunately, is physically incapable of such feats.The above china.com has all three versions in a jpeg. Transcribed below:

Classical Chinese

《寄殷協律》　白居易 五歳優遊同過日　一朝消散似浮雲 琴詩酒伴皆抛我　雪月花時最憶君 幾度聽鶏歌白日　亦曾騎馬詠紅裙 呉娘暮雨蕭蕭曲　自別江南更不聞

(Traditional Chinese text copied from Japanese wiki)

Hanyu Pinyin of the above

“ji4 yin 1 xie2 lv4” bai2 ju1 yi4 wu3 sui4 you1you2 tong2 guo4 ri4 yi1 zhao1 xiao1san4 si4 fu2yun2 qin2 shi1 jiu3 ban4 jie1 pao1 wo3 xue3 yue4 hua1 shi2 zui4 yi4 jun1 ji3 du4 ting1 ji1 ge1 bai2ri4 yi4 ceng2 qi2ma3 yong3 hong2 qun2 wu2 niang2 mu4 yu3 xiao1xiao1 qu3 zi4 bie2 jiang1nan2 geng4 bu4 wen2

English translation from Classical Chinese

“TO: Yin Xielü” Five years of carefree days we’ve passed together/ Dissipated one morning like floating clouds./ Comrades for qin, poetry and liquor have all cast me aside/ In the seasons of the snow, moon, and flowers, I remember you the most./ How many times did we listen to “chicken” and sing “daylight”?/ Also [you] rode a horse and sung about a red qun/ The Wu girl’s tune “chilling evening rain”/ I myself departed Jiangnan and have not heard since.

Classical Japanese

「殷協律（いんけいりつ）に寄す」　白居易 五歳の優游（ゆうよう）同（と）もに日を過ごし 一朝消散して浮雲に似たり 琴詩酒（きんししゅ）の伴（とも）皆我を抛（なげう）ち 雪月花の時　最も君を憶う 幾たびか鶏（けい）を聴き白日を歌い 亦（また）曾（かつ）て馬を騎（の）り紅裙を詠（えい）ず 呉娘（ごじょう）の暮雨蕭蕭（ぼうしょうしょう）の曲 江南（こうなん）に別れてより更（さら）に聞かず

Translation from Classical Japanese

Entrusted to: In Kyouritsu Together we have passed five years of leisurely days/ One morning they dissipated, and resemble floating clouds./ My companions for koto, poetry, and sake all abandon me, and/ In the times of the snow, moon, and flowers, I recollect you the most./ How many times did we listen to “chicken” and sing “daylight”/ Also, long ago, you composed a poem about a [someone wearing] a crimson waist-robe riding a horse./ That songstress’ rendition of “desolate in the evening rain”/ After parting in Kounan I have not heard again.

Modern Japanese

五年の歳月、君と過ごした楽しい日々は、 ある朝、浮雲のように消え散ってしまった。 共に琴を弾き、詩を詠み、酒を飲んだ友は、皆私のもとを去り、 雪月花の美しい景色に触れると、君のことを最も懐かしく思い出す。 幾たび「黄鶏」の歌を聴き、「白日」の曲を歌っただろうか。 馬にまたがり、紅い裙の衣を着た美人を詠じたこともあったね。 呉娘の「暮雨蕭々」の曲は江南で君と別れてから、 一度も聞いていない。

Translation from Modern vernacular Japanese

The fun days I’ve passed together with you over the past five years/ One morning, vanished and scattered like floating clouds./ The friends together with whom I played koto, composed poetry, and drank liquor have all left my side/ And whenever I am touched by the beautiful scenery of the snow, moon, and flowers, I remember you most nostalgically./ How many times did we listen to the song “chicken”, or sing “daylight”, I wonder?/ And there was that one time where you composed a poem about a beautiful lady wearing a crimson kun robe sitting astride a horse, wasn’t there. That songstress’ rendition of “desolate in the evening rain”/ I have not heard a single time after parting with you in Kounan.

An alternative kakioroshi and modern Japanese translation

五年の間、君と過ごした楽しい日々は、 或る朝、浮雲のように消え散ってしまった。 琴を弾き、詩を詠み、酒を交わした友は、皆私のもとを去り、 雪・月・花の美しい折につけ、最も懐かしく思い出すのは君のことだ。 幾たび「黄鶏」の歌を聴き、「白日」の曲を歌ったろう。 馬にまたがり、紅衣を着た美人を詠じたこともあった。 呉娘の「暮雨蕭々」の曲は 江南に君と別れて以後、二度と聞いていない。

Alternate English translation

The fun days I’ve passed together with you over the past five years/ One morning, vanished and scattered like floating clouds./ The friends I played koto with, composed poems with, and exchanged liquor with have all left my side/ And at every beautiful encounter with the snow, moon, and flowers, the thing I remember most nostalgically is you./ How many times did we listen to the song “chicken”, or sing “daylight”, I wonder?/ And there was that one time where you composed a poem about a beautiful lady wearing a crimson robe sitting astride a horse./ That songstress’ rendition of “desolate in the evening rain”/ I have not heard again since parting with you in Kounan.

Some Translation Notes

Note 1: 琴 (qin2/koto) is often translated as “zither” or “floor harp”. They’re different instruments. In a quick scan of this article, it appears that the Japanese koto was developed from the Chinese zheng1 箏, which is a larger type of qin. 箏 is still read koto in Japanese.

Note 2: 酒 is alcohol in general in both Japanese and Chinese. In most Chinese poetry, we’re looking at bai2jiu3 白酒. For some reason, this gets translated as “wine” if you look at other poetry collections. I don’t know why–maybe it’s the ABV. Sake 酒 has different base grains and a different fermentation process. If I’m reading my wiki pages correctly, baijiu is actually closer to shochu. Booze is booze, whatever you call it. Cheers!

Note 3: While I’m pulling out the crayon box, the base colors between Japanese and Chinese solidified differently. 紅 is default red in modern Mandarin, “crimson” in Japanese; 赤 is default red in Japanese, “scarlet” in Mandarin. This was an interesting color website to stumble across… We can compromise on Karakurenai (“Tang crimson”).

Note 4: 裙 qun2 is a pleated, wrap skirt-adjacent hanfu garment. While a ton of pre-modern Japanese clothing was heavily inspired by Chinese fashion, kunsu 裙子 didn’t make the cut. We got mo 裳 (=chang2 which is kind of like a skirt for imperial court ladies, but in Chinese is just kind of general below the waist garments [e.g. skirt, petticoat]), and we got hakama 袴 (=ku4, JP variant of 褲, trousers) for upper class folks in general. Denshi Jisho says “waist-robe,” so that’s what I’m going with instead of “skirt.” I know it’s clunky; using this term makes it clearer how the modern vernacular Japanese translation wound up with generic “robe” instead of specifically skirt. Without being too heavy handed, “red skirt” subtext is “attractive lady.”

Note 5: 雞/鶏 ji1 is a chicken. One of these Japanese translations notes that it’s 黄鶏 (kawashi, “yellow”+”chicken”), either “a type of chicken with reddish brown coloration (and probably yellow tipped wings)” or “chicken meat.” “Chicken meat” appears to be the primary definition nowadays—finding a picture of an actual chicken has not been easy. An article on the word’s origin. Most of the time I just find pictures of fried chicken. That sounds like it would go well with all the booze.

Note 6: Kounan = Jiang1nan2. Place names don’t get glossed.

Note 7: according to the notes on one of these Japanese translations, 呉娘 wu2niang2 “Wu Girl” is a regional term for “songstress” (JP: 歌姫 utahime) in the Jiangnan (“South of the Yangtze River”) part of China at the time of composition. This is where the Wu Chinese are.

Note 8: I tried to see if I could find any of the songs mentioned but turned up goose egg.

Bonus! Manyoushuu poem translation

Note: the transliteration from the Manyoushuu poetry archive site linked above is from the Classical Japanese values for each character, which differ from their modern readings.

雪の上に照れる月夜に梅の花折りて送らむはしき子もがも

Translation

It’s snowing, and I just might break off some plum blossoms glittering in the moonlit night as a gift, if only I had a lovely lady to give them to.

These flowers I saw one late winter evening would make a great gift for the girlfriend I don’t have!

https://botanica-media.jp/49 says Japanese plum blossoms generally bloom between late January and late March, so this waka is perfectly in season!

Also notice how this “modern translation” and OP disagree about whether the snow is “in addition to” the scene or specifying a “location” within the scene. There’s insufficient text to clarify whether to translate 上 uhe as “moreover” or “on top of” so either is valid.

Corresponding ExR chapter: Aggression Part 1 Frontier Works pages 21-33

I’m not going in order of Vocab then Quotations this time. Just things I thought might be interesting to look at.

辟穀 hekikoku is specifically the Daoist concept bi4gu3. “Inedia” is a nice Latin word to describe it (lit. “fasting”). Unfortunately, the first Wikipedia page you fall on is for breatharianism–a pseudoscience. Bi4gu3 is back translated as “grain avoidance” and there are several interpretations about how literal that is. I’ll let you peruse the wiki article. If I learned anything from Classical Chinese class, it’s that 9 times out of 10, whatever you’re looking at is a metaphor for a sassy political statement. It seems like a large leap of logic to go from what appears to be a primitive celiac treatment to “returning to the ‘golden age'”–ie 'pre-agrarian’ society–elitism. I’m sure I’m missing some of the in between steps regarding spiritualism and such, but I’ll be damned if I have to read any more Laozi, Zhuangzi, or Mengze in the original just to track this down…

Example

The YiLing Patriarch had just returned to the moral world, but the first thing he came upon was a kick and a scolding, not to mention the leftovers that served as his welcoming-meal[sic]. where were the blood and gore? The ruthless slaughter? the absolute destruction? Who would believe him? He was like the tiger in a flatland, the dragon in shallow water, the phoenix without feathers, losing his advantage and belittled by those weaker than him. (ExR pg 7)

夷陵老祖と呼ばれた自分が現世に蘇ったというのに、足蹴にされるわ怒鳴られるわ、復活を祝う最初の宴もこんな冷たい残飯だなんてーー。血の雨、漆黒の嵐は？残虐非道は？一族郎党皆殺しは？こんな仕打ち、あとで話したところで誰も信じてくれないだろう。虎も山を下りれば犬にいじめられ、龍も浅水で泳げば海老に遊ばれ、鳳凰の羽を抜けば鶏以下ーー力を失ったら、こんな格下の存在にも愚弄されるなんて。(FW pg 22) Even though he himself who had been called the Iryou Elder had been resurrected to the present world, he’d been treated poorly (double meaning: kicked), he’d been yelled at, and the first feast to celebrate his reincarnation was these cold leftovers?? Where’s the blood rain, the jet black storm? The atrocity? The massacre of an entire clan? No one would believe he’d suffered this sort of poor treatment when he’d talk about it later. If a tiger descending the mountain only to be bullied by a dog; if a dragon swimming in shallow water only to be teased by a shrimp; If a phoenix with plucked feathers, a chicken [verb dropped], etc.–When he lost his powers, he’d be mocked these sorts of lower ranked beings!

The back translation above is not in clean sentences as the Japanese text is effectively fragmented anyway. Please note that 夷陵老祖 IS NOT GLOSSED. Place names in general ARE NOT GLOSSED the way that personal names are. (I’m genuinely not sure if I should be reading 現世 as gense or utsushiyo, but that’s probably the myriad of Buddhist and Buddhist inspired literature experience speaking. Blame my translating Kagrra, lyrics on JPopAsia back in 2009.)

彷屍 houshi I’m not sure if I like ExR’s “walking corpses”. They “wander” 彷徨 (urotsuku, samayou, houkou). Then again, Japanese is prone to redundancy in a way that English tends to avoid.

A-Tong complained, “Delivering his meal is not the only work I do! > How an you dare to go outside these days? With so many walking corpses out there, everyone’s locking themselves in their houses.” (ExR pg 8) > > 「俺だって他にも仕事があるんだ！それより、外に遊びに行きたいって？あんなに大量の彷屍がうろついていて、どこの家も皆ガッチガチに扉を閉ざしているんだぞ。」(FW pg 23) > “I’ve got plenty of other work to do. But that’s beside the point–you said you want to go play outside? With that many wandering corpses roaming around, every house is bolting their doors shut.

Side note: It’s clear that A-Tong is speaking rather than A-Ding because the two servants are established earlier in the passage to have distinct speech patterns in addition to their assigned social genders, including but not limited to first- and second person pronominal usage. This is not easily replicated in English, therefore specification of the speaker is required in English only.

修為 shuui because it got an inline note:

重ねた修行の成果。また、その段階。(FW pg 22) The cumulative results of training, or rank thereof.

This feels like Chinese. Kotobank’s only entry for the term redirects to 修養 shuuyou, “self-improvement” and then quotes a poem by Zhang Yanghao.

Seisenban nihon kokugo daijiten: 学問をおさめ、徳性をやしない、より高い人格形成に努めること。精神を練磨し、品性をやしない、人格を高めること。 ※童子問（1707）中「夫修養之引年、資質之変化、皆可勉而至焉」 〔張養浩‐寿子詩〕

Side note: If you look 修養 up on Kotobank, you’ll see additional markings on that poetry fragment. That’s kanbun kundoku 漢文訓読 Japanese reading notation for Chinese texts. It’s obnoxious to work with, and honestly much easier to just read the Literary Chinese straight than attempt to rework it into Classical Japanese and then finally English. Ladder translation gets messy rather quickly. I have removed the notation since my current word processor doesn’t support subscripts.

抹額 makkou also got an inline note on FW pg 25. I’m not typing it up as we all know it’s the Lan clan headband/ “forehead ribbon”. Denshi Jisho says they’re usually red, as confirmed by Taiwanese hanfu websites via Google Images.

客卿 kakkei (in the other dictionaries I’ve checked, it comes up as kakukei first) similarly on FW pg 25 but without an inline note— Government bureaucracy terminology from the Qin dynasty, but as overarching government in general has been poorly established, what is government to MXTX sensei anyway? I’m going to go with “guest cultivator”.

Seisenban nihon kokugo daijiten: 他国から来て、一時その国の支配者に仕え公卿の地位にある人。 Weblio: 中国戦国時代に秦で用いられた古代の官名の一つ。他国の者でありながら秦の高官の地位に就いた者に与えられた官名であり、位置的には左庶長と同等であったとされる。

I do think it’s quite funny that the narrator refers to the Lan clan’s white costuming as a “school uniform” 校服 (still FW pg 25). And funnier still that ExR calls the Lan juniors “ikemen” (pg 9).

These boys grew up in a cultivation clan, exposed to splendor and that only. (ExR pg 10) 姑蘇藍氏で育った弟子たちがこれまで見聞きしてきたのは、雪月風花のような雅で美しいものだけだろう。(FW pg 28) Disciples raised by the Koso Lan clan had probably only experienced elegant and beautiful things like the beauties of nature [lit. the snow, moon, wind, and flowers].

Again, place names like 姑蘇 (“Gusu”) are not glossed but people's names like 藍 Lan are.

雪月風花 setsugetsufuuka is a whole tangent that I will write about in a separate post. TLDR it's an allusion to the phrase 雪月花 setsugekka/xue3 yue4 hua1 from a lesser known Bai Juyi 白居易 poem to his friend and subordinate Yin Xielü 殷協律 back when he was stationed in Chang'an that Japanese literati just fell in love with, and at some point shoved in an extra character. Tracking the etymology of that would be a collegiate research paper, and I just don't have that kind of free time or resources.

Of all the things that could possibly make me second guess myself, it’s 腕. But it’s because of a specific translation choice by ExR. In Chinese, I keep getting “wrist” as the primary definition and “arm” as the second. In Japanese, it’s definitely an “arm”.

“Who said that my words shouldn’t be taken seriously? Next time, try stealing anything from me again. You steal once and I cut off off one of your hands.” (ExR pg 11)

「事実無根だって？今度また俺の物を盗んでみろよ。誰であろうが、一回盗んだらその代わりにそいつの腕を一本斬り落としてやるから！」 (FW pg 29) “'Not grounded in reality?’ Next time try stealing from me. Doesn’t matter who, steal my stuff one more time and I’ll lop off one of your arms in return.”

I’m just going to assume that it’s supposed to be an arm because of the donghua’s depiction of the events that follow.

These last two notes are about Japanese specific text additions, both near the bottom of FW pg 33.

He sprinted off the moment he threw the flag away. the boys who stood on the roof to watch the bustle almost fell off from laughter, after hearing his ridiculous words. Lan JingYi also chuckled from anger and picked up the Phantom Attraction Flag. “What a maniac!” (ExR pg 12)

魏無羨は旗を捨てるとすぐさま逃げだした。屋根の上で面白そうに事の成り行きを見守っていた少年たちは、彼の戯言を聞いて危うく屋根から落ちそうなくらいどっと笑いだした。藍景儀も憤慨しつつ苦笑して召陰旗を拾い上げて埃を払う。 「あいつは本当におかしい！」 「そう言わないで。それより早くこっちを手伝ってよ」と藍思追が言った。(FW pg 33) Wei Wuxian threw away the flag and promptly fled. From the rooftop, the boys, who were watching the hilarious course of events, burst into laughter at his nonsense so much so that they were in danger of falling off. Lan Jingyi, despite his indignation, smiled wryly as he picked up the yin calling flag and paid the dust. “That guy’s truly ridiculous!” “Don’t say that. Besides, come over here and help already,” said Lan Sizhui.

And a little further down the same page…

A series of chaotic footsteps quickly approached, along with cries and screams. Wei WuXian heard a few phrases being repeated, “… Barge in and drag him out!” “Notify the officers!” “What do you mean 'notify the officers’? Beat him to death.” (ibid.)

騒がしい足音の中に泣き喚く声と叫び声が混ざっている。どんどん近づいてくるその声の中から、いくつかの物騒な言葉が繰り返し聞こえてきた。 「……殴り込んで、そのまま引きずり出せ！」 「役所に届けよう！」 「何が役所だ。頭に布被せて殴り殺すんだ！(ibid.) Screams and shouts were mixed into the turbulent footsteps. In the approaching voices Wei Wuxian could hear numerous unsettling phrases repeated. “Barge in there and drag him out immediately!” “Notify the authorities!” “What do you mean ‘the authorities’? Cover his head with cloth and beat him to death.”

Again, these aren’t in the ExR translation, but I don’t think they’re necessarily bad textual additions. I like the banter. It makes the world feel more lived in and the characters a little more lively. It also makes things visually clearer.

Corresponding ExR chapter: Reincarnation This chapter starts on FW page 14, and continues until about ¾ of the way through page 21

Despite the meticulous glossary in the first few pages, I've noticed this novel is chock full of inline notes (as opposed to foot notes. I am unsure if footnotes are technically even viable when the text itself is printed vertically. you don't really have a footer to work with!) So let's take a quick look at those inline notes.

家僕 kaboku Based on what I found in the Tsukuba Web Corpus, it appears to be a very uncommon word for “manservant”. Going out on a limb, I’ll assume it’s being used stylistically.

献舎 kensha is explained as part of the main body text. It’s the opposite of 奪舎 dassha. This is likely just Chinese as far as I’m concerned; I didn’t do any secondary research.

断袖 danshuu is also Chinese. It’s defined as 男色の事, “male homosexuality” as per Denshi Jisho. Some reference material, as a treat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dong_Xian https://daily.jstor.org/in-han-dynasty-china-bisexuality-was-the-norm/

家荘 kesou I had a hard time with. I didn’t find anything useful in this particular configuration. All my Google results were just tourism related, and read kashou, not kesou. If I reverse it I get a result under 荘家 shouke in the Digital Denjisen (via Kotobank):

1. 荘園を管理するために荘園内に置かれた建物。The building put within the manor for the purpose of managing the demesne.
2. 荘園領主のこと。The manorial lord.

I’m getting the feeling that the character 荘 has prioritized different meanings in Japanese vs Chinese. Here’s what Denshi Jisho and Mandarin Bridge respectively have to say about the same character.

• 荘 (ほうき、おごそ.か、ソウ、ショウ、チャン) villa, inn, cottage, feudal manor, solemn, dignified
• 莊 (zhang1): farmstead / village / manor / place of business / banker (in a gambling game) / grave or solemn / holdings of a landlord (in imperial China)

ExR calls the location of our first act the “Mo village” (pg. 5). I’m more inclined toward “Mo manor”. Tiny, hair-splitting difference between Japanese and Chinese, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Alright back to the main body of the text with a few more things I thought were worth looking at. Example 1

When did I do something as immoral as stealing another’s body? (ExR pg. 3)　 （－－俺はいつ奪舎なんてやったんだ？）(FW pg. 15) Since when did I do something like steal a body?

No implications of morality here.

Example 2

“Watch carefully. Don’t let him outside anytime this month, or he’ll make a fool of himself again!” (ibid.) 「また外に出て恥をさらせないように、しっかり見張っとけ！」 (ibid.) “Stand guard so he doesn’t get out and make a fool of himself again.

No implication of time limit here either.

Example 3

Supreme Leader (ExR. pg. 4) 無上邪尊 (FW pg. 16) Greatest revered evil

Another example of WWX’s reputation. If I recall correctly, this is the sole instance of this title being used in the entire text. I could be wrong.

Example 4

Why would he be put in the category of “extremely villainous ghouls”? (ibid.) （なんで俺が「残忍な悪鬼邪神」に分類されたわけ？）(ibid.) Why would I be classified as a “brutal evil spirit*”?

The same word 悪鬼邪神 akki jashin is used to refer to an “evil spirit” in the paragraph above, where the narration explains how 献舎 kensha works. I’m using “spirit” in scare quotes again. “Malevolent deity” doesn’t seem appropriate. Looking at those kanji all lined up so neatly–just how merciless, ruthless, callous, and cold-blooded was he supposedly?

Example 5

…and the second lady of Mo was not able to withstand the blow, shortly choking to death because of the trauma. (ExR pg. 6) 母親は度重なる誹謗中傷に耐えれず、悔しい思いを胸に抱いて憤死したのだった。(FW pg. 19) [Mo Xuanyu’s] Mother couldn’t stand the frequent slander, and holding her frustrations close to her chest, died in a fit of indignation.

While both of these are quite tragic, there is a marked lack of resentment in the ExR version. It’s depressing but it’s not enraged. FW is much more righteously angry.

Example 6

“How fucked up is this person’s life?” (ExR pg. 6) （ったく、クソみたいな話だな。）(FW pg 21) “dang, what a shitty story.”

It’s always interesting to see what situations constitute inserting a swear word, especially knowing someone had to write a book on how to use expletives in English.

We're starting with Frontier Works (FW) Volume 1 pages 10-13. There are two parentheticals in this first chapter alone–which is only a hair over 3 pages–despite having a decent sized glossary on page 4.

• What does 奪舎 dassha mean in the context of Daoism? From what I can tell, this isn't a Japanese word really.
• 鎖山石獣 chinzan sekijuu (“stone animal figure chained to a mountain”) is a tad more straightforward, but again, it’s not Japanese. Not even Google sensei had a good answer.

Sometimes they really do just shove Chinese in there.

鬼 is an important term, so I want to make a note of it up front. This word is not glossed グゥイ Gui3. I’m assuming it’s read “oni” until the book tells me otherwise. It should be noted that while oni is a distinct item native to Japanese folklore, it can encompass a second definition closer to the Chinese usage, e.g. 亡魂、死人の霊魂。That whole “fierce corpse” bit—which I distinctly remember from the donghua, but am blanking on whether it was in the 7s translation—is a different word, 凶屍; I double checked that for my own sanity.

I cannot fathom why people beyond the immediate Jiang household might refer to Sect Leader Jiang by his personal name as an adult. The glossary and dramatis personae make a big deal out of the difference between 姓・名・字・号—family name, personal name, courtesy name, and sobriquet. WWX and JC are both very likely in their 20’s at the time of WWX’s death, so why is the peanut gallery using their personal names in their gossip? Why am I seeing “Wei Ying”? Why isn’t there a “Jiang Wanyin” in this passage? I can only think of two scenes where JC is called “Jiang Wanyin” at all: 1. when he introduces himself to Lan Xichen, and 2. when he’s trying to kick WWX and LWJ out of the Jiang family mausoleum near the ending. Maybe Chinese culture is less strict on that point than I’m used to? Maybe it’s just MXTX being inconsistent. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Because I’m comparing two different translations, rather than translation to source text, I’m having a hard time making judgment calls about who added superfluous information and who dropped lines. Going through this chapter line by line, I did find a good number of mismatches, mostly on the Japanese side being more verbose than the ExR trans. I doubt I’ll have the spoons for this level of pedanticism going forward. Do not ask me how many hours it took to rekey all these quotations... Edit: I'm starting to think that ExR has a tendency to drop adjectives.

Example 1

“The Yiling Patriarch has died? Who could have killed him?” “Who other than his shidi, Jiang Cheng, putting an end to his own relative for the greater good.” (ExR Prologue pg 1)

「よしよし、いい気味だ！それで、あの夷陵老祖（いりょうろうそ）にとどめを刺したのはいったいどの英傑だ？」 「誰って、そりゃあの奴の弟弟子で雲夢江（うんぼうジャン）氏の若き宗主、江澄（ジャンチョン）だろう。」　(Frontier Works pg 10) “Here here, serves him right! So what in the world sort of hero dealt the finishing blow to that Yiling patriarch?” “Who? That’d be the bastard's junior disciple [= shidi] and the young sect leader of the Unbou Jiang clan, Jiang Cheng.” (trans by OP)

Note: Unbou is one of the potential ways of reading 雲夢 Yunmeng in Japanese.

Example 2

Where ExR uses “crazy”

“In fact, I would have thoroughly examined the disciples of the clan again, so that he doesn’t do those crazy things he did later on.”

Frontier Works uses 残虐非道 “atrocious, inhumane”.

Example 3

“Although Jiang Cheng was one of the main forces, he did not give Wei Wuxian the final blow. Because he cultivates the Demonic Path, Wei Wuxian’s powers had backfired and he was ripped to pieces.” (ibid.)

「おや？そりゃ私が聞いた話とちょっと違うぞ？魏嬰 （ウェイイン）は自分が作り出した邪術の反動を受けて、手下にしていた鬼どもに噛みちぎられ喰われて死んだんじゃないのか？生きたまま木っ端微塵に噛み砕かれたって聞いたぜ。」 (Frontier Works pg 10-11) “Oh? That’s a bit different from the story I heard? Didn’t Wei Ying suffer a rebound from the evil sorcery he made himself, and got mauled to death by the ghosts he made his subordinates? I heard he was totally chewed to wood chips alive.” (OP)

Well… that’s a leap.

Example 4

“Did you forget about the day that 3000 skilled cultivators were completely annihilated?” “I heard that it was more than 3000, possibly 5000.” “He’s most certainly out of his mind.” (ibid.)

「あの奴の手には何があったか忘れたか？一晩で三千以上の名士たちをどうやって全滅させたのか？」 「五千じゃなかったっけ？」 「三千も五千もそう変わらないだろう。五千の方が信憑性があるけどな」 「まさに残虐非道……」(Frontier Works pg 11)

“Did you forget what happened at that guy’s hand? How he annihilated over 3000 distinguished gentlemen in a single evening?” “Wasn’t it 5000?” “3000, 5000 doesn’t change anything. Though 5000 is more credible.” “Truly atrocious…”

Example 5

A couple sentences after this, ExR deletes the line about how a hush fell over the crowd when someone mentions the Inkofu 陰虎符 (uhhh are we going with these days? “Yinhufu”? “Yin tiger tally”?), and then the second line when the peanut gallery starts chattering again. WWX’s “dishonest practices” are called 邪悪 “evil”. Either ExR is downplaying WWX’s notoriety or Frontier Works is embellishing his reputation.

Example 6

“Not everything was because of his cultivation path. Wei Wuxian’s personality is quite immoral. One’s deeds will be paid, one way or another; what goes around comes around.” (ExR Prologue pg 2)

「結局、魏無羨自身が邪悪な人間だったから、天の怒りに触れ人の恨みを買ったんじゃないか？因果応報、すべては返ってくるのさ……」 (Frontier Works pg 11) In the end, Wei Wuxian himself was an evil person, so wasn’t he touched by the heavens’ anger and incurred the people’s resentment? That’s karma–everything comes back [eventually]…“ (OP)

ExR feels like a Buddhist mantra; Frontier Works is looking for 天罰 Divine Punishment.

Example 7

If it was the first, then all is well. then again, nobody doubts the fact that the Yiling Patriarch has the power to move mountains and empty seas. (ibid.)

前者なら皆歓声を上げ大喜びだが、夷陵老祖は天地をひっくり返し、山海を入れ替える程の力を持っていたのだーーあくまで噂だが。 (Frontier Works pg 12) If it is the former, everyone would raise their voices in cheer and great delight, but the Iryou patriarch had enough power to turn over heaven and earth, and swap mountains and seas—only [according to] rumor.

Ok, now Frontier Works is just slandering WWX’s credibility with subjunctives.

Example 8 (final)

More and more people were starting to believe that, maybe, the Yiling Patriarch actually perished. Even if he was capable of turning the world upside down, it was finally his turn to be toppled over. Nobody would remain at the top for all of eternity–legends are only legends. (ibid.)

その頃には、「実は魏無羨も噂ほどすごくはなかったかもしれない。やはり彼の魂は正真正銘、体とともに消滅したのだ」と多くの人々が信じるようになっていた。かつては手のひらを反すだけで天地を揺るがすほどだった男も、結局最後は自分がひっくり返される側になってしまったのだと。一人の人間が、永遠に神として崇められることなどない。伝説なんて、所詮ただのお伽噺にすぎないのだ。(Frontier Works pg. 12-13) By that point many people came to believe that Wei Wuxian probably wasn’t in fact as amazing as the rumors claimed; that his soul was genuinely destroyed along with his body. In the beginning, he was a man who could shake heaven and earth by merely turning over his hand, but in the end he was the one who got flipped over himself. A single person cannot be worshiped as a god for eternity. Legends, after all, are nothing more than fairy tales.

Note: That might be too Shinto: “God” doesn’t quite sit well with me. “Spirit” feels better? 天神？鬼神？天津神？邪神？荒神？This is all kind of relative to the kami’s relationship with humanity, after all. I’ll let the professional Japanologists and Sinologists fight that one out. Honestly, I’d love a recommendation for Chinese folklore resources.

Overall, I don’t think these deviations are necessarily “objectively bad”. Example 1 makes is a much better introduction of a character and his relevance than just blindly name dropping him and a relationship chart. I do quite like how the banter of the peanut gallery flows together. Other deviations go a little more heavy handed with the spiritual undercurrent. Is it just me or does this feel kind of Buddhist?

About the JP translation

The official Japanese release of MDZS is published by Frontier Works, and translated by 鄭穎馨 (Zhèng Yǐngxīn? Cheng Ying Hsin?). The Japanese translation separates the story into 4 main volumes and an extra booklet. Why is beyond me. Volume 4 already contains half the extras. Another thing they do is instead of subdivide each chapter into parts the way the original web novel does, the chapters are all combined under one big header... making each “chapter” at least 50 pages long. For the English point of reference, I will be using the ExR translation, given that it does not combine the headers.

Volume 1 Table of Contents!

Revision from my initial thread on tumblr: finding English equivalents for some of these was especially rough, since there were some words I could only find in a Japanese kokugo dictionary, rather than a Japanese-English dictionary. It took some extrapolation...

JP chapter title	EN trans	ExR chapter titles	7S chapter titles	Comments
1. 復活	Resurrection	Reincarnation	Reincarnation	reasonable margin of error.
2. 荒狂	Rampage	Aggression	The Intractable	荒狂 is a nonstandard spelling of 荒れ狂う as in “to rampage”.
3. 驕傲	Pride, Arrogance	Arrogance	The Prideful	reasonable margin of error.
4. 雅騒	Elegance and Clamor	Refinement	The Elegant Flirt	This is not a word in any capacity I could find. I'm convinced it's copy pasta. Even Japanese people were stumped. I am shoving an unmarked "and" in there because Classical (and modern!) Chinese lets you do that, and for consistency with the Lan clan motto, which also has an unmarked "and" shoved in there.
5. 陽陽	Brightness, Calm	Contentment	The Sunny Pair	This feels like a stretch...
6. 陰悪	Malicious	Malice	The Malevolent	I like "Malevolence".
7. 朝露	Morning Dew	Dew	The Morning Dew	A prime example of ExR's tendency to just drop adjectives.
8. 草木	Vegetation	Grasses	The Stalk of Grass	According to ExR's notes, this is an allusion to a poem by Tang dynasty poet Du Fu. I'll translate that later, and possibly change my translation then.

Someone asked me this a long while ago, before the official title dropped. As I am reposting this here, I shall change the question.

How did NISA come up with the title Trails through Daybreak?

Great question. Because this won't be a short answer. you know how Japanese is a linguistic pack rat? Every kanji has an approximated Chinese phonetic reading and a Japanese semantic reading. 黎 is read REI in every dictionary instance of it I can find. I suspect the only place where it is read kuro specifically outside of this game is in some Classical Chinese literature (“kanbun” prose or “kanshi” poetry), but I do not have the academic resources to go on that sort of a scavenger hunt. Furthermore, as a general note, semantics is a “wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey” kind of thing because the Sino-Tibetan language family only exists in morpheme hell.

A non-exhaustive list of potential meanings for 黎 as a stand alone morpheme include:

• dark
• black
• gray
• many
• common people
• dawn
• daybreak

There are 30+ kanji that can be read as "dark/black", so let’s take a look at compounds instead. The first compound I find containing this character which is not a proper noun is 黎明 reimei “daybreak” or like “the grey sky at dawn”. You’d also use this one for the “dawn of a new era” (黎明期 reimeiki) kind of “dawn”. With a little extra digging you get 黎民 reimin, 黎元 reigen, 黎庶 reisho, 黎首 reishu which are all synonyms for “the common people”. It just feels very apt for what we know about Calvard in general.

Now wait a minute, what about that asia-exclusive game, 暁の軌跡 Akatsuki no kiseki? 暁 also means “dawn”, true. 暁 specifically refers to the darkest part of the night right before you see the sun poke through on the horizon. 黎 has an additional implication of “something is about to begin” that 暁 does not. So like 黎 at the start of something, and 暁 is more for your darkest hour.

EVERYTHING BELOW THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I could have cut my suffering short if I had read this one interview with Kondo, but I didn't because what sort of Trails fan would I be if I took the word of God without any evidence?

NISA/Playstation’s English game trailer actually features the line before what I would consider the most important line in the entire game. (The cut scene from the middle of Chapter 1, but this audio itself comes from Chapter 1’s ending cut scene.)

俺は警察でも遊撃士でもない。あくまで自分の流儀を貫くだけだ。 You know full well I’m not like the cops or bracers. I do things my own way. (EN trailer, 0:50)

The line after that is:

黒でも白でも、灰色すらない、黎（あおぐろ）い狭間の領域で。 お前までに染まる必要はーー The way I deal with things isn’t black or white, it’s not even gray. It’s sort of in the realm of being bluish-black. I don’t really think there’s any need to dye yourself too– (trans from the infamous spreadsheet) It’s not black, or white, or even grey, but in the narrow livid area in between. There’s no need for you to be stained by– (trans by OP)

This line shows up verbatim 4 times–which says to me that the most important aspect of 黎 kuro is that IT IS A COLOR. And that the antecedent of this color is Van Arkride, ONLY. Sometimes it is used as a metaphor for his ethical alignment, but for the most part, it’s a metaphor for Van himself.

Note well that 黎 is not read kuro but aoguro, which jisho.org defines as “bluish black” (like Van’s hair), and proposes three different spellings:

• 青黒 blue & black shoved together
• 黝 pitch black, jet black (hold on. I’m getting to this.)
• 蒼黒 blue & black again but it’s a different blue. (I have a separate post about inconsistencies with the color blue, which I will link later.)

There’s a different aoguro that shows up after the final dungeon but before the final boss.

黝（あおぐろ）き＂核＂の力を秘めた《漂泊の魔王》―― The blue and black Demon Lord of Vagabonds, who holds power over time itself– (translation via spreadsheet) The hidden power of the Vagrant Demon Lord’s stygian “core”– (translation by OP)

Side note: I have not read the entire spreadsheet someone graciously provided me with. Of what I have read, there are plenty of segments that seem to be well intentioned human’s writing as opposed to unedited machine translation output. The segment quoted above dropped a key word and added a relative clause which feels more speculative than factually based on the rest of Bergard’s paragraph.

Based on data I have pulled from trailsinthedatabase, this 黝 aoguro only shows up twice in the entire game script: here, and during the final boss cut scene, where Risette is parroting the aforementioned demon’s title.

The previous instance of the aoguroki kaku, “blue-black core” (Classical Japanese, my beloved) was at the very end of Chapter 5, where it was notably 黎, not 黝.

――それと申し訳ありません、件の＂黎（あおぐろ）き核＂については…… And I apologize, regarding that “blue-black core”… (translation via spreadsheet) Also, my apologies, regarding the matter of the “livid core”… (translation by OP)

OP, if you’re a fan translator worth your kibbled salt, where are you getting your crayon colors from?

Great question, because I’ve been agonizing over this for 150 game hours and literal months since I was first asked the question and gave a preliminary answer above the cut.

I did call in a favor from a friend who has a copy of the unabridged New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Alas, New Nelson didn’t tell me anything Jisho.org hadn’t already.

黎 7049 | J7355 | M47994 REI dark, black; many 黝 7058 | J735b | M48082 YŪ. YU. aoguro blue-black; black; black soil.

My first thought was looking up “黎 color” with Japanese sources. When in doubt, kimono swatch websites usually have my back. Turns out that was a much longer shot than I hoped. I got nothing. Dawn/Daybreak colors also turned out to be a dead end. Looking that up returned purples, pinks, and oranges, but NOT blues or grays! Or, some very abstract strings of words adjacent to mood boards themes, candy, and makeup. I went through a bunch of paint chips as well. I didn’t get anything I liked in either the blue section or the black section. The blues all had too much chroma and not enough shade; the blacks had very little value differentiation.

Then it hit me like a brick: what if I look up synonyms for “black and blue” like a bruise. Between Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and a thesaurus, I landed on “livid”, hex color #6699C (I haven't figured out how to upload my own images yet). And I decided to run with it. Apparently, “livid” used to mean “blue in the face” exasperation before it became a flavor of “anger”. But it is a dark blue-grey—and that’s what I need!

Meanwhile 黝 via Kotobank tossed me in the deep end with genuine Chinese. * 黝黝 yuuyuu or you3you3, うす黒色。a blackish color * 黝黯・黝暗 (no Japanese reading) you3an4, 暗い．少しの光もない．Dark. Without even the slightest bit of light. * 黝黑 you3hei1 (no Japanese reading) どす黒い．黒ずんでいる；暗い．Dusky. To darken; Dark. * 黑黝黝 hei1you3you3 (no Japanese reading) 黒光りしているさま to have a black luster. 暗くてよく見えないさま Too dark to see.

Lin Yutang’s Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage Via The Chinese University of Hong Kong (extremely handy in times of need) said:

• 黝 you3 Jet black
• 黝黑 you3hei1 dark, overcast murky (sky)
• 黝黝 you3you3 swarthy, dark-skinned.

So what this is says to me is that 黝 is a special kind of dark. I’m looking for a neighbor of pitch black or jet black. Just for funzies, let’s see what Trails in the Database has to say.

“Pitch black” returned 真っ暗 makkura (Sky games), 真っ黒 makkuro (Zero/Azure), 黒 kuro, 漆黒 shikkoku, 暗黒 ankoku, 暗がりkuragari (Cold Steel 3-4).

“Jet black” is exclusively 漆黒 shikkoku except when it refers to Rean’s physical appearance, which is just normal black 黒 kuro.

To the thesaurus I returned. I wanted something Atramentous. Sunless. Unlit. In total absence of light. I wasn’t totally sold on “stygian” as it has a secondary meaning of gloomy like a harbor in fog until I fell face first on Stygian Blue:

one such impossible colour, and is a chimerical type. It is said to be so dark and rich that it can only be perceived in complete darkness. Source

And you know what? That’s perfect.

But then if that’s all the case, then why did NISA call it "Trails through Daybreak” instead of something riffing on the color “black”? AO3 still has fics tagged under “trails in the dark” that need to be wrangled. The rationale for this choice didn’t hit me until one of Agnès’ lines right before the final boss.

でも、そんな貴方を支えて寄り添うことは出来ると思うんです。 まだまだ半人前ですけどあくまで私ならではの”色”で。 黒でもない、白でもない！ましてや灰色ですらないーー 夜明け前の優しい暗がりみたいに寄り添ってくれる貴方だけの色がーー どうしようもなく愛おしくて何があっても失いかくないから！！ However, I do think that I can support you while you do all those things, and comfort you. I’m still very half-baked, but I have my very own “color”. It’s not black, or white, or any share of gray in between! You’re the gentle color of the night, just before the dawn breaks through the darkness– No matter what it takes, I refuse to lose someone I love so much! (translation via spreadsheet) But, I think I’m able to support and hold fast to you. I may not be fully qualified yet, but ultimately with my own “color”. I can’t help cherishing your unique color holding fast to me—it’s not black or white! Least of all grey—like a gentle darkness before daybreak, because, no matter what happens, I don’t want to lose it!! (Translation by OP)

黎明 reimei and 夜明け yoake are synonymous. One-sided crushes on an adult who gives them any positive attention at all and being the unfortunate victim of Falcom's age-gap prone shipping tendencies aside, this section really encapsulates how not only Agnès but everyone feels about having Van in their lives, I think that’s beautiful.

Get adopted, Idiot

Post script: I’d also like to mention another shade of black does come up in the game, but it’s not in the game’s body script. It’s in one of Melchior’s crafts. 涅色 kuriiro something. I didn’t catch the whole thing, and it seems Kiseki wiki hasn't gotten that far either. A kimono swatch site tracked this color down with little effort: the color of “dirt at the bottom of a river.” If I needed to pull this out of a crayon box, I’d go with an “umber”.

A short list of Classical Chinese reading materials [reposted from tumblr]

(Disclaimer: I put this together from my notes rather quickly.)

Confucianism

Kongfuzi (Confucius) 孔夫子
《論語 - The Analects》
https://ctext.org/analects

Mengzi (Mencius) 孟子
https://ctext.org/mengzi

Daoism

Laozi 老子
《道德經 - Dao De Jing》
https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing

Zhuangzi 莊子
https://ctext.org/zhuangzi

Liezi 列子
https://archive.org/details/book-of-master-lie-lieh-tzu-thomas-cleary/mode/2up

Buddhism (esp. Chan Buddhism)

Tao Yuanming 陶淵明
《桃花源記 - The Peach Blossom Spring》
https://eastasiastudent.net/china/classical/tao-yuanming-taohua-yuan/

Su Shi 蘇軾
《赤壁賦 - Ode on the Red Cliff》
https://ajmccready.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/translation-su-shi-meditation-on-red-cliff/

Bai Juyi 白居易
《長恨歌- Song of Everlasting Regret》
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Song_of_Everlasting_Regret

Du Fu 杜甫
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu
https://allpoetry.com/Du-Fu

Li Bai 李白
https://archive.org/stream/worksoflipochine00libauoft/worksoflipochine00libauoft_djvu.txt

Wang Wei 王維 (and Pei Di 裴迪)
《輞川集 - Wheel River Collection》
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/23162/Bruneel_2018.pdf?sequence=1

Additional misc. collection of the above 4 poets
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/AllwaterWangWei.php

Hanshan 寒山
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/HanShan.php

Platform sutra
https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Translations/PlatformSutra_DharmaJewel.pdf

Lotus sutra
http://www.pawhitney.com/LotusSutrax.pdf

Heart sutra
https://huntingtonarchive.org/resources/downloads/sutras/02Prajnaparamita/heartsutra.pdf

So I went to see Inu-oh (2021)... [reposted from tumblr]

I went to see Inu-oh in theaters this past weekend. The morning after, my friend read me some absolutely horrible takes on this film from tumblr dot com. If you thought that this movie was about a “gay rock band,” then either you slept through the whole film or you’re sorely missing all the historical and cultural context. This post is here for those of you in the latter category. 90% of what I am about to say can be verified via English Wikipedia. The rest comes from Japanese sources including Wikipedia and Kotobank. I’m not in academia anymore so I’m not giving specific citations for the whole piece. I have been researching and writing this for 2 days now.

The Tale of the Heike, is an epic about the fall of Taira no Kiyomori and his subsequent extermination of his entire clan during the actual real-life event known as the Genpei War (1180-1185 CE). Science Saru has an excellent 11-episode anime that covers the whole epic. EVERYONE except the POV character DIES. The opening paragraph of this epic is: > In the sound of the bell of the Gion temple echoes the impermanence of all things. … The proud ones do not last long, but vanish like a spring night’s dream. And the mighty ones, too, will perish like dust before the wind. Citation: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1000ce_heike.htm
Crunchyroll subscribers can find it under “The Heike Story”.

Relevant details are that Taira no Kiyomori married his daughter off to Emperor Takakura. They had a son in 1178. His majesty dies, and their infant son gets named Emperor Antoku at the age of three. When war breaks out, the Tairas take the baby and run. The final battle of the Genpei war, the Battle of Dan-no-Ura, is a last-ditch effort naval assault that goes horribly awry. Realizing there’s absolutely no way out of this but death, the Emperor’s grandmother/Kiyomori’s widow, Taira no Tokiko, grabs now seven-year-old Emperor Antoku and jumps overboard. A lot of the Tairas forces jump overboard after her—they’d rather drown now than be executed later.

There would undoubtedly be a mass of treasure to salvage from all those sunken ships. On the boat with the Emperor was the Imperial Regalia—three divine treasures you can read more about in the Kojiki, or if you played Okami back in the day. These were considered lost for a time, particularly the Kusanagi/“Grass cutter” sword. This legendary blade belonged to Shinto deity Susanoō, and was used to slay the eight-headed snake beast Orochi. To be perfectly frank, the Wiki page for the Kusanagi sword doesn’t seem to clarify whether the sword the Imperial Family has in storage today is in fact the original blade. There are a couple fingers pointed about how it went missing but not so many about its recovery. For the most part we should assume the one that exists today is the same sword. Also, according to Wiki sensei, no one outside of the imperial line has actually seen it and survived. We have one description of the sword from a high priest whose entire sect appears to have died shortly thereafter. Everything after that is artistic renditions. Hold this thought for a moment.

Biwa hōshi were a variety of traveling entertainers during this period. They dressed like Buddhist monks, though they weren’t necessarily affiliated with temples. They were medieval bards. Yes, they did employ the blind. They got super famous specifically for recanting the Tale of the Heike—enough that it became a separate genre. The first written version of the Tale of the Heike is dated around 1330. Akashi Kakuichi (1299-1371) is accredited with the most widely read account, which has the official compilation dated at 1371. Hold onto this for a moment too.

If you remember anything about the Tokugawa Shogunate from world history class, you might remember there are a few more shogunates that predate that. The Ashikaga shogunate (1336-1573), and very specifically Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), negotiated the end of a 57-year political conflict known as the Northern and Southern Courts period (1336-1392). This bureaucratic mess was nowhere near as exciting of a story as the Genpei War (1180–1185). In broad strokes, the country was split in half as a result of a hitch in the imperial line of succession from several factors, including the failed Mongol invasion of Japan (1274, 1281), overthrow of the Kamakura shogunate (1185-1333), failure of Kenmu restoration (1333-1336) to restore the Emperor as de facto head of state, and some more civil war. The Ashikaga clan endorsed the Northern court. Yoshimitsu was a star negotiator—just read his wiki page—who consolidated his power and legitimacy by acting as go between for a while. He even convinced the Southern court to give up the imperial regalia to the Northern court. (This was later given back when the Northern court eventually fell. As history is written by the winners, it is generally accepted that the emperors of the Southern court were the true imperial line.) The sword that Tomona and his dad recovered for those noblemen at the beginning of the movie was the Kusanagi sword. Those noblemen were almost certainly sent on behalf of the Ashikaga Shogunate, and recovering the sword was probably part of a political ploy. Tomona went blind and his father died because they were not supposed to see it as they’re not divinities on earth.

Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu was also a fan of Kan’ami Kiyotsugu (1333-1384)—author, actor, and musician who, along with his performer and playwright son, Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), are accredited for the foundation of Noh theater. Kan’ami’s troupe performed for Yoshimitsu around 1374. Yoshimitsu was totally enamored with 12-year-old Zeami’s performance and became a massive patron to Zeami. We are not going to get into the weeds of that relationship. You can read the scholarly accounts and conclude what you want on your own post. I would have to watch the movie one more time, but I’m pretty sure the child dancer in Yoshimitsu’s introductory scene is Zeami.

Yoshimitsu’s legitimate wife was Hino no Nariko (1351–1405). Nariko married Yoshimitsu around 1375 or 1376, and only gave birth to a daughter. Since daughters can’t hold office, said daughter’s birth date isn’t something I can easily grab without sifting through dense scholarly text which I currently don’t have access to. If I could, I would probably be able to date this movie based on Inu-oh’s final performance being during her pregnancy. For reference’s sake, Yoshimitsu’s concubines had the sons, the first one having been born in 1386.

Inu-oh (?-1413) was a real person. Not much about him is known other than he existed and he was a good performer. He respected sarugaku-noh trailblazer Kan’ami, and even performed for Kan’ami’s memorial service. He was also extremely well praised by Zeami. Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu, however, did not like Inu-oh. He eventually swayed the shogun’s forgiveness, but was still not all that much in favor. He was then subjected to imperial inspection in 1408.

Based on the above information, and the fact that the passage of time in this film is specifically not marked, I guestimate that the opening scene happened sometime during 1360’s, and that Tomona’s execution was probably in the late 1370’s or 1380’s. I might be able to pin this down a little further if I could get Nariko’s daughter’s birthdate, or the name of the person whose funeral Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu was conducting in his introductory scene, but again, I am just some weeb with a degree in Japanology on the internet. If I was still in academia, I might actually go on a medieval Japanese scavenger hunt.

When I googled why Japanese people way back when could change their names on a whim, I couldn’t find any good English sources. A summary of my Japanese sources is that it’s not totally on a whim. It’s about census data and tax evasion. The Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907) had some really awesome stuff going on, so Japan decided to copy them. This legislation was called the Ritsuryō system, and was implemented in the 6th century CE. This introduced koseki, the family register, which basically lists who is in your house: births, deaths, marriages, divorces, or adoptions. Legalese is boring. Laws have changed. Permanent identities like we know them now come out of the Meiji period (1868-1912), because they changed the tax laws and citizenship rules from fiefdom based to modern standards, and suddenly everyone needed surnames. If you were important enough to have a surname or a clan name, that was pretty much permanent throughout your whole life unless you married into someone else’s clan.

Personal names had more stuff going on. When you were born, you got a name from one of your relatives. You’d eventually grow out of that. You had your adulthood ceremony and you gave yourself an adult name. Then you need a court name because you had to deal with the imperial or shogunal court. Maybe you got a title or a moniker. Maybe you gave up the working world and became a monk/nun—then you got a Buddhist name. And then when you died, you got a posthumous epitaph. But that’s just for important people! What if you’re a pleb? To a certain degree, you really could just do whatever you wanted.

As with all cultures, your parents usually gave you a name and hope you make it to adulthood. If you entered a skilled profession, clergy or otherwise, you got a name. Having a part of your name bestowed upon you by a celebrated personage was a huge honor. When Tomona joins Kakuichi guild of biwa hōshi, he is given the character “ichi” from Kakuichi, making his name Tomoichi, and cementing his membership in the guild. Emphasizing again here that Kakuichi is not any old blind musician but THE Akashi Kakuichi.

Lifehack analyzer lists three reasons for why you would not continue to use your childhood name as an adult.

1. Strangers don’t need to know your real name. If they did then they have the power to curse you. (ANYONE IN THIS THREAD READ XXXHOLIC OR TOKYO BABYLON?)
2. The name your parents gave you expresses your thanks to them. As an adult, you want to express your thanks to someone else. It’d be too intimate for a total stranger to call you by your kiddy name when up until this point, the only people who knew you were family members, friends, and people in the neighborhood.
3. You need a public name.

Insofar as Tomona’s major life transitions, I would assess that changing his name to Tomoichi encompases point 2 and changing his name to Tomoari encompasses point 3. Changing it back to Tomona of Dan-no-Ura immediately before his execution is a strange flex in real life, but it’s important as a point of narrative catharsis. After Tomona’s story ends, and irl Inu-oh goes out to become the person history remembers, he also has a couple name changes. Pulling from Japanese Wiki: Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu’s Buddhist name was 道義 Dōgi. Inu-oh borrowed that and changed his name from 犬阿弥 Inuami (not getting any hits for this one) to 道阿弥 Dōami (finding a more entries under this name). Going out on a limb here and assuming that Inu-oh changed his name to Inuami because of 観阿弥 Kan’ami in the interim.

Have some non-encyclopedia citations:

戦国武将や貴族など、昔の日本人が名前を頻繁に変えた理由とは？ | ライフハックアナライザ

https://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/nl/articles/1902/04/news017.html

昔の人はなぜ改名する人が多かったのですか？ – 明治やその前の時代の人はほとんど名前を変えてる気がします – Yahoo!知恵袋

I’m not going to go into yōkai, cursed objects, masks, sarugaku or noh theater since that’d required more research outside my area of undergraduate expertise. For yōkai, I’d highly recommend The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore by Michael Dylan Foster. Honestly not sure where to redirect you for theater stuff.

Switching gears to the rock opera part. If you’ve seen Rocky Horror Picture Show or Jesus Christ Super Star, then you know what a rock opera is. It was breathing new life into the musical in the 1960’s. If you’re even vaguely familiar with the music and aesthetics of David Bowie, Alice Cooper, KISS, Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, and to a lesser extent Elton John or Queen, then you’re at least vaguely familiar with glam rock and hair metal. I am not going to post YouTube links because those get region locked by IP address. It was a flamboyant, consumeristic, androgynistic, and campy kind of style with emphasis on outrageous costuming, makeup, and hairstyles among other things, from the early to mid-1970’s. The point was counter-culturalism toward gender norms.

Now we move forward to the 1980’s to Visual-kei. It’s basically the same aesthetics but with arguably different underlying politics. This all begins with X Japan. Let’s take a pause here to listen to their 1989 album Blue Blood. Other bands of the era include Luna Sea, Glay, Pierrot, Malice Mizer. As we move later into the 1990’s and 2000’s we get bands like L’Arc~en~Ciel, Shazna, Alice Nine, Girugamesh, Miyavi, Antic Café, The Gazette, and Versailles. Wiki sensei claims that visual-kei is not only inspired by western glam rock, but also by kabuki theater. Kabuki is what happened when Noh got old, stiff, and no longer accessible to the masses. And the androgynous element of traditional Japanese theater IN GENERAL is probably more on the fact that women weren’t allowed to be employed in theater than anything related to #/gender. Quoting the X Japan wiki entry directly:

Yoshiki briefly described their early years and the movement’s development, saying “when we started the band, the problem was we didn’t belong anywhere. Because we were playing very heavy music, we were wearing tons of make-up and crazy outfits. So we couldn’t belong anywhere”, “[We did our own thing and] that eventually became visual kei.”[183] He added “But visual kei is more like a spirit, it’s not a music style or, you know… I think it is a freedom about describing myself, a freedom to express myself, that’s what I believe visual kei is.”[183]

(I’m also going to shoehorn in here that in 1999, Yoshiki was formally requested by the Japanese Government to compose and perform at Emperor Akihito jubilee celebration.) The major criticism of later visual-kei is that the original spirit has been lost. That the bands of this movement started their fashion trend to stand out. Now new bands are doing it to fit in so the whole thing’s falling apart. I don’t have any more spoons to do a deep literature dive into the politics of what visual-kei represents over the past 30 years and how much the gay community may or may not have been involved. I haven’t found anything explicitly connecting the two communities at all. It’s been all set dressing and no soul, like Christmas and KFC.

Finally, subjectively, calling “Inu-oh” a “queer masterpiece” is giving credit where it is not due. Casting Avu-chan, the lead singer of fashion punk band Ziyoou-vachi (QUEEN BEE), as the voice of the titular sarugaku star exclusively for her queerness has about as much weight to it, OP feels, as casting Will Smith in “I, Robot” for his blackness. The studio needed someone who could perform in the role competently. For those out there deeply sighing about the #/Wokeness of the #/Gay Agenda, (yes, the theater community, rock/metal communities, and the queer community have historically had some crossover) that’s not what’s on display here. Conversely for those out there who think this is the gayest film of the year, those arguments sound like projection or wish fulfillment. For the shippers, your ship is not my ship and that’s ok. Queerness is certainly a part of counterculture but not all counterculture is inherently queer. If you at least came away with an understanding of art vs government censorship, authority of the narrative, the mythology of the masses, how theater magic works, and what exactly counterculture means in this context, you got the movie. If you feel otherwise, you don’t need to bite my head off.

PASH! 2023 Illustration file GEAROUS Staff Comment

Production Secret Episode: We asked the Production Staff all about the gorgeous illustrations GEAROUS sensei handles for the “Madou Soshi” Radio Drama.

The Genbu Grotto^1 illustration contains everyone’s combined effort and feelings.

—What do your production requests look like when GEAROUS-sensei creates an illustration for you (e.g., a jacket illustration or a numbered episode cover illustration)?

For the episode title cards or CD special insert illustration, on our side, we specify a desired scene or theme for each episode, and the characters, and place the request to the artist. For example, for the title card for Season 3 Episode 1, we specified “BouSen (=WangXian) together, Hyakuhou Mountain^2 kissing scene”.  The flow for each season’s key visuals and the CD jackets [starts with] the standard BouSen pair without any additional details about the specified scene from our side; we leave the rest to GEAROUS sensei, then we pick one from the numerous rough drafts they submit, and give our thoughts on revisions. Materials for PASH! can go either way, and depending on the which episode is being published in each issue, in order to recreate the scene from the source material, there are times [a scene] is specified from our side, and others where we specify only the characters and the time of year, and leave the rest to GEAROUS sensei. In the event of a collaboration or an exhibit, we basically specify the theme and characters on our side, and hand over specific references for poses and costumes based on that theme to the artist.

—What sort of back and forth do you have during the production process?

On our side, it isn’t so much about the presence of specifics or lack thereof; the workflow is Basic Sketch → Colored Rough Draft → Completed First Draft → Final Adjustments. When we send a retouch request, it’s not just character poses or their line of sight, we consider the illustration’s use, the layers, the composition, the camera angle, the color saturation, head-to-body ratio, etc. There are cases where we’ll send revisions for even the tiniest of details. In the case of title cards, because they change size based on their use—whether that’s on the [MiMi FM] app, on X (formerly known as Twitter), magazine publications—we submit revisions to make designing easier, like “pull the camera out a little bit” or “supplement the hands and feet, and hem lines.” In the case of the CD jacket illustration, they’ll be full-sized large panel displays in storefronts, so we asked GEAROUS sensei to “split the BouSen layer in order that they could be used individually,” but no matter how much we fussed with it, in the end, we chose the illustrations where they couldn’t be separated. Whenever they’re made into full-sized large panel displays, I laugh thinking how huge they are (laughs).  Otherwise, regarding BouSen illustrations, we have meticulously consulted with the artist about accessories and hand placement, line of sight, etc., in order to bring out the sexual allure. For example, the “PASH! Jan 2023” cover illustration—we received an illustration of the two just getting out of the bath, without even their belts tied; originally, Gi Musen (=Wei Wuxian) was supposed to have shoes on, but an internal revision arose: “wouldn’t it suit the ambiance better and be even more erotic if he was barefoot?” so we sent GEAROUS sensei a revision request. Speaking of lines of sight, Sensei has a consistent setup of basically “Ran Bouki (=Lan Wangji) only looks at Gi Musen”, and that’s magnificent, so we staff want to keep with this configuration.

—Could you staff folks speak about what you feel is the allure of GEAROUS’ illustrations?

First of all, they have much better proportioned faces than average! We’re all attracted to good looks, so we love GEAROUS’ illustrations.  Also, they send in such detailed scenes for us. We already spoke about Rand Bouki’s line of sight, but on top of that, I think it’s magnificent how elaborate they were with the details, from how they put Ran Bouki’s headband on Gi Musen, or the way they put BouSen’s accessories’ image colors on each other. And not just BouSen, but the other characters’ designs were spot on too. Every time we order an illustration for a newly introduced character, we’re filled with excitement that it’s just so “This is it! This is what they look like!!!” at a single glance. We’re blown away by how much illustrations with new original costumes for event exhibitions exceed our imaginations too; we may have sent the references, but we’re moved by the theme, and by the how well the costume designs complement each character, down to the poses. Moreover, I think that the composition of GEAROUS’ illustrations is fascinating. While we do have some specifications from our side, the artist will compose a variety of roughs for us from the same scene, and they’re all fabulous, so picking a single rough sketch is a struggle.

—Does the production staff team have a favorite illustration out of all of the ones GEAROUS sensei has handled to date?

It has to be the Genbu Grotto image from the PASH! September 2022 edition. The image decorating the [magazine] cover was quite the shocker (laughs). Also, since I’ve seen comparatively few illustrations of the Genbu Grotto scene, I thought it was an especially memorable piece personally. It was a first-time challenge making somewhat different [illustrations], and I’m glad it had great reception from the fans. Actually, we did not decide to have two different illustrations from the get go. The fully clothed version came first, and because none of the Chinese staff had really seen BouSen naked, nothing felt out of place, but then the Japanese staff pointed out, “aren’t both of them shirtless in this scene?” so we double checked the source material and the radio drama scripts, and they had indeed taken their clothes off. However, having them half naked and biting an arm on a magazine cover was rather sensitive, so the staff opinions were split as to whether to be faithful to the source material and request the revised illustration, or to proceed with the fully clothed one. Then [our contact at] PASH! proposed, “why not use both…?” and all of the production staff thought that the best course of action, so we discussed it with the artist. GEAROUS sensei was incredibly cooperative, and promptly made the second image for us. Both illustrations are absolutely phenomenal, so, in the end, I think using both was the most correct answer. Even at the time of the notice, it stirred up statements like “the illustration will evolve”, and everyone was excited. I think that illustration contains everyone’s combined efforts and feelings.

—Are there any aspirations(?)—projects you wish to pursue—together with GEAROUS sensei going forward?

Illustrations with the original radio drama character designs are a given of course, but we’d also like to see the “Madou soshi” characters in different costumes. Going forward, we’d like to challenge [ourselves with] various themes, and when I was able to meet with GEAROUS sensei, we also had an enthusiastic conversation about what themes they wanted to do for upcoming episodes. Both we and GEAROUS sensei have already come up with prospective themes we want to do, and I absolutely think we will be able to make those a reality soon. Moreover, the radio drama is embarking on its third season, so the distance between BouSen should close even further. On the illustration side, I want to see more illustrations of BouSen packed with a different sort of eroticism than they have ever done before.

And from GEAROUS-sensei themself...

–GEAROUS sensei, Is there anything you are particularly conscious of when illustrating for “Madou soshi”?

When I draw Ran Bouki, I make an effort to dra him with a robust physique. He has a gorgeous visage, but I think he’s rather strong and well built, so I draw him such that his physical strength can be felt from even outside his white robes.

In Gi Musen’s case, I pay special attention to his facial expressions. I draw him bearing in mind that “his smile is remembered as someone’s first love”; I think his smile holds an unforgettable mystique to the person thinking of him.

When I draw them together, I make an effort to present a change in atmosphere, especially around Ran Bouki. Even if his face bears the same old cold expression when he’s with Gi Musen, it has some softness somewhere. I pay meticulous attention to expressing that ambiance.

NOTES

^1: 玄武洞; “Xuanwu Cave” or something like that. I didn’t find a 100% match in my very brief review of the books.

^2: 百鳳山; 7S vol 3 chp 15 pg 259 uses “Mount Baifeng”. ExR chp 69 uses “Phoenix Mountain”.

PASH! Illustration File 2021-2022 GEAROUS Special Making & Interview

NOTE:

This is a reprint of the interview in the December 2020 edition of PASH! This time we have added an additional segment where we ask GEAROUS sensei about their illustration.

> Creation process for the magazine’s cover illustration with commentary from the artist!

(Please note these pages are really glossy and OP is not a great photographer; I did not have access to a scanner when I originally uploaded this. All images below are detail shots of a larger magazine page. The step-by-step captions are translated below the image gallery.)

1. Rough & Sketch
   I do a rough sketch on paper. From this, I can figure out how to scale down the entire illustration. Drawing on paper gives me an idea of how it will look printed.
2. Rough & Sketch on PC
   I create a rough sketch in CLIP STUDIO PAINT based on my paper roughs. I make use of the narrow lines on the monitor to clarify the drawing and focus on details.
3. Rough Color
   I complete the rough sketch by adding color, so I can grasp what sort of atmosphere is needed for the illustration.
4. Creating the Line Art
   Using the G-pen in CLIP STUDIO PAINT, I clean up the line work on each character and the accessories. When the line art is compete, I separate the foreground, middle ground, background, and background scenery onto different layers with the coloring tool.
   (T/N: I think this is the Fill tool but I cannot swear on it.)
5. Painting the Background Scenery
   After I’ve revised the line art, I use the watercolor brush to color the background scenery. I use blue as the base color for the entire background; first I draw tree branches, then the flowers from darkest to lightest. When you decide on the darkest color, please make sure to add blue. This adds depths to the trees.
6. Decide on the Characters’ Base Colors
   I decide on the colors for the skin, eyes, accessories, clothes, and such for each section of the characters. I also add shadows to the brightest parts of the flowers and additional details.
7. Adjustments after Coloring
   Once I’m done coloring the characters, I apply shadows and even more texture. I also added the flower petals to the background and up front. When I want to emphasize characters, I make them reflect the atmosphere using the background scenery colors.
8. Finishing Touches
   After I finish the illustration, I go to bed and look at it with fresh eyes the next morning. This allows me to look at the illustration objectively, notice parts that bother me, and amend them. I removed Gi Musen’s leg and added “Emperor’s Smile” on the bottle based on feedback.

GEAROUS Special interview

PASH! December 2020 interview

I exchanged opinions with the production staff carefully.

–Please tell us about how you became involved with the “Madou soshi” radio drama.

I’d been obsessed with “Madou soshi” since the first day I heard about it, and constantly supporting it. Then in 2019, around Gi Musen’s birthday, I received an email from the “Madou soshi” radio drama staff. To be given the opportunity to work with “Madou soshi” … I still feel like I’m dreaming.

–How did you first hear about [MDZS]?

My friend would call me every day and translate the novel. That’s how I was able to understand the story. And not just that, I also wanted to dig deeper into the world. So being an illustrator for the Japanese audio drama is a dream come true for me.

–Did the Chinese or Japanese production staff have any requests regarding character designs?

“Madou soshi” has been produced in various countries and various media already, and various character designs already exist. So, in order for the radio drama represented in Japan to feel special, I exchanged opinions with the Chinese and Japanese radio production staff both carefully and sincerely.

–I’d like to ask you something about illustration. Which character was comparatively easier to draw?

No one in particular, but I can draw Ran Bouki naturally. I love Gi Musen too, so I can understand how he feels.

–Then, is there a character who was difficult to draw?

Gi Musen.

– Was there anything you specifically kept in mind when you were drawing Setsu You for the latest episode?

He has an outward appearance so charming it may as well be fatal poison. Setsu You’s poison should also be charming. I put those sorts of thoughts into my illustration.

–Do you have a personal favorite character?

I love Gi Musen the most. He always accomplishes what we cannot do no matter how much we think about it. Actually, if I could meet Gi Musen, I probably couldn’t take my eyes off him.

–What do you think of “Madou soshi”’s popularity in Japan?

I’m incredibly happy! I’m still cheering it on to become even more popular as its biggest fan.

–Have you received any emails or letters from fans?

I’ve received tons of messages from my social media followers since the start of the Japanese radio drama. They’ve been quite encouraging. Thank you everyone.

–Could we ask you for a message to everyone?

As an illustrator, I am truly delighted to be able to walk through the world of “Madou soshi” with the Japanese audio drama production staff. Since I’ve met “Madou soshi”, their world is always in my heart. Everyone, please continue to keep an eye on Gi Musen’s activities together. I am always thankful for everyone’s love from the bottom of my heart.

New interview

I’m obsessed with the illustration for Season 1 Episode 5.

–What sort of theme or image did you use to create this issue’s original art?

I drew it with the theme of after Gi Musen and Ran Bouki are tied together, Gi Musen is getting stronger with his demonic cultivation* and Ran Bouki in the middle of flowers.

(T/N: For the folks curious about what term is used here, it’s specifically madou. 次第に魔道が濃くなっていく魏無羨)

–Out of all the illustrations you have done for “Madou soshi”, which are you most attached to?

Many illustrations come to mind, but out of all of those, I’m most obsessed with the illustration for Season 1 Episode 5. Gi Musen holding a bottle of Emperor’s Smile and laughing with Ran Bouki. I reread the scene in the novel where they first met, and when I noticed that this was the most peaceful epoch of Gi Musen’s life before he died, my heart ached.

–What sort of “Madou soshi” illustration would you want to make in the future?

I enjoy every part I draw, but especially like to draw [a scene that] comes up a little in Gi Musen’s imagination where he covered in mud plowing a farm and Ran Bouki is cooking and weaving. I also want to draw characters I haven’t drawn yet. I’d love the opportunity to draw two-shot of Kou Enri and Kin Shiken, or the Ghost General and On Jou [Wen Qing].

–Could you tell us why you decide to become an illustrator and why you started your job?

I had to move overseas when I was very young, so pictures were the only way I was able to communicate. I could make friends around the world because I drew, I could express what I liked because I drew, and at some point along the way I decided to become an illustrator. I still communicate in pictures now, and I confess my love for my favorite characters through drawing.

–Are there any routines or rules you abide by when you work?

I don’t have a given routine. I have paper and pencils all over my home, so I can draw wherever I feel like it. When I leave my house and feel the urge to draw, I draw on whatever paper or wrapping paper is around. When I do art for jobs, I first read the novel or request details, and draw something that comes to mind while listening to music that suits the atmosphere.   

– If something doesn’t go right while you are working, do you have a way to refresh yourself?

I keep drawing, even if the picture isn’t turning out right. No matter how many images I draw, they’re all pictures I drew, so I have come to stop worrying about it.

–Do you have any future aspirations?

I want to come to love more works and connect with everyone in the world through my art. Thank you very much.

Image source