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

Madou Soshi anime ad translation

As promised, some info from the JP dub of the donghua from 2021.

T/N: Personal names don’t get glossed but sobriquets and place names do. The anime’s approach to personal names is in line with the novel; the audio drama is an outlier for overlocalization. This whole thing is 5 pages. Alt text added for all images.

Red banner: “Madou soshi” Japanese dub starts airing January 10, 2021 on WOWOW, TOKYO MX, and BS11

Bottom text: (TV scheduling information.)

The world was fed up with the limits of the Kizan Wen clan’s tyranny, and the people were wheezing with anguish. The disciples of the cultivation world—the Koso Lan clan, Unmu Jiang clan, Ranryou Jin clan, and Seiga Nie clan—joined forces for the “Sun shot campaign” and succeeded in subjugating the Wen clan.

Wei Wuxian, the Iryou Elder, contributed greatly to the success of the “Sun shot campaign,” but due to the fact that his mastery of kidou (鬼道) made him the most powerful, he was feared by the people, slandered, and ultimately beckoned the total destruction of his body.

And now, 13 years later…Wei Wuxian, who was supposed to be dead, is brought back to life by magic, and reunites with his old friend, Lan Wangji of the Koso Lan clan, and his brother Jiang Cheng of the Unmu Jiang clan. However, the mysteries of the past have not yet vanished, and society begins to doubt him all over again.

All stories start with a chance encounter during their youth.

(T/N: I’m not going to rekey the relationship chart. It doesn’t say anything you don’t already know. Full cast list in the Wikipedia link below.)

Wei Wuxian caption: An innocent, uncontrolled free-spirit. Frivolous, but has the makings of a genius. Manipulates corpses with the sounds of a flute, and creator of “kidou” (鬼道), [a technique that] utilizes yin energy. Subjugated 13 years ago, but brought back to life with magic. Also called Wei Ying.

Lan Wangji caption: The second son of a famous cultivation household, the Koso Lan clan. Remarkably excellent, and of irreproachable conduct. Extremely serious and fastidious. Long ago he had many skirmishes with the free-spirited Wei Wuxian. Excels at using the Lan clan’s secret technique with the guqin. Also called Lan Zhan.

Panel 1
WWX: Lan Zhan! Our story’s finally going to start in Japan!
WWX: Let’s introduce some of the difficult-looking vocab so everyone can enjoy [the show]
LWJ: …

Panel 2
WWX: Alright, start by explaining “cultivation clans” and “cultivators” right off the bat.
LWJ: “Cultivators” are disciples who exterminate ghosts and evil spirits and protect people’s safety.
LWJ: Cultivators are affiliated with “cultivation clans”, and discipline themselves in order to further their knowledge and hone their craft.

Panel 3
LWJ: “The Five Great Clans”—the generic term for each cultivation clan is the “the cultivation world”; of those, the best are the Koso Lan clan, the Unmu Jiang clan, the Ranryou Jin clan, the Seiga Nie clan, and the Kizan Wen clan, thus the “Five Great Clans”.
WWX: That’s too long-winded!

Panel 4
WWX: If you think there’s too many kanji, you can just tell everyone apart by color.
WWX: Like, the Jiang clan’s purple!
JC: Hey, that’s crude.

Panel 5
WWX: Zombie-like monsters called “corpses” will appear, but I can manipulate them with mu flute.
WWX: Lan Zhan can defeat them with his koto!

Panel 6:
WWX: Make sure to tune in for the Japanese dub broadcast this January!

Kimura Ryouhei (voice of Wei Wuxian)

—Tell us something you find fascinating about the original work or characters.

It’s the most exciting world with a combination of the air of another country and fantasy. Please look forward to the drama depicted between characters who are so finely chiseled they’re true-to-life living there!

—Do you have a message for viewers awaiting the dub broadcast?

You’ll probably be perplexed by all the names and factions, and proper nouns you’re not used to hearing, but that’s okay! The story will lead you along. If you stick with it, you’ll surely have a wonderful time. I’ll be happy if you fall in love with the vivacious cast!

Tachibana Shinnosuke (voice of Lan Wangji)

—Tell us something you find fascinating about the original work or characters.

No matter how many times I say it, the art is absolutely gorgeous! There’s a beauty to the Chinese style coloration, but I feel like the work’s atmosphere can be conveyed just by looking at the art. And the characters move a lot. I feel like I can perceive the vitality and ambiance on my skin. Also, there are a ton of hot guys (laughs).

—Do you have a message for viewers awaiting the dub broadcast?

This internationally acclaimed work has finally touched down in Japan with the Japanese anime dub! I hope you enjoy a host of characters who bustle around, their sentiments and exchanges, and the subtleties of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s hearts. I look forward to enjoying this magnificent story together with everyone ☆

Full staff and cast list (T/N: again, I’m not rekeying that. Here it is on Wikipedia instead.)

Opening theme: “Senya souka” by CIVILIAN (JP LYRICS)

Ending theme: “Kiro” by Aimer (JP LYRICS)   

Visit the website at https://mdzs.jp/anime/ or follow us on twitter @/mdzsjp

Source: https://mdzs.jp/anime/special/book/

Chapter 2 荒狂 Rampage [ExR trans: Aggression Part 3]

While I continue to struggle with not having enough hands to both live blog MDZS and pet a dog, and that autosave bug that kept eating my edits, I’ve been worrying for the last couple days about how I might be shoving a key into the ignition of a clown car with the license plate “pandora’s box”. You guys have been great so far, and I really appreciate it.

I must humbly thank one of my fandom elders for reminding me that translation is a form of transformative work, and therefore subject to Death of the Author (and Skopos of the client). Translation theory and translation studies in general is mostly done at the graduate level; of what I’ve been exposed to at the undergraduate level, Skopos theory is the only one that did not strike me as totally self-indulgent. I’ll do my best to lay out the facts as much as can be done, and leave the literary analysis to you.

Today we’re looking at the tail end of Chapter 2, Frontier Works pg. 41-53, and a tiny bit of the audio drama, Season 1 Part A Episode 1 first 12 minutes. After this, I’ll be taking a short aside to translate another Japanese audio drama article from PASH! magazine, and a supplementary PDF from the anime’s ad campaign website before moving on to Chapter 3. Strap in, this is a LONG POST.

[[MORE]]

I spent these past 12 pages fixated on a particular notion: “I don’t think Mo Xuanyu is necessarily insane”. I will get back to that in a bit. Let’s talk about everything else first.

I know I’ve mentioned this before there’s been a bit of ambiguity regarding whether the body part rampaging Mo Manor is a hand or an arm.

Suddenly A-Ding cried, “Hand… His hand! A-Tong’s hand!” (ExR)
その時突然、阿丁が泣きだした。「手……阿童の左手がぁ！」 (FW pg. 44)

bt. In that moment A-Ding suddenly burst into tears. “His hand… A-Tong’s left hand–!”

It’s a hand in this one segment. I’m using “burst into tears” to indicate more clearly that “cried” here should be the weeping kind, not the shouting kind.

On the next page

Suddenly saying this… It doesn’t seem like a coincidence. (ExR)（突然こんなことを言うなんて……まぐれとは思えない。）(FW pg. 45)
bt. (Suddenly, saying this sort of thing [out loud]… I can’t think of it as a fluke.)

Clunky, but within a reasonable margin of error.

Moving forward a few pages to when Wei Wuxian turns the deceased Mo manorial lords into his minions… Do you think he is allowed to swear? やがる is an auxiliary verb meaning “to have the nerve to do X”, and in a lot of cases, it can be used as a free pass for an emphatic and/or expletive.

“Wake up!” (ExR)

「起きやがれ！」 (FW pg. 49)

“Wake the fuck up!”

In case you were wondering, he was politer to the first batch of corpses.

We finally get our first instance of 凶屍 kyoushi/xiong1shi1 on FW pg 50! I’d been wondering when that word would show up. I really hate “fierce corpse” but ExR’s use of “cruel corpse” instead doesn’t make it any better. I don’t think this term translates. As far as I know, zombie lore in English comes out of Central African mythology via the Caribbean. I worry that there are not enough similar base concepts between these two cultures that we even have the vocabulary to express the concept with words that are not Chinese.

And finally, 含光君 han2guang1jun1 = gankoukun. Sobriquets don’t get glossed. What’s it mean? May I direct you to this post? At some point I will revise the Chinese-to-Japanese table of proper names to include monikers and place names. Once I figure out a good way to format it for web…

Alrighty, now time for the thesis part. One of the central motifs of MXTX’s writing style is setting up a characterization based on third hand accounts, and then using the characters’ actions to subvert those expectations. The very first instance of this is in MDZS is the irony of Wei Wuxian, in the body of Mo Xuanyu, being the smartest person in the room despite never taken seriously. What do we actually know about Mo Xuanyu himself? What has he actually told the reader? He hasn’t. He’s very dead at this point. Everything we know is filtered through A) Wei Wuxian, and B) a third person limited POV narrator, both of whom are notably not omniscient. What we can take away from the diary entries is only what Wei Wuxian can surmise (FW pg. 18-19).

• Mo Xuanyu is homosexual.
• He is a famous cultivation clan leader’s bastard, clearly out of favor with his father’s clan.
• His grandfather is the Manorial lord Mo.
• The Manorial lord’s legitimate wife birthed his oldest daughter. Oldest daughter’s husband was legally adopted into the Mo clan. Oldest daughter is Mo Ziyuan’s mother.
• The Manorial lord’s second daughter, Mo Xuanyu’s mother, was a maid’s daughter. She was good looking, so the Manorial lord had planed on marrying her off anyway.
• MXY’s mother’s pregnancy at age 16, and his entire existence was seen as a mark of shame upon the manor until the Manorial lord realized how to use this new relationship for financial and political gain, i.e. the alimony stipend from the paternal cultivation clan and the allure of cultivation to boost the manor’s standing. This lasted until Mo Xuanyu was 4 years old when his biological father ceased visitation. MXY and his mother then fell out of favor for a decade.
• At age 14, MXY was taken in by his paternal cultivation clan for training. Within the Mo manor, he returns to being in favor based on an expectation of success in a skilled profession. He loses favor again when he failed to meet that expectation, and is sent home.
• The legitimate Mo manorial lords and their servants are verbally and physically abusive towards him. (FW pg. 14, 26)
• Mo Xuanyu committed suicide to enact vengeance against his abusers via dassha of Wei Wuxian. (FW pg. 16)
• He is older than Mo Ziyuan. (There are a couple different ways to spell “cousin” itoko, and relative seniority is built into the word: 従兄 older male cousin Mo Xuanyu vs 従弟 younger male cousin Mo Ziyuan.)
• Mo Ziyuan’s exact age was never confirmed. Wei Wuxian just guessed “17” and the reader has to roll with it.
• さらに悪いことに、莫玄羽にいったい何があったのか莫家に戻った時にはまるっきりおかしくなっていた。ごくたまに正気に戻るものの、まるで何か恐ろしいものでも見て、精神をやられたかのように–。ここまで読み解いて、魏無羨はぴくりと眉を動かした。絶袖はまだしも、気が触れていたとは。これで合点がいった。(FW pg. 19)
• bt. And to make matters worse, what on earth happened to Mo Xuanyu when he returned to Mo Manor, he had become completely funny. Although on rare occasion he returned to sanity, it was as if he may have seen something dreadful and whether his mind suffered damage–Perusing up to this point, Wei Wuxian cocked an eyebrow. Better gay than touched in the head. This is what he made out.

Note 1: おかしい okashii means “funny” in both the comical and the eccentric sense. It runs the gambit from “amusing” to “strange” to “wrong.” It gave me a slight headache trying to translate Lan Jingyi’s 「あいつは本当におかしい！」 “aitsu wa hontou ni okashii!” in Aggression part 1. I almost went with “What a weirdo!” but decided against it because I wanted the double entendre. I am being overly literal above to demonstrate ambiguity.

Note 2: The green highlight is a two part subjunctive. I am highlighting this because it’s the strongest “if” in the entire info dump. Everything up until this point is a “based on evidence, WWX concludes that” sort of subjunctive. Japanese can get pedantic with subjunctives.

Note 3: 気が触れる ki ga fureru = to go mad; to go crazy; to lose one’s mind​. Also see 気が狂う ki ga kuruu (via Jisho.org)

Preliminary conclusion: Despite the commonality of polygamy at this time, there are clear political advantages that he does not have due to his lack of blood relation to either the legal or favorite wife in either the Jin or Mo clans, combined with his discontinued apprenticeship. Anything Mo Xuanyu does is going to be an uphill battle. Untreated trauma is definitely involved. Do I trust a normal teenager to tell me they’re insane? No. Would I trust a fictional one? Even less. Sanity is relative.

(I don’t think anyone in this readership cares if I spoil Trails of Cold Steel IV. There’s a boss rush segment right before the final dungeon where one of your parties is about to take on a massive beast of a thing, and one of the mages says “um how about we not? Maybe let’s go get the giant robots and circle back?” and everyone else, including one woman whose only goal left in life is to fight GOD, like any good JRPG hero, is like “nah, we can take it as is.” This lady–who can wield a Zweihänder single-handedly if she wants to–honestly could have taken down the beast by herself. She’s one of the most powerful characters in the franchise, so desperate for a challenge that her moniker includes reference to a Buddhist man-eating demon, an all-but-confirmed war criminal, and you cannot tell me she’s sane. Sane people do not nip at the ankles of a dragon with a big fucking sword and call it a mild workout.)

Now what does everyone else say about him?

I genuinely don’t know what the original text has to say. I cannot read Mandarin. Nor do I have access or the skill to listen to the Chinese audio drama. CQL is off the table as there is no accessible JP dub as far as I am aware. Between Death of the Author and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, I’m already too many layers removed from “original intention” for it to matter. Japanese novel!Mo Xuanyu is effectively a different character from every other instance of Mo Xuanyu in every other medium and every foreign language translation.

In rewatching the first episode of the donghua, the term used appears to be 瘋子 feng1zi5. Lin Yutang’s Chinese-English dictionary of Modern Usage defines 瘋子 as madman, half-crazy person, a “nut.” This is not a Japanese word. In fact, the only word I can find that uses the same character is 瘋癲 fuuten, which can be either insanity, or a vagabond/wanderer (Jisho.org). The Green Goddess offers 1) 狂気 lunacy, mental derangement, madness, insanity 2) 家出した若者 delinquent youth, a youth vagrant.

If I shove 瘋子 into the Weblio’s Chinese-Japanese dictionary, I get the definitions 気違い kichigai = madman, enthusiastic (derogatory) and 狂人 kyoujin = crazy person, lunatic. I’m going to add this additional note from WaniKani. Image transcription in alt text.

Based on this, I can conclude that Donghua!Mo Xuanyu is mentally ill, and being described in a highly derogatory manner.

I have NOT watched the Japanese dub anime so we’re going to put that on back burner for now. I’ll probably get to it later, when I can finally get my hands on it.

The Japanese dub audio drama I only went in to double check what Mo Ziyuan and Madam Mo call Mo Xuanyu in the first 12 minutes. I did NOT bother listening to the whole episode. Transcriptions and translations below. Bold is OP’s emphasis.

00:05:10
魏無羨：お前は……
莫子淵：ふざけるな！このイカレ野郎目！！
莫子淵：お前が今住んてるのは誰の家で

Gi Musen: You are…
Baku Shien: Don’t fuck with me! You damn bastard nutcase!!
Baku Shien: Whose house do you [think] you’re living in and

Note 4: Gi Musen = Wei Wuxian; Baku Shien = Mo Ziyuan.

00:09:23

魏無羨：（M）ふん、つまらん
莫夫人：早く追い出して！
莫夫人：このイカレ野郎を出したのは誰！

Gi Musen: (mentally) hmm, boring
Madam Baku: Get rid of him quickly!
Madam Baku: Who let this bastard nutcase out!

00:11:23
莫家の下僕男A：早く行こうぜ、病気が伝染っちゃう
莫家の下僕女A：あのイカレ野郎、また出てきたの？

Male Baku household servant A: Hurry up, let’s go, or we’ll get infected
Female Baku household servant A: That bastard nutcase got out again?

Jisho.org defines いかれる ikareru as: 1) to break down, to become broken; 2) to be crazy, to be nuts; 3) to be infatuated with; 4) to be outdone by someone; to be beaten in a contest. 野郎 yarou Bastard in the above instances is simply for its derogatory meaning, and has no implications of linage. So you see how I ended up with イカレ野郎 = bastard nutcase? Japanese audio drama!Baku Gen'u (=Mo Xuanyu) is also mentally ill, and it is being described in a derogatory manner.

Back to the novel! Over these past 40 pages, I’ve seen several different words come up in addition to what was written above.

痴れ者 shiremono fool; dunce; idiot​ (via Jisho.org). This is the most common one, and what the Manorial lords and their servants all call Mo Xuanyu. Even Lan Jingyi calls him this once in frustration. I’m not going to to the full nine yards on this one. I did quite a bit in the Aggression part 2. But just for completeness’ sake, I give you a couple more.

「俺を蹴ったな！この痴れ者め、殺す気？」 (FW pg. 46)
(Lan Jingyi speaking) “He kicked me! Damn idiot, you got a death wish?”

From The Digital Denjisen via Kotobank

１ 愚かな者。ばか者。A foolish person. A stupid person.
２ 手に負えない者。乱暴なもてあまし者。An incorrigible person. A violently unmanageable person.
３ その道に打ち込んでいる者。その道のしたたか者。Someone dead set in their ways. A strong-willed person.
「我がものならば着せてやりたい好みのあるにと―が随分頼まれもせぬ詮議を蔭では為べきに」〈露伴・五重塔〉
[類語]（1）愚人・愚物・痴人・愚か者・愚者／（3）マニアック・病的・クレージー・いかれる・神経質・凝り性・モノマニア・モノマニアック・偏執狂・執念深い・アブノーマル・異常・異様・狂的・ディレッタント・物好き・酔狂・好事家・虫・おたく・狂・狂い・気違い・マニア・通・こだわり・こだわる・道楽・凝り屋・執拗・しつこい・サブカルチャー

From Meaning.jp

愚か者・馬鹿者 foolish person. stupid person.
騙されやすい・お人好し someone easily tricked. an easy mark.
考えなしで分別にかける人 a person with thoughtless discretion.

And from Word-dictionary.jp

ばか者、おろか者 a stupid person, a foolish person
一つのことに心を打ちこんで夢中になっている人 a person who has devoted their heart to a singular thing and becomes obsessed.

I am genuinely unsure if there are any unspoken connotations of this word, and thus far I have not been able to dig any up. I need to watch more period J-dramas.

バカ baka idiot; moron; fool​ (we’ve watched enough anime. I don’t need to provide all 14 definitions listed on Jisho.org)

このバカ、こんな時まで笑うなんて！虚け者なのだから (FW pg. 44)
What a moron, laughing at a time like this! Cause he’s an airhead…

虚け者 utsukemono fool; blockhead; idiot; dunce​ (see example above). The more common spelling of this word is 空け者. I like “airhead” for this one because 虚 “void” 空 and “sky” both also mean “empty.” Let’s take a look at a couple more dictionaries.

うっかりしている人。中身のしっかりしていない人。単に「うつけ」とも言う。(Weblio)
An absentminded person. Someone who does not take proper hold of their substance. Also said utsuke.

For utsuke because I didn’t get a result for utsukemono
1) 中のうつろなこと。から。からっぽ。2) 愚かなこと。ぼんやりしていること。また、そのような者。まぬけ。(Digital Denjisen)
1) To hollow out the inside of something. Empty. Vacant.
2) Foolishness. To be absentminded/careless. Or someone who is thus. Half-wit.

恥知らず haji shirazu shameless

(Madam Mo in response to Wei Wuxian’s allegation of theft against Mo Ziyuan)
「この恥知らずが、皆さんの前でなんてことを！阿淵はあなたの従弟なのに！」 (FW pg. 28)
“What a thing to say in front of everyone, you shameless person! Even though A-Yuan is your cousin!”

阿保 aho fool; idiot; simpleton

(Lan Jingyi speaking) 「え？あの阿保を捜してどうするんだよ？俺に殴られるのが怖くて、どこかに逃げたんじゃないかな」 (FW pg. 52)
“Eh? What’re you gonna do if you go searching for that dimwit? He probably ran off somewhere cause he was scared I was gonna punch him.”

変人 henjin eccentric. Truth be told, I’m not sure why this is in my notes. Past me didn’t leave a page number.

There is a specific word for madness I was looking for, something containing this character: 狂. And there is only one instance I found where it shows up (not counting the chapter title).

With nails that multiplied in length, foam gathering at the corners of her mouth, and shrieks that were enough to uplift the ceiling, she [the animated corpse of Madam Mo] looked extremely insane. (ExR)

右手の五本の指の爪は数倍にも長く伸び、口元には白い泡を吹き、甲高い咆哮は屋根を吹き飛ばそうな勢いで、もはや狂気の沙汰だ。(FW pg. 50)

bt. The nails on the five fingers of her long hand extended by several times, white foam spewed from her mouth, her screeching roar had the force to blow a roof clean off, and she was already in a state of madness.

TLDR: Japanese novel!Mo Xuanyu is generally described by other people as a dunce, not necessarily a lunatic. The only “insanity” to be had is a dead person’s fighting style.

A little thought experiment I keep finding myself in, as I’m sure a lot of people do who are reading literature in a language they are learning, is “if I were to translate this into my first language, how would I say X?” I would need a word that

• encompasses “stupid”;
• does NOT encompass “clinically insanity”;
• is derogatory;
• and most importantly, destroys all credibility.

“Oh, don’t listen to him. He’s just ___.”

“Idiot” is the clear choice, as it is the most common denominator of all of the above, but I feel it’s not strong enough to devalue all of MXY’s credibility. “Simpleton”, “airhead,” “dimwit,” “halfwit,” “moron,” “blockhead” again, not mean enough. “Dunce” or “fool” might be on the right track, but they’re not really in the modern vernacular, so still not strong enough on their own without going out of my way to make the rest of the setting and everyone else’s speech patterns artificially archaic. “Maniac” doesn’t seem accurate to the characterization. “Deluded” perhaps? “Deranged” feels too close to “raving mad”. “Beyond help” or “lost cause” or “unreasonable” would work in the above instance, but not necessarily in other instances, like “He kicked me! Damn ___!”

…and this is how I found myself up the creek without a paddle, and asking whether I have to start looking at yesteryear’s terms for the disabled to find a label mean enough to destroy credibility. FOR EXAMPLE, I would not be opposed to an autistic reading of the character based on the above amalgam of terminology, but endorsing such a reading would be going into head canon territory and straying too far from the original text. I don’t know what’s going on deeper in the fandom. I see a lot of arguing I don’t want to deal with, and the less I know, the better I feel.

All I can and will say about Japanese Novel!Mo Xuanyu is that no matter how he is labeled by his relatives and household servants, the kid is caught between a rock and a hard place on multiple fronts. Being homosexual in a homophobic world isn’t helping, nor is whatever enduring trauma he experienced right before his return home from cultivation training. His anger and frustration before his untimely demise were likely justified. It is highly unfortunate he found catharsis in death, but without it, this story would have no protagonist.

Confessions of a Manga Translator – The Comics Journal

Translation discourse online always leaves me a little nervous because anyone can and usually does say anything, and it’s nigh impossible to check credentials. I keep thinking back to this article from 2016.

I also did follow up with Jay Rubin sensei about the introductory quote in this article. (Rubin sensei is an American Japanologist and translator most noted for bringing the works of Haruki Murakami 村上春樹 into English. Also if you’ve never has the opportunity to try translating Murakami, let me attest that it ranked #3 on my college struggle bus after Genji monogatari and the kanbun bits of my capstone project.) The closest he was able to track down was a passage from a “Critic’s Notebook” piece he did for the magazine AMERICAN THEATRE in February 2006 (p. 36). Sensei attests the 99% figure comes from someone at the theater, not himself.

Sitting in the darkened hall and listening to the lines of Steppenwolf Theater Company’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short-story collection after the quake, I had a thrill unavailable to anyone else in the audience–even to Murakami himself, had he been there (which may never happen)–because I was the one who wrote those very lines the actors were speaking. True, Murakami was author of the original work I had translated, but those were my words. When, in the well-attended post-performance discussion, a member of the staff assured the audience of the fidelity of the adaptation by noting that “99% of the words you heard were Murakami’s,” I sat in the back of the theatre, violently shaking my head. Okay, translator’s tantrum aside, it really was a thrill to hear those familiar words being spoken by a live cast, to rediscover the dramatic force of the original, and to see the audience’s openly emotional response to one of Murakami’s most affecting works. It was a wonderful night of theater.