Monthly Archives: December 2017

What Are Some Difficulties Faced in Translating Sailor Moon?

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Filed under Articles, Fandom, Language, Making Of
What translating feels like

What translating feels like

One common theme that runs through many of the topics I end up discussing is that of the differences between Japanese and English nuance, and how much of that gets lost in translation.

I want to make it clear that I don’t mean this as an indictment against some of the translators who have taken on (or been assigned) the challenge that Sailor Moon has to offer. In fact, I’d like to take a look at some of the challenges people face when translating Sailor Moon – or really, any Japanese media with a sufficiently deep enough plot – into another language.

This topic may be a little inside baseball, but if you’ve ever been interested in the art of translation, this article may be for you!

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Where Did the Dead Moon Circus’ Lemures Get Their Names? (Part 2)

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Filed under Articles, Dead Moon Circus, Language, Making Of
♪ It's the eye of the tiger ♪ It's the thrill of the fight ♪

♪ It’s the eye of the tiger ♪ It’s the thrill of the fight ♪

If I were to compare the Lemures in Sailor Moon SuperS to any of the other Monsters of the Day, I’d say their closest match about probably be the early Dark Kingdom youma.

What do I mean? Well, the Lemures felt a lot like just lower-ranking members of the Dead Moon Circus, like they were simply lower on the corporate ladder than the Four Kings, who had already managed to secure positions as supervisors through long days at the office, countless unpaid overtime, and a little bit of corporate schmoozing.

Contrast that with the Cardians, Droids, and Phages, and you can see their role is pretty different.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about, now is it? We’re here to continue taking a look into where the Lemures get their names from. Stick around as we continue with Part 2 of this series!

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Where Did the Dead Moon Circus’ Lemures Get Their Names? (Part 1)

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Filed under Articles, Dead Moon Circus, Language, Making Of
"Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”

Bringing up the topic of the Sailor Moon SuperS anime in conversation can be about as divisive and unwise as discussing politics at the dinner table, religion over Thanksgiving, or subs vs. dubs in a comic book shop. You just don’t know where the other party stands, and no matter what their opinion is, they’re bound to be passionate about it.

But today we’re only skirting around the issue of whether or not the series has any merits, and instead are talking about something we can all hopefully get behind: where did the names of the Lemures come from? Stick around to find out!

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Answering Your Sailor Moon Questions – the Threequel

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Filed under Articles, Blog
Your questions, me desperately trying to answer

Your questions, me desperately trying to answer

That’s right, it’s that time again where I take a look at some of the questions that often come in and either answer, explain why I can’t answer, or spout off random nonsense until I hit my required word count.

Today’s questions are brought to us by the list of Google search terms, and the types of questions people are asking the open internet and ultimately brought them to this blog.

There’s not much else to say, so let’s dive right in!

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Why Did Makoto Change Schools to Juban Junior High?

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Filed under Articles, Makoto Kino
"Sooo... what brings you to Juban Junior High?" "I plead the fifth."

“Sooo… what brings you to Juban Junior High?” “I plead the fifth.”

Poor Makoto. Though she’s just as much an important member of the main cast of Sailor Soldiers and the rest of her pretty warriors of love and justice, she just doesn’t seem to get the screen time (or page time?) that she deserves.

The problem with this is that there are so many small details about her character introduced that we never get proper answers for. And one of those such questions is what brought her to Juban Junior High School in the first place?

Today we’ll be looking at exactly that question. I hope you join along!

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