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I'm still not sure whether I hate or love this language
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nenya85 I'd do these a while ago - translations of half of Takahashi-sensei's interview in the YGO character guidebook. (The first half, because those are all the Kaiba questions - might do the rest later, but these are the ones I most wanted the answers to!)
Being my own translations, I won't vouch for the accuracy of any of them; I have a long way to go before I can claim fluency in Japanese.gnine helped with some sticky questions but there were still a few phrases that flummoxed me. Hopefully I got the gist. I've footnoted parts that especially confused me; anyone who knows Japanese is welcome to correct me. Please.
[The interview was done right after Battle City ended, at the beginning of the Egyptian arc.]
YGO's greatest enigma, Kaiba Corporation
--Please tell us the secrets of the mysterious Kaiba Corporation.
Kaiba Corporation was originally a company called the "Kaiba Heavy Machine Gun Industries," established by Seto's adopted father Gozaburo's father. He was the so-called "war nouveau riche". Later on, Gozaburo inherited the company, and acquiring the patent for the IC chip and the like, he was going to switch the company over to the high-tech industry. But Seto's adoption gradually started disrupting those plans. [1]
After Gozaburo's death, Seto took the high-tech industry and started pouring those cultivated technologies entirely into games.
To Seto, war and games are the same thing.[2] However, because the important point to him is "fighting and winning by oneself," he happens to have no interest in the business of war.
In the past, Gozaburo held chess tournaments, only to be sponsoring himself by becoming the champion and taking the prizes for himself. As for Seto, he tries such things... Even standing on top of the industry and taking the lead, it's as if he had the thought that it wasn't by his own strength after all. Before long Seto came to seek the reason for existence in battle, that is to say, overpowering an opponent in a game with one's own strength. Battle--for example, war can be called that, a battle between country and country; but as far as Seto is concerned battle is a private/individual conflict to the bitter end. I think that's why the existence of the character of Yugi is so significant. Without Yugi as his rival, Seto, losing the enemy he must defeat, probably wouldn't be able to exist.
Incidentally, the current Kaiba Corporation has 2,000 employees, and the annual turnover is 150 billion yen. Though when Seto lost the duel with Yugi, Kaiba Corporation's stock took a noticeable dive, and also shortly after the company's restructuring began. It seems that Seto is always showing his own duels to the shareholders. For that reason as well, Seto must continue to win games.
[1] "gradually started disrupting those plans" - 徐々に歯車が狂い始めます, lit., "little by little the gears begin to go out of order"
[2] "To Seto, war and games are the same thing" - 瀬人は、戦争とゲームは一緒という考えを持っています lit., "Seto has the thought such that war and games are together." I'm not quite sure how to word this; pretty sure the ultimate meaning is that he puts war and games in the same category.
Gozaburo vs Seto, family strife
--Kaiba Gozaburo and Seto's relationship, could you call it that of a father and son?
To Seto, he might have been a father. However, he was hardly an "ideal" father. When he accomplished the regime change of the company, Seto didn't think about Gozaburo dying.[1]
With Gozaburo's suicide, Seto, losing an enemy, gradually began to go strange.[2] He personally had a sense of condemning himself for "patricide." [3] It could be said that the key word of the whole affair, that would always stay with him, was "patricide". That is to say, Seto was planted with the concept that "games equal death" according to Gozaburo.
In the beginning it was only chess. At the time, defeating Gozaburo, he was adopted. But Seto's chess match didn't end with that. Even the eventual interpersonal conflict in the company, all the schemes of Seto vs Gozaburo, could be considered an extension of their chess game. And Gozaburo lost and chose to die. This, inside Seto, became tied to the idea that "games equal death." Furthermore, he received the penalty game from Yugi, "the experience of death"! Because of all that, he came to believe that the loser of a game must certainly experience death. From that point, Seto's obsession with confronting "games" and "death" seems to have begun.[4]
Seto always fought with his complex with his father. Having him die by his own hand, he could never completely defeat his father. However, upon meeting with Yugi, he seems to have substituted a target.[5] For he is a man who can't live without an enemy he must defeat by himself.
[1] I'm pretty sure Takahashi's saying that Seto wasn't intending to kill Gozaburo: 剛三郎が死ぬとは思っていませんでした - "didn't think Gozaburo would die," but due to the Japanese construction of "to think," it's not that Seto thought Gozaburo wouldn't die, but rather that Seto wasn't thinking about it at all.
[2] "Began to go strange" 精神がおかしくなっていきます, lit., "his spirit becomes strange," possibly a colloquialism for going crazy?
[3] patricide - 親殺し , lit. "parent murder"
[4] そこから瀬人の異常なまで「ゲーム」と「死」に対する執着が始まったのでしょうね。- There's a bizarre grammatical construction here I can't make heads or tails of - "ijou na made"?
[5] 標的がすりかわってきた - substituted a target? "Surikawatte" (surikawaru?) isn't in my dictionaries...
[This whole section I'm unsure of; the cherished ambiguity of the Japanese language and my own inadequacy as a translator does not make for easy psychological analysis. Still, neat stuff. By the way, Gozaburo's name might imply that he was a third son (三郎 - zaburou, means 'third son'; the "gou" 剛 means strong and is a standard name kanji - on its own it can also be pronounced "Takashi"). I don't know how firmly the Japanese conform to the meaning of kanji when naming children (or mangaka when naming chars), but if he was the third in line, one wonders why his older brothers didn't inherit...]
Yugi and Seto shaking hands!?
--Will Yugi and Seto ever be bound by friendship?
Hmmm, that's difficult to say, isn't it. They're rivals, it can even been said they're old friends [1], but... Their relationship seems to be that, through fighting, they've acquired something mutual. The scene before Yugi fought with Malik, where he handed over the card (Devil's Sanctuary), was hard to come by.[2]
It's a delicate/dicey relationship of opposing one another even as they mutually support one another when needed.[3] Earlier, Yugi duels with a god (Osiris), and even in that pinch, wasn't Kaiba Seto the one who reached out to him? There's really the feeling that being rivals who approve of one another, they don't want to see one another defeated by anyone else.
[1] 親友 - "shinyuu" - Japanese has a lot of different words for friendship; this one is usually translated as best friend or bosom friend, often referring to childhood friends. Could be a reference to their past lives' history together?
[2] シーンは苦労しましたよ - "kurou" is hardships, "kurou shimashita;" I think he's saying that it took a lot of work to reach that scene, that is, that it was difficult for Yami and Kaiba to come to the point that Kaiba loaned him that card.
[3] 互いに足りない部分を補いつつも反発する、微妙な関係なんです - lit., "a difficult relationship where in they are opposing even while mutually supplementing the insufficient portion."
nenya85 I'd do these a while ago - translations of half of Takahashi-sensei's interview in the YGO character guidebook. (The first half, because those are all the Kaiba questions - might do the rest later, but these are the ones I most wanted the answers to!)Being my own translations, I won't vouch for the accuracy of any of them; I have a long way to go before I can claim fluency in Japanese.
gnine helped with some sticky questions but there were still a few phrases that flummoxed me. Hopefully I got the gist. I've footnoted parts that especially confused me; anyone who knows Japanese is welcome to correct me. Please.[The interview was done right after Battle City ended, at the beginning of the Egyptian arc.]
YGO's greatest enigma, Kaiba Corporation
--Please tell us the secrets of the mysterious Kaiba Corporation.
Kaiba Corporation was originally a company called the "Kaiba Heavy Machine Gun Industries," established by Seto's adopted father Gozaburo's father. He was the so-called "war nouveau riche". Later on, Gozaburo inherited the company, and acquiring the patent for the IC chip and the like, he was going to switch the company over to the high-tech industry. But Seto's adoption gradually started disrupting those plans. [1]
After Gozaburo's death, Seto took the high-tech industry and started pouring those cultivated technologies entirely into games.
To Seto, war and games are the same thing.[2] However, because the important point to him is "fighting and winning by oneself," he happens to have no interest in the business of war.
In the past, Gozaburo held chess tournaments, only to be sponsoring himself by becoming the champion and taking the prizes for himself. As for Seto, he tries such things... Even standing on top of the industry and taking the lead, it's as if he had the thought that it wasn't by his own strength after all. Before long Seto came to seek the reason for existence in battle, that is to say, overpowering an opponent in a game with one's own strength. Battle--for example, war can be called that, a battle between country and country; but as far as Seto is concerned battle is a private/individual conflict to the bitter end. I think that's why the existence of the character of Yugi is so significant. Without Yugi as his rival, Seto, losing the enemy he must defeat, probably wouldn't be able to exist.
Incidentally, the current Kaiba Corporation has 2,000 employees, and the annual turnover is 150 billion yen. Though when Seto lost the duel with Yugi, Kaiba Corporation's stock took a noticeable dive, and also shortly after the company's restructuring began. It seems that Seto is always showing his own duels to the shareholders. For that reason as well, Seto must continue to win games.
[1] "gradually started disrupting those plans" - 徐々に歯車が狂い始めます, lit., "little by little the gears begin to go out of order"
[2] "To Seto, war and games are the same thing" - 瀬人は、戦争とゲームは一緒という考えを持っています lit., "Seto has the thought such that war and games are together." I'm not quite sure how to word this; pretty sure the ultimate meaning is that he puts war and games in the same category.
Gozaburo vs Seto, family strife
--Kaiba Gozaburo and Seto's relationship, could you call it that of a father and son?
To Seto, he might have been a father. However, he was hardly an "ideal" father. When he accomplished the regime change of the company, Seto didn't think about Gozaburo dying.[1]
With Gozaburo's suicide, Seto, losing an enemy, gradually began to go strange.[2] He personally had a sense of condemning himself for "patricide." [3] It could be said that the key word of the whole affair, that would always stay with him, was "patricide". That is to say, Seto was planted with the concept that "games equal death" according to Gozaburo.
In the beginning it was only chess. At the time, defeating Gozaburo, he was adopted. But Seto's chess match didn't end with that. Even the eventual interpersonal conflict in the company, all the schemes of Seto vs Gozaburo, could be considered an extension of their chess game. And Gozaburo lost and chose to die. This, inside Seto, became tied to the idea that "games equal death." Furthermore, he received the penalty game from Yugi, "the experience of death"! Because of all that, he came to believe that the loser of a game must certainly experience death. From that point, Seto's obsession with confronting "games" and "death" seems to have begun.[4]
Seto always fought with his complex with his father. Having him die by his own hand, he could never completely defeat his father. However, upon meeting with Yugi, he seems to have substituted a target.[5] For he is a man who can't live without an enemy he must defeat by himself.
[1] I'm pretty sure Takahashi's saying that Seto wasn't intending to kill Gozaburo: 剛三郎が死ぬとは思っていませんでした - "didn't think Gozaburo would die," but due to the Japanese construction of "to think," it's not that Seto thought Gozaburo wouldn't die, but rather that Seto wasn't thinking about it at all.
[2] "Began to go strange" 精神がおかしくなっていきます, lit., "his spirit becomes strange," possibly a colloquialism for going crazy?
[3] patricide - 親殺し , lit. "parent murder"
[4] そこから瀬人の異常なまで「ゲーム」と「死」に対する執着が始まったのでしょうね。- There's a bizarre grammatical construction here I can't make heads or tails of - "ijou na made"?
[5] 標的がすりかわってきた - substituted a target? "Surikawatte" (surikawaru?) isn't in my dictionaries...
[This whole section I'm unsure of; the cherished ambiguity of the Japanese language and my own inadequacy as a translator does not make for easy psychological analysis. Still, neat stuff. By the way, Gozaburo's name might imply that he was a third son (三郎 - zaburou, means 'third son'; the "gou" 剛 means strong and is a standard name kanji - on its own it can also be pronounced "Takashi"). I don't know how firmly the Japanese conform to the meaning of kanji when naming children (or mangaka when naming chars), but if he was the third in line, one wonders why his older brothers didn't inherit...]
Yugi and Seto shaking hands!?
--Will Yugi and Seto ever be bound by friendship?
Hmmm, that's difficult to say, isn't it. They're rivals, it can even been said they're old friends [1], but... Their relationship seems to be that, through fighting, they've acquired something mutual. The scene before Yugi fought with Malik, where he handed over the card (Devil's Sanctuary), was hard to come by.[2]
It's a delicate/dicey relationship of opposing one another even as they mutually support one another when needed.[3] Earlier, Yugi duels with a god (Osiris), and even in that pinch, wasn't Kaiba Seto the one who reached out to him? There's really the feeling that being rivals who approve of one another, they don't want to see one another defeated by anyone else.
[1] 親友 - "shinyuu" - Japanese has a lot of different words for friendship; this one is usually translated as best friend or bosom friend, often referring to childhood friends. Could be a reference to their past lives' history together?
[2] シーンは苦労しましたよ - "kurou" is hardships, "kurou shimashita;" I think he's saying that it took a lot of work to reach that scene, that is, that it was difficult for Yami and Kaiba to come to the point that Kaiba loaned him that card.
[3] 互いに足りない部分を補いつつも反発する、微妙な関係なんです - lit., "a difficult relationship where in they are opposing even while mutually supplementing the insufficient portion."
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#^^#
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like that surprises you XD. You are awesome for translating this! I can feel the plot-bunnies gathering already. XD.(no subject)
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Second: I'm apologizing in advance for length ^ __ ^;;;;
Probably the thing I found the most interesting was the implication that at Death-T while Yami might have removed the darkness from Kaiba's heart, he left the craziness intact!
I've always thought the first shadow duel was pivotal (along with Gozaburo's suicide) in pushing Kaiba over the proverbial edge -- but I always attributed that to the shock of being rejected by his dragons. I thought that was really cool -- how his experiences really cemented that losing = death equation in his mind -- something that persists even at Alcatraz, when he tells Yami that if he loses he wants to die.
I was intrigued by the idea that Kaiba feels remorse for Gozaburo's death -- and could definitely see him as so focused on their ongoing game he didn't stop for a second to consider the implications.
I think though, I was somewhat disturbed by the idea that I possibly like Seto Kaiba better and have a higher estimate of his potential to change than his creator -- which seems like the ultimate definition of get a life!
One thing that has always struck me about Kaiba is the way he struggles for a 'true future' as he terms it. That he uses the duels not just to test himself personally against an opponent -- although that's certainly a big part of his make-up -- but also as a way of testing essential beliefs and philosophies. It's striking the way he will frame every duel he either participates in or even watches in terms of philosophical imperatives. I'm possibly over-influenced by the only previous quaote (thank you again for translating this) I had read where Mr. Takahashi said that Kaiba was a warrior, and that meeting Yugi freed him to be one. But it struck me that he took a very 'trial by combat' approach to life, where combat was used to test the validity of beliefs.
I've always though of the ending of Alcatraz as hopeful, though. At the beginning Yami tells him that after a loss, one should feel sad, but then the road to the future continues. At the end when he talks about letting his bitterness sink into the sea, and finding his heart under the rubble of Alcatraz, and then saying as he flew off that the future road of battle was open, I always took that to mean that for the first time in a long time, he was questioning the whole losing = dying thing, and was ready to try and find a better way.
I guess I always saw Kaiba a bit like Aoshi in that way -- where first he needs Kenshin as an opponent, but then weans himself from this to find other goals. I guess I had thought that in the Alcatraz arc, he was finally starting to get a handle on doing that, so I thought it was interesting, if a bit disturbing that Mr. Takahashi did not seem to see that kind of growth or development in his character... which makes me wonder how much I've been seeing things that aren't there.
Anyway, thank you for translating and posting this!
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I also got a name!
親友 [しんゆう]
n. close friend; bosom (old, intimate) friend; buddy; crony; chum; (P)
...the image/idea/concept of the two as close friends is interesting.
Re: I also got a name!
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pr0npaid accountsgraphics. ^_^;;;(no subject)
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^^
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Thank you so much for composing and posting this. I always love to hear the opinions of others, and being on my favourite character from a comic series that I've spent a lot of time and money on...well, that just makes my day, doesn't it?
Now, I generally like shounen series in spite of the themes and tropes; this notion of the "fighting spirit" and it is a means of philosophy and communication still seems, after a few years of enjoying characters from various series...a little corny.
But there's fodder here for a more conventional psychological reading of Kaiba, helped by the "conditioning" via Gozaburo's suicide, and the mention of "going strange". That's just how I prefer to see Kaiba, really. In terms of mental instability instead of just being that way because he has to fit the character type of The Rival, considered as an individual apart from all the characters like him that have come before.
Somehow Kaiba has become a very complex character in my mind, which I feel a bit insecure about, given all the flaws that I can see in the source material, but something like this helps set me at ease a bit. I might even start work again on that large character analysis piece that I started last year.
Thank you again. Much love. :)
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-dragonwrangler
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(Also, your fic simply rocks. But you should know that from the reviews I left on FFN.)
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