This is a scene which was judged major enough in the novels to get an illustration, but was cut in the anime for some reason. 0_o

Disclaimer: As usual, note that I am not fluent, read translation at your own risk, there may be errors and misinterpretations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just finished, after a long period of procrastination, Yukio Mishima’s Forbidden Colors. Since I was reading this book after having various discussions about translation practices and the ideal of translation, I frequently wondered, especially during the extremely abstruse passages, just what this or that word was in the original, or how something was phrased in the Japanese, and tried to guess at; but, this only was a somewhat productive activity because I do know some Japanese, and probably at some point will try reading the original.

Anyway, as for the story, an elderly writer, Hinoki Shunsuke, one day meets a peerlessly beautiful youth, Minami Yuichi. Shunsuke, BTW, is full of a misogynistic passion of revenge against all women. Yuichi is going to marry Yasuko, the former lover of Shunsuke, but confesses to Shunsuke that he is full of misgivings because he’s gay and finds it impossible to be sexually attracted to women. Shunsuke, struck by a flash of inspiration, tells Yuichi that he shall give him some money if he marries Yasuko and aids him in his scheme to take revenge on the female sex by seducing them without desire, throwing them into the hell of a passion that will never be reciprocated (I think: in some ways I’m vague about why exactly Shunsuke feels so wronged by women, given that he deliberately runs after women he has contempt for, and just what will make him satisfied.) So, Yuichi accepts his offer, and accepts Shunsuke’s instructions in attempting to seduce two of his former lovers. Meanwhile, Yuichi finally enters the secret world of homosexuality, and becomes a great object of desire. Basically, Yuichi is the center of the book; he possesses a perfect beauty, described like that of a young wolf’s, and everyone wants him. (In some ways, Yuichi reminds me of sort of an evil version of the hero of the Sound of the Waves, who was written as some kind of masculine ideal, or a perverse, homme fatal version of the incarnation in Runaway Horses.)

The most interesting parts of the book, I found, were the descriptions of the coffee houses, cruising areas, hotels, and underground parties that made up the underground gay milieu, and what must be Mishima’s philosophies about homosexuality. The recurring motif of the mirror (the constant discussions of the look seem to coincide interestingly with modern ideas about the so-called “male gaze,” and subject/object. Maybe throw in some Lacan also. I feel that maybe to really unpack this book I’d have to go through it with the eye to writing a paper about the symbology, because sometimes, as in the recurring firetrucks, things are a bit too blatant), the psychology of Yuichi, who becomes pathologically narcissistic (this isn’t a story about Forbidden Gay Love, in the sense that Yuichi is in love passionately with one person, himself) and rather sadistic over the course of the book, are also rather fascinating, but many of the more aesthetic portions about What is Beauty and The Nature of Art simple seemed obscure and indulgent; they’re perhaps one reason why this novel is so long.

Feel free to ask questions about factual matters in the Saiunkoku novels in this thread. (Am doing this to add to the frequently asked questions post)

In other words, try to avoid subjective things that are a matter of interpretation; I just want this to be a facts thread.

Some things: There is no Saiunkoku novel material beyond what has already been published in the novels and in the Beans magazines. Or at least I don’t know of any.

For more context, see the volume 12 summary. This translation may contain errors, because my Japanese level could be better. If you see any errors or mistranslations, please point them out. I may revise this translation in the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Personally, I have a cavalier attitude towards spoilers. I sometimes seek them out, and I usually don’t go insane if I stumble across one. However, some people wish to avoid spoilers, so the least one can do is respect their wishes.

In this blog, we’re all about discussing spoilers. It’s obvious that this blog contains spoilers for all kinds of things. So it’s okay to just go around discussing spoiler info freely. But, I really cannot understand why some people just post spoilers in the comments of a blog where the blogger has repeatedly said he doesn’t want spoilers! If you want to discuss spoilers, you should get your own blog and link to it (blogs are free, get a wordpress one) and discuss there. If you’re going to comment to a blog, don’t comment things that the blogger has specifically said they don’t want. I’m talking about how people continually post spoiler information in Impz’s anime summaries. Even if they don’t see his comments about it, it’s just common sense to not openly post spoilers.

While I’m at it, it annoys me that people post disinformation in wikipedia. Please don’t post things without a source. Kadokawa has not made any announcements about the next Saiunkoku novel. It’s definitely not out in Japan. As of 1/10, I’ve heard no buzz on the Japanese fanboards about a release date for the next book.

This is what I meant about Shuurei’s naivete being criticized in the books.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to have full fluency in Japanese. This translation may contain errors or misinterpretations. Read at your own risk.

“But you know… things like nobility or famous houses, I don’t like them.”

Seeing Shuurei’s expression, Hakumei sighed.

“That is something that, poor or not, should never be said by someone possessing the Kou name. It’s okay to say it in front of me, but you must never say that in front of other nobles. It may be what you really think, but it will only be heard as arrogance. The names of the Eight Houses of Color have a special meaning different from that of the other houses. Since you’ve received special treatment because of the Kou name, and used it in political matters, you can’t say something like that. If you want to say it, it’s like saying you want to throw away the Kou name.

Shuurei shut her mouth and reflected on her lack of thoughtfulness. …. Yes, it was as he had said.

“I’m sorry, I won’t say that again.”

“It’s okay if you know that. …. But, I didn’t come here to talk to you about that!!”

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to have full fluency in Japanese. This translation may contain errors or misinterpretations. Read at your own risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

I originally started this blog because I was dissatisfied with the features at LJ: I was tired of not having access to statistics, and of the insularity of Livejournal in general. In general, in terms of features, this blog more than meets my expectations. I have all of the features I desire. Unfortunately, everyone I know still mostly uses LJ or a clone, so I miss blogging as conversation. So, I think if I update more frequently, I’ll get more hits.

So my new plan is to start importing old content from my livejournal, namely my old book blogs. Since most people didn’t really comment on them, not much is lost by only importing the body of the review, and not the comments. I need to go seek out a blogosphere, really; actually, all the hype about strikethrough or fans leaving in a huff aside, LJ really is losing traffic, probably because of Myspace et al, so I am kind of wondering about the future of the English-speaking portion of the site.

Finished reading this book, Kawabata’s last, and I think my primary reaction is to recommend one of his others. Not that this book wasn’t, as usual, beautifully written (well, as much as one can assert such a thing when reading the translation: the descriptions of the works of art, of the paintings and novels, are excellet), but the story was rather unsatisfyingly enigmatic. The story is such: a novelist in his fifties, a married man with a son and a daughter, on a whim, decides to visit his former mistress in Kyoto, who has since become a famed painter. The novelist started his affair with her when she was fifteen and he about thirty, and during their affair she became pregnant, but the baby was stillborn, after which they parted, and he wrote a famed novel about their relationship, which ironically became the basis of the prosperity of his family. His meeting with his former lover is anticlimactic. She takes a philosophical view of the circumstances, even though she has decided since then never to marry; her protegee (and lover) Keiko, an abstract painter, becomes obsessed with the thought of avenging her teacher, despite her teacher’s pleas to give up such an idea. Although some readers found Keiko fascinating, I think I was more irritated by her shocking statements and insane plans; perhaps this is because she vaguely reminded me of one of the sadistic fatal women in Tanizaki’s works, but less blindingly perverse. The novel is quite short, and the ending very sudden, and slightly unexpectedly so.

Apologies, this site was down for awhile while I tried to get everything working again. Things now seem to be mostly back to normal, although I need to go and reinstall some plugins.

BTW, I have uploaded an archive of the data to my backup site.

I forgot to write a summary for this gaiden. This is the first gaiden; however, most of the stories were covered in the anime, so I’ll only summarize the part that wasn’t animated.

Read the rest of this entry »

Second part of the Gaiden. (covering the third story). Thanks to everyone for your comments. I’m glad that we’re getting some discussion in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, it’s the Return (dramatic music) of the hideous charts! Er, looking at these charts will SPOIL you for all of the novels. So if you don’t like spoilers, don’t look at them.

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been some confusion here, so I’ll try to clear it up a bit. There are twelve Saiunkoku light novels and now, three Saiunkoku gaidens, so now fifteen books in all. “Gaiden” literally means “outside story,” and in the gaidens are side stories/short stories. Most have been serialized in The Beans magazine. The Saiunkoku manga, on the other hand, is up to two volumes right now, but I’m not summarizing it here since people are translating it anyway.

Anyway, in this gaiden, two of the stories have appeared in The Beans magazine before, and the other is new material. BTW, can someone tell me where the stuff in the anime about Shouka and his great-aunt appeared? Also, I think this is pretty much the moment where the anime and the novels are going to “diverge.” (Well, not so much diverge as the novel story is continuing, whereas the anime will, I am speculating, stop at volume twelve. As it is, the new material is too relevant to what is probably going to happen in the next volume, IMHO, for a reader of the novels to skip this gaiden).

Also, thanks to everyone for your comments! I will try to respond to the questions later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hurrah, I’ve gotten my hands on Saiunkoku gaiden 3. As a way of saying thanks to the people who comment in this blog, I’ve taken very LQ camera pics. Sorry for the extremely poor quality, but I just do not know how to take pictures of books very well at all, nor do I know how to do much more than crop and resize images. Obviously, these pics will contain spoilers!

Read the rest of this entry »