Liner notes: Chapter Ten"Captured Girl" is the actual translation of this episode's title. In the NA commercial release, the title is changed to "Looking for Yui". Hmph. I guess they wanted to avoid spoilers... Tonikaku, if you noticed the novelization title was different than what you're used to seeing, that's why!
Quickie for the uninterested: Be and return unharmed. The "ite kure" here is actually two verbs used together. First is "ite", which is the -te form of "iru", meaning "to be" for animate objects. Now, This usage of the -te form is more advanced than you will find in most Japanese grammar books, for reasons of the verb after it. -Te followed by any form of either iku (to go) or kuru (to come), is consecutive in meaning. Whenever we have a -te verb followed by iku or kuru, first you do whatever the -te verb is, then you either iku or kuru. So in this example, we have "ite", which is the -te form of the aforementioned iku (to be). "Kure" is the commanding form of kuru, meaning "Come!" Remembering our pattern, we do the first verb: we be, then we do the second: we COME. So Hotohori is telling Miaka to be safe at this moment, and then come back safely too. ^^ Another example would be "Miaka, tabete kure," which would be "Miaka, eat and come back." ^^
Quickie: Oso = late, slow For some reason, Tamahome is not saying the final syllable here. He left off the the "i" that would normally come at the end of this word. "Osoi" means "late, slow". He might have dropped the final syllable because of the "sugiru" that follows, or it could be manspeech. :) Who knows?? We still can tell what he means, though, because remember Japanese adjectives are closely related to Japanese verbs. Like verbs, adjectives have basic stems that remain the same while the ending is changed to inflect the meaning. The stem of osoi is just "oso". Osoi is the regular adjective form, then we also have "osoku" as the adverb, or "osokatta" as past-tense adjective (IE: was slow) etc etc etc. And yes, I just said past-tense adjective. ^^ Don't worry, we'll get there!!
Quickie: was I have already mentioned informal past tense a few times, but and now you will learn how to form it yourself! Informal past tense is easy. Just take the -te form of a verb and change the final E to A. Yes, it's that simple! As our example here, iru (to be, animate objects) in -te form is "ite". Change the E to A and you get "ita", meaning "was". Jan!! As more exmples: informal past of taberu would be tabeta. Aruku would be aruita. Tatsu would be tatta. Informal past tense is everywhere in anime, be sure to listen for it. ^^
quickie: Yui...the first time I met Miaka, they were together! hajimete = -te form hajimeru (can begin, can start). I honestly do not know why Tama is
using the -te form here, but he is!
quickie: Watch Father and the others! The O particle marks the direct object, which is the thing the verb acts upon/affects. "Tanomu" is a verb that means "request, ask for". Literally, the line is "request (noun)". In usage, it is understood that the phrase means for the listener to look after/take care of the noun mentioned. A variation of this phrase is "(noun) onegai", which means the same thing. These are more common anime phrases. ^^
Quickie: waiting In Chapter 9, I introduced the -te kudasai form of Japanese verbs, which turns a verb into a polite request. I also mentioned that the -te form could be used for continuative meanings. This is one of those cases ^^ In formal Japanese, the -te form of a verb + imasu means ...ing. So taberu (to eat) in -te form is tabete, add imasu to the end and you get tabete imasu (eating). Compare: Watashi wa taberu (I eat). Watashi wa tabete imasu (I am eating.) Another example with the verb that brought you here is: Matsu (to wait), matte, Matte imasu (waiting). Watashi wa matsu (I wait.) Watashi wa matte imasu (I am waiting). The "imasu" ending above is actualy a verb itself. "Imasu" is "iru" (meaning "to be, is" for living things) in its more formal form. So the above phrases can be made more casual by using plain "iru" instead of "imasu": tabete iru, matte iru. Same meaning, the shorter form is just less polite. Now, if one thing is popular in Japan, it is abbreviations, and that includes their
grammar! You can shorten and slang-up the ...ing form even more! The extremely
casual/slang form of this ...ing verb combines the main verb (taberu and matsu in our
above examples) with the plain iru ending. Watch:
Forthe record, all three of these verb forms can be changed into the past tense. But I'll save that note for later! *wink*
In Japan, the most common names for cats are Tora (Tiger), Mike (pronounced "me-keh") and--of course--Tama (ball, sphere). Thus Nuriko's nickname for Tama-chan is more than just a cute, shorter version of his name! *giggles*
Quickie: Isn't it all right, dear? English and Japanese have an interesting colloquial quirk in common. In both languages, you can say something that is negative, yet actually mean the positive. Confused? Imagine a grandmother seeing a little girl all dressed up and rosy-cheeked, and saying, "Aww, isn't she adorable?" Technically, the sentence is negative, but the question mark and word order imply that the girl IS cute, and ask for agreement from the listener. Japanese does the exact same thing! This quirk had me confused for years until I finally sat down and thought about it. ^^ I also suspect this is a way to make a sentense less direct and thus more formal. An example of that is "Won't you come?" This negative-meaning-positive is another common occurence in anime and manga. Interestingly, translators ususally ignore negative-questioning aspect of these phrases and translate them as straight-forward positive statements. So very likely a professional translation of "Ii ja nai no, anata?" would be "It's okay, dear."
I am extremely sorry, I have no excuse, I sincerely appologize. This phrase is a very formal way of appologizing. It is only used to high ranking people or when you have truly done something horrid and want to make amends.
Quickie: ...if something happened to Miaka-- The moshi...tara construction is a conditional form. The important part is the -tara verb ending, which is actually -ra added onto the end of the informal past. The verb here, attara, is the informal past tense of "aru", to be. The "moshi" bit at the front is actually just emphasizing the "if" potential. So simply take what's between the "moshi" and the -tara verb and make it conditional. "Miaka of to something if-happened--" becomes "if something happened to Miaka--"
Quickie: Do not pursue, do not chase Remember from Chapter 9's notes, to make a Yodan verb negative, you conjugate it to the 1st base (ending in "a") and tag -nai on the end. "Owanai" is the negative form of the verb "ou", to pursue, to chase after. That mysterious "w" is quite easy to explain. Verbs that end in a vowel + u (such as "ou" here) have "wa" as their first base instead of a plain "a". The reason is pronunciation. It's a bit difficult to say "oanai", ne?
Smap is an insanely popular Japanese boy-band that has been around for a good decade. Think the Beatles, only in Japanese. ^^ Nakai-kun is obviously a member of Smap. Odds are that he's a real-life bishounen, too!! *wink*
It would have been grammatically correct for the guard's sentence to end with just "ugokanai", since that is a complete, proper verb. However, the guard is talking to his vastly superior officer (his Shogun, if you remember) thus he formalizes his words by adding "desu" to the end. The "nai" ending is an abrupt form, which one would not use to speak to their superiors. If the guard had said "ugokimasen", he would not need the "desu" at the end to make it more formal. "Ugokimasen" means the exact same thing as "ugokanai", only it is more formal.
Ohboy--time for another pun explanation!! ^^ "Kekkou" can mean two separate things. "Cancellation", or "good, fine, splendid". Both definitions work here! The Shogun DID cancel Chichiri's spell, and Chichiri admires the ease at which it was accomplished. Gotta love those puns!! This pun was not noted on my ancient FY fansub tape, and I don't remember it being mentioned in my official DVD set, either. This makes me wonder how many other subtle puns have been cracked that we might have missed!
This one isn't so much a note as an observation. I can't help but wonder...where are the Konan guards? All the soliders and guards in this scene are from Kutou. If Konan really IS threatened by Kutou, and this gate is on the border between the two countries, then shouldn't Konan have some soldiers there? Hello!!!!
I think it's hilarious that Miaka's certified oji-san tags "ja" at the end of his sentence here. A concluding "ja" is something only done by elderly people--at least in anime. ^^
Liner Notes for Chapter Ten completed 12-2-04. Last tweaked 12-12-04 |
