Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 9 - Chapter Aft

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Afterword

Long time no see. It’s the author, Takehaya.

The publication of volume 9 marks our return to the main story. Thank you very much for purchasing it. In this volume, the strongest invader legend finally manifests and begins to invade Koutarou’s normal life. An unexpected problem arises for Ruth too. And with Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, everyone is starting to get antsy. Really, this volume is bursting at the seams. Ruth, who has mostly been in the background, even gets her turn in the spotlight.

While working on this volume, I had something on my mind. And that was regarding translation. As of writing this, there are two foreign versions of Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, a Taiwanese version and a Korean version. There’s been talk of a third one, but these were the two I was thinking of.

In Japanese, we can distinguish the characters based on how they refer to themselves. Here’s a list of how it generally works out.

Ore = Koutarou

Atashi = Sanae

Warawa = Theia

Watashi = Yurika

Waga = Kiriha

Watakushi = Ruth

Oira = The Haniwas

On top of this, the characters can be differentiated by what they’re saying and their tone. When it’s all taken together, dialogue tags to label the speaker aren’t necessary.

But a question popped into my mind the other day. How would this work in another language? Take English, for example. In English, all subjects refer to themselves as “I.” As a result, Sanae, the haniwas, and everyone else would all talk about themselves the same way. It would be impossible to distinguish them based on pronouns.

Moreover, there aren’t as many linguistic distinctions between genders and social groups as there are in Japanese. While that kind of thing could be conveyed through body language and such in person, it’s much harder to do with just words. I think that’s one of the reasons people speak using such colorful language in English novels.

But this isn’t about which language is superior. It’s just a difference in how we communicate. To someone who speaks English, Japanese must look like an incredibly inefficient language, trying to convey everything through words rather than using expressions and body language. Compared to Westerners, the Japanese have smaller eyes and flatter faces, so we’ve developed a language that didn’t rely on those things.

So how do the Taiwanese and Korean versions of this novel look? I’ve gotten copies as samples, but since I’m not very proficient in any foreign language, I can’t read either of them. But I’m sure there are lots of challenges like this in translation, so I imagine the translators have their work cut out for them in trying to figure out how to overcome that. So in conclusion, I’d like to tell all the translators that I’m very grateful for their hard work. I hope we can work together in the future as well.

This afterword is four pages (which I am sure will change depending on the translation—it’s a surprisingly tough job), so I’ll sign off here.

I would like to give my thanks to the editorial department that publishes this novel; to Poco-san who always manages to make amazing illustrations for the strange stories I write; my friends who take me drinking whenever I get stuck; and to all of you who bought this novel.