myriadleaves - Myriad of Leaves

The Mystic Tinderbox

Whilst researching for future posts, I was looking into the Andersen fairy-tale Fyrtøjet (The Tinderbox), which famously is about a soldier who fortuitously meets an old witch that offers him abundant riches if he is to help her retrieve a magical tinderbox that her

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Poems - The Moon

Here is another poem which was originally written a few years ago, but has since become part of a poem collection that I am working on. This was one was written in one go, I do not exactly recall the inspiration for it, but

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Poems - Coffee & Swing

Here are some short poems from my upcoming poem collection that I am working on, said poems were written between 2020 and 2021, and is still being written on. These in particular was after listening to some Billy Joel as well as reading Ginsberg,

DB in DK - Addendum - Shukan Idou

Son Gokuu's ability to instantly teleport from place to the other, provided that he can recognise a qi pattern that is there possess a rather simple if verbose name. 時間がなくてよ　教えてもらった技はひとつだけなんだ　そんでも　えれえ　苦労したんだけどさ瞬間移動ってやつが　できるようになったぜ！ Jikan ga nakuteyo oshiete moratta waa wa hitotsu

DB Addendum - Super Ultra Mega Saiya Jin

The Danish Dragon Ball translation by John Lysmand, has been covered in quite a few posts on this blog, albeit in Danish, though, this time, I would like to write one in English for a change, moreover concerning the nomenclature when it comes to

Hans the Clog-Head

In the place of another large project to take care of, I thought we'd take a look at some of Andersen's lesser known works and how they have been treated in translation. Hans Christian Andersen's shorter tale, Klods Hans ("Hans with the Clogs" named

Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1960 - 1980s

Thus we reach the final leg of our journey through the comparison of the various Japanese translations of Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, wherewith we now are covering those translations occurring during the 1960s and 1980s - meeting a person who we covered in

Piano the Pterodactyl Yes-Man

This being the first of April and an international day of pulling the proverbial appendage, I thought that we, however, ought for a moment pause for elegiacal thought for the fate of a fictional Yes-man of Japanese comic history, Piano of Dragon Ball, of

Princess Tamaeda

Whilst researching for upcoming projects in relation to the next work to compare and analyse, I came across various Japanese translations of Andersen's De Vilde Svaner ("The Wild Swans") - which involves a young princess by the name of Elisa, who must save her

Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1930 - 1940s

We now enter the pen-ultimate chapter in our grand tour of the translations of the fairy-tale, as we now enter two decades that feature two translators, Taketomo Boufuu and Oohata Suekichi, both experienced and famed handlers of translating literary works into Japanese at this

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Honorifics in Outer Space

Science fiction and fictional royalty are no strangers, with various planets adorned by exotic and varying degrees of pompous monarchies. When one addresses royalty, especially in fictional settings, you run the risk of insulting the Majesty and ending your days being fed to mutant

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Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1924 - 1929

Thus we enter a new decade of translations and a new round of analyses that either have the Emperor of the story be demoted to mere king or have him keep his empire. We thus acquaint ourselves with three new translations, this time by

Quick update - 06/03/21

A quick word of update to quell any worries there might be. I am currently researching for a bigger comparison project, and also taking care of IRL problems that have been occurring. The most recent research has been on the characteristics of speech of

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'Bout the Word Bloke

The word bloke is one of the quintessential British and to a point Australian terms. Its origins are placed in the murky waters of the underworld slang of 1860s England. Here it according to Green's Dictionary of Slang, most likely derived from the Dutch

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Of Dukes of Thunder and Flesh

This article was originally going to be about the pronoun kikou (貴公), but research led me to a much deeper topic, namely that of how one translates and even conversely render other titles from one language to the other. Today we shall be looking

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Clash of the Pocket Clerks

Wherein we learn that the economical mechanisms of RPG worlds concerning the trading, breeding and fighting of mutant animals seldom makes for logical pondering and that some clerks are more humble than others - and that the good writer of this blog is probably

Update 02/02/2021

Greetings! Once more it is time for a semi-weekly update of sorts (though by the current standard of things it seems to hover between various definitions of exactly and hebdomadally that seven days ought to constitute a week and not 8 or 10.). Work

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Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1910 - 1911

Closing off the tenth decade of the 1900s, we deal with not just two, but three translations, those by Wadagaki Kenzou (1910), Ueda Kazutoshi (1911) and Kondou Toshisaburou (1911). Their Majesties - The King, the Son of Heaven and the Emperor: You shall note

Mokujin's Back

The Man-o'-Wood-and-War with his visible kanji-etched back and with his version of Yoshimitsu's sword.The wooden training dummy Mokujin ("Wooden Person"), debuted in the second Tekken game, a Japanese fighting game franchise created by Namco (now Bandai Namco) in the mid-nineties. The character Mokujin

Update 24/01/21

The latest post in the series analysing The Emperor's New Clothes, has been updated to now contain all of the pertinent information that has been covered in the previous ones, namely dialogue choices, translation of nuances of character and terms. I shall proceed with

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Philomena cries at night

The Nightingale is a tale written by Andersen concerning the contrast between natural and artificial beauty, in the aspects of music, splendour and above all else life. The titular bird that sings before the Emperor of the story has various connotations in not just

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Velvet Swans

In Ueda's translation of The Nightingale, which I am currently going through for a future analysis, I encountered this interesting paragraph: 長い天鵞絨の幕と、厚い金欄とを懸けた、美々しい御寝所の中で、硬張って、色蒼ざめ、横はって居らせられただけなのだ。 Nagai biroudo no maku to, atsui kinran to wo kaketa, bibishii onshinjo no naka de, shachikowatte, iroaozame,

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Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1907 - 1908

After having analysed Watanabe and Takahashi's translations we shall proceed a decade forward (or so), and tackle those of Nagura Jirou (1907) and Kimura Shoshuu (1908), whose versions differ quite significantly and continue in the vein of Takahashi when it comes to applying distinct

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Emperor's New Clothes Comparison - 1888 - Part III

Note: I have omitted Watanabe's translation due to the difficulty in translating/transcribing it, and the fact that it ditches in most cases the nuances of line individualism in favour of a more direct if flattening out style of translation. I may revisit this

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Particles of Emphasis

In Japanese you can express emotional nuance or stress via emphasis particles that may equate to a vocal exclamation mark or emoticon. We shall in this short explanation look at the most commonly used. Ne (ね), Na (な) and No (の): This one is