Inuyasha - Translation Notes

INUYASHA: SENGOKU O-TOGI ZOUSHI:
TRANSLATION & READING NOTES

READING THE MANGA

The manga is scanned as it appears in the Japanese publication "Shonen Sunday. That is, it's read from right to left. I generally keep the words in the same places as they appear in the original.

PARDON MY JAPANESE...

First of all, obviously I'm not a professional translator. I've studied Japanese and translate this for my own enjoyment, so I just don't forget what I've learned. (Not that manga is a very good way of "studying the Japanese language" so to speak, it's fun to read...) That and I like continuing to read and learn more about the Japanese culture and language.

Anyway, I do take a few minor liberties in translating. I try to keep things as literal as possible while still trying to flow in natural English (ie. not quite "bookish") and build on character personalities. There are swear words where the language becomes so in the original Japanese version. I also find mistranlations and errors in my translating here and there. Plus there's almost always lines that bowl me over in regards to what they really mean...

This isn't perfect, but hopefully passable.

~ MS

CHAPTER 410 GLOSSARY & NOTES

Please refer to the Inuyasha General Glossary for recurring words that remain untranslated.

Congratulations, Tenseiga, I bequeath unto you the powers of... nifty-ness.

"MEIDOU-ZANGETSUHA " - (title) Talk about a mouthful, huh? Toutousai DID say a long time ago that he never was any good at making up names. Maybe he should have consulted Papa-sama again on this one, huh? This is literally the kanji that breaks into:

Meidou = path of darkness
Zangetsu = a moon that's visible in the dawn
Ha = Blast

Going by Toutousai's explaination, I'm going to go with the translations, "The Dark Path of Dawn's Moon Blast!!1"

PATH OF DARKNESS - (page 11, throughout chapter) I decided to go with the translation of the word with these early chapters. Toutousai says that Tenseiga now has the ability to cut open a meidou, or "a dark path." Which is a path to the the world of the dead, or a road to the abyss/void, or whatnot.

Space, the final attack. These are the attacks of the sword Tenseiga. Its mission, to seek out enemies and send them into the abyss. To boldly go where no life-healing sword has gone before!!!

THE REALM OF THE DEAD - (page 14) The term Toutousai uses here is meikai, which literally means "dark world," and is another word for the world of the dead. There's a lot of use of the words ano yo (literally 'that world,' describing the afterlife) kono yo (literally 'this world,' the world of the living) in this chapter. It seems that ano yo and meikai might be a bit interchangeable in this context, although... they probably imply different things. ^_^

And for the second time in recent chapters, Inuyasha and company were notably absent in this chapter. But given what happened, I guess I didn't mind... See ya next week!

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