Joshiraku 06 – notes and the like

This episode (too) was very, very punny.

Fixed a few typos in the openin…

The original is a poetic expression (句 ku) by Ozaki Housai: 咳をしても一人 (seki wo shite mo hitori). It means you know loneliness when you cough, but no one is there to say “bless you”.

Weeaboos will want to murder me for this line. How dare I translate the sacred みかん (mikan) as oranges and 炬燵 (kotatsu) as warm table?! (To be precise, the former is a kind of mandarin orange, the latter is a low table (as pictured) with a heater attached to its bottom.) What Kigu says (炬燵とみかん kotatsu to mikan) might be a reference to a song.

That’s Mario Cart for Wii.

The original is a pun on 五季 (goki), five seasons and ゴキブリ (gokiburi), roach. Japanese are very afraid of roaches.

I’m not even trolling.

Chinese mythology. Look it up if interested. They’re even in Digimon.

Pun on Bae Yong Joon (middle name pronounced in japanese as yon) and four (四 yon). We were fourced to change some puns. Also have you noticed all the “four” puns from befoure? The whole scene is about them. 四 can also be read as shi, and many ominous kanji have that reading too (for example death (死), which is why there’s “no fourth floor” in Japanese hospitals). Puns on the reading shi later:

  • Cinderella (シンデレラ shinderera)
  • shishamo (柳葉魚)
  • dumplings (小籠包 shouronpou)
  • sardine salad (白子和え shirasu-ae)

Chinese political reference. One of them was Mao’s wife (Madame Mao), Jiang Qing too.

四天王 (shitennou) originally referred to the Four Heavenly Kings in Buddhism, but since then it was used in a bunch of other contexts too.

Heart is one of a group of villains (the Kingsmen) from Fist of the North Star.

Other Elite Fours:

  • 徳川四天王 (Tokugawa shitennou): Sakai Tadatsugu, Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa and Ii Naomasa (who also happened to be the warlord or the area where I live now)
  • ラーメン四天王 (Ramen Shitennou): a real ramen restaurant chain
  • ものまね四天王 (Monomane Shitennou): a former tv show

Pokemon references in the script because that was what koda was first reminded of of shitennou.

Lupin the Third and Mine Fujiko.

In the Edo era peasants had to form five-man groups and pretty much spy on each other.

The original is a pun on ごろごろ (gorogoro), literally to “roll around”, in this context to slack, and 五 (go), five.

Umezu Kazuo. Image search and you’ll find out why.

Ishihara Shintarou, Tokyo’s mayor.

Though it’s a real manga magazine (group), it’s not the one running Joshiraku.

Touche.

④ …

起承転結 (kishoutenketsu), what I translated as intro, story, twist and punchline earlier. It’s an important rule in writing and rhetoric.

Her part, the punchline (結 ketsu) and ass (尻 ketsu) are homophones.

They’re all real stations and places, except for 築地銅だこ (tsuiji doudako) and すし五崎丸 (sushi gosakimaru) which are references to 築地銀だこ (tsuiji gindako) and すし三崎丸 (sushi misakimaru) respectively. 孤独のグルメ (kodoku no gurume) is a tv show’s name.

The really Japanese places (organizations, clubs, companies) really work like this. References in this scene:

  • うまい棒 (umai-bou), a real snack with lots of tastes
  • いちご新聞 (ichigo shinbun), a real magazine
  • ポテコ (poteko), chips rings
  • とんがりコーン (tongari koon), those conical snacks
  • アポロチョコ (aporo choko), the brown and pink sweets

Here I misheard よくわかるな (yoku wakaru na), “I’m impressed she can figure them out” as よくわからない (yoku wakaranai), “I don’t really get it.” I did ten bunny hops as punishment.

This line is mistimed. Marii is shouting this with a full mouth.

Torture devices: an iron maiden, a German chair, Kukuru is enjoying the Japanese torture 算盤責め (soroban-seme), Marii is riding a Spanish donkey and Kigu is hung. Gankyou is dressed as a true dominatrix.

Sour Party is a pun. The original is 見んなの党 (minna no tou), a pun on みんなの党, a real political party pronounced the same way. Except Gankyou’s has the kanji 見, which changes its meaning into “Not-Looking Party”.

For these positions you need to be 25 at least.

A reference to the AKB48 “elections”.

Jinguuji Kanade from the Best Student Council, Ritsuko Kübel Kettenkrad from Kujibiki Unbalance, Amamiya Manabi from Manabi Straight and Kurokami Medaka from Medaka Box.

Top right: Isono Namihei from Sazae-san. Top center: Maeda-kun, who you may remember from for example SZS (a real person, full name Maeda Kousaku). Bottom right: Usui Kagerou from SZS. Second from right in the bottom: Yamamoto Yasuhito, the head of the Tokyo Rinkai Hospital. Bottom center: Nishimiya Hidehiko, famous from the nuclear debate. Tell me if you know the rest (Gankyou doesn’t count).

This reminded me so much of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…

Former prime minister Hatoyama Yukio. He’s had a bunch of scandals to make fun of. For example: “at least out of the prefecture” is his famous statement regarding an American army base in Okinawa. He puns on it by changing 県外 (kengai, outside the prefecture) to 大気圏外 (taiki-kengai, outisde of the atmosphere).

I recognize the Predator and the alien from Star Wars who got famous again from the “It’s a trap!” meme. I’d swear I recognize the guy next to him as well (who has キバヤシ kibayashi) written on the poster, but I can’t remember where. Also I can’t be troubled to decode all those writings, though I’m pretty sure most of them are just deformed versions of hiragana and katakana. The frog is probably from Keroro Gunsou (ケロロ軍曹). Oh, Gankyou is there too. And the curtain that’s used at the end of the opening and the preview. There’s one that looks like an imperial Japanese flag too. If you recognize any others, please do tell me.

This is a horrible pun. Really. The 腹 in 腹案 (fukuan, plan, suggestion) means “stomach”, “belly”, and he literally has a suggestion on his stomach. The background music after this scene is the Blue Danube waltz.

売国奴 (baikokudo), literally “country selling bastard” means “traitor”, and she just changes the country (国) in it to 球 (sphere, in this case planet). It’s funny that she calls him a traitor considering he said he’s not from Earth.

高パルス化 (kou-parusu-ka), literally rising pulse. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean or refer to.

… and fixed a line in the ending too.

This entry was posted by Vale.

19 thoughts on “Joshiraku 06 – notes and the like

  1. A bit of trivia.
    Hatoyama Yukio here is voiced by Fujiwara Keiji, who also voiced him in The Legend of Koizumi OVA. In both of these shows he was from Venus.

  2. In the OP, you wrote misused the word ‘dice’. It should either be changed from “a dice” to ‘dice’, because ‘dice’ is plural, or it should be swapped out with ‘a die’, which is the singular form of ‘dice’.

  3. On the election posters, bottom row, the third figure from the right looks vaguely like Super Milk Chan. Suimasen Scans has stated that that bluish patch on Marii’s posterior is what is referred to as a Mongolian spot. The Suimasen Scan’s blog for the Joshiraku manga has done a lot of work on the various references in the 14 chapters of the manga they have translated so far. These references can be mainly found in the tab “Kumetan EN” (for English) and under the introductory paragraphs for each Joshiraku chapter on the blog.

  4. The background music after this scene is the Blue Danube waltz.

    From 2001: A Space Oddity of course, along with Thus Spake Zarathustra which was playing just before that. (I expect most everyone recognized them both.)

    Is tongari koon anything like Bugles?

  5. Yo, this is unrelated to Joshiraku (great job on that one, thanks a lot), but the guys over at Commie told me to talk to you and I don’t know where else to. In Hyouka 18, I believe you fucked up Oreki’s speech at the end. Behold, a comparison:
    Commie: If my hunch was right, we’d need to be careful. If something like that had happened, Ogi couldn’t just say he loved helicopters that easily. Unless he was really insensitive. It’s best to be careful with people like that.
    Mazui: And I’d need to be careful if it were true. Under circumstances like that, I can’t really just say “Ogi liked helicopters” and leave it at that. That would just be insensitive. That’s why I’d need to be careful.
    With what little Japanese I know, Mazui’s version sounds more correct and really, yours just doesn’t make much sense in contest. Does flow better, though. Anyway, check it out for yourself if you feel like it.

    • see, stuff like this happens when you translate a show you don’t care half-asleep in an environment not fit for translating.

  6. The scene where the power switch gets flipped by a gloved hand is a reference to Italian giallo films.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.