Inuyasha - Manga Glossary

INUYASHA: SENGOKU O-TOGI ZOUSHI:
MANGA GLOSSARY & EXTRA READING NOTES

GLOSSARY MAIN || PEOPLE & PLACES || ATTACKS & WEAPONRY || OTHER MISC. ITEMS

Just a few sidenotes...

The purpose of this glossary is to provide a little bit of an explaination and definition for terms I prefer to leave untranslated in my Inuyasha translations. Plus a few random musings now and then...

Why Kuro will not make Inuyasha call Kagome "bitch."

Hehe, okay, this kinda of silly on my part, but I do it anyway. Oftentimes, there will be a translation where Inuyasha calls Kagome a bitch. Because Inuyasha is a "dog-demon," I've had people ask me "so isn't he actually calling her 'bitch,' as in 'female dog,' and wouldn't that be appropriate for him?"

My answer is, no, he's not calling her a "female dog" in the literal sense at all. He's saying "bitch," as in the insult. The Japanese word he uses is "temee," which doesn't exclusively mean bitch really, it's just a very rude pronoun for "you." Yes, "bitch" is a correct translation, but I just want to avoid confusion. :P

So... sometimes I just need to get creative and start substituting other colorful English profanities. If Inuyasha were a donkey youkai, I'd probably forego translating the word to "asshole."

Is Inuyasha's mouth really that bad? Does he swear that ****ing much?

Well, in a way, yes... Like many a manga character, Inuyasha's speech is very rude, direct, and considered profane. Now, I sometimes use the most harsh English language becasue it's the way I like it. Generally people do NOT speak the way he does in Japanese. It doesn't necessarily have to be as strong as I sometimes make it, so I take into account what's going on in the scene. For instance, I tend to get stronger language in fight scenes and soften it in other situations.

It's kinda hard to get the "feel" of the sentence right without the swear words. There is no word that technically translates into the adjective/adverb "fucking," for example (as in "that's fucking brilliant"). Actually, it's that the conjugation of the word implies a feeling of contempt.

"Nani o shiyagare, temee," for instance, means "What are you doing?" in a very nasty way (the polite way of saying it is "anata wa nani o suru?"). Therefore, I might choose to translate that to: "What the fuck are you doing, bastard?" Or I might even soften it into "What the hell are you doing?"

And you can bet Inuyasha uses language like that a bit.

What makes you decide which terms are translated into English, and which are left as untranslated concepts?

First I ponder over the word. Then I make offerings of Ramen to the Great Inuyasha God Shrine. And if Inuyasha says, "Thou shalt leave this word untranslated," I do. If he says, "Keh!" Then I translate it. ^_^ Just kidding.

Usually I'll leave names of attacks, people, and some other things untranslated. Like sankontessou, kazaana, and kitsune-bi. Not like I'll always KNOW what's what at first; sometimes I go back and think, "Crud, I SHOULD have left that untranslated and stuck it in the notes instead," but ah well.

Another thing is that if it's a concept that really doesn't translate into anything really good in English, I'll leave it. The Haku chapter is a good example, as are the words youkai, youki, jyaki, etc. Otherwise, if the Great Inuyasha God says so...

Other comments...

All in all, this is my own interpretation of Inuyasha. It helps ME understand the series better to do this for myself, and my intention was also to help a few of my friends understand it as well. In translating to English, I kinda use the language and feel that I like the most.

For those non-Japanese speakers who really would like to get the "full Inuyasha experience," I do suggest seeing the original Japanese language, in addition to a translation. If you know even some Japanese, it might help. Inuyasha has been interesting in that it uses many different forms of the Japanese language. Believe me, sometimes I find it a pain in the proverbial ass to massage things into anything coherent in English. And I sometimes still do. But I don't want to be as liberal as VIZ, yet I don't want to be textbook-literal. Either way, I hope this is just one resource you find helpful. :)

If you would like for me to transcribe one or two Inuyasha chapters for you, please contact me with a note on which chapters you would like. I won't necessarily be able to translate it for you, but I can certainly romanize the dialogue. Please only ask for a maximum of two chapters at a time. I will also not provide scans for the chapters that aren't already on the website.