Red Data Girl - Series 1 & 2

The First Makeup - 24

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Red Data Girl: The First Makeup
By Noriko Ogiwara
A Translation

Notes on this week’s translation:

Oh boy, Noriko Ogiwara loves names that sound similar. I’ve always wondered if it’s a reference to how many Japanese historical figures have similar names, but I really don’t know. Anyway, in this piece, we have two characters with very similar names; Honoka and Hodaka. Honoka, aka Jean Honoka Kisaragi, is the current student government president. Hodaka is a new character. You’ll have to keep reading to find out who he is. ;)
I feel like it’s finally time to address how I’m handling Japanese name suffixes (-san, -chan, -kun, etc). If you’ve gotten this far in the translation, you already know I drop them unless there’s an easy and natural English translation. For example, Izumiko calls Yukimasa Sagara-san in the book and I translate this to Mr. Sagara. Japanese name suffixes are acceptable in manga translations these days because most readers are familiar with enough Japanese culture to know what they mean. I’ve never seen them in a novel translation though. (Drop me a comment with the name of the book if you’ve seen Japanese suffixes used in a novel translation. I’m curious.)
I’m interested in making this translation accessible to any reader whether they are familiar with Japanese culture and language or not. Therefore, I’ve chosen not to include the suffixes. It’s just my opinion as the translator, but it doesn’t feel natural to include them in an English translation.
The reason why I’m bringing this up now is because this week’s piece includes liberal use of everyone’s favorite suffix, senpai. However, you won’t find the word senpai in the translation you’re about to read. Honestly, it was a hard cut for me to make. You can translate senpai to “senior” or “upperclassman,” but we don’t go around calling each other that. As a result, translating the word as such would have been culturally awkward. My original draft of this week’s piece even had straight out, untranslated “senpai” in it because I didn’t know what to do with the word or sentiment it carries. But like I said, I want this translation to be accessible to everyone and using a Japanese word out of the blue in the middle of a fully English translation seems weird to me.
In the end, I decided to use the senpai’s name instead of an attempted translation and then be sure that the language used towards said senpai was polite.

Red Data Girl: The First Makeup
By Noriko Ogiwara
Chapter 4: Hodaka
Part 2 (2 of 2)

The next day, Izumiko and Mayura were walking down the hall after their elective class when a quiet voice suddenly called out to Izumiko.

“Izumiko,”

Turning around, Izumiko was surprised to see a short boy calling her name. An instant later though, she realized it was actually the student government president, Jean Honoka Kisaragi. Her voice was never loud. It was always gentle and feminine. Yet, she always wore the boys’ uniform. It was an incongruity unique to Honoka.

“President…”

Mayura had continued on ahead. Izumiko opened her mouth to call her back but Honoka stopped her.

“It’s fine. I wanted to talk with you, not Mayura.”

“Me?”

As Izumiko stood there, Mayura and the rest of the students grew further and further away. Honoka watched them go. Leaving Mayura like that made Izumiko feel as if she was avoiding her friend. She still hadn’t been able to ask Mayura her questions. It was all she could think about.

I wonder if I could tell her that I want to quit student government. It’s not like I’m useful there.

She couldn’t do any important jobs and she never felt fully connected to the group either. Izumiko would be surprised to hear if even one other member of the government besides Mayura thought she should be there.