Utena Fansub Ep 17 Translation Notes

Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 17 Thorns Of Death.mkv

We’re back! Apologies for the hiatus, Christmas and Oshōgatsu had me too busy with family stuff to stick to my usual rate of translation.

This time, instead of general translation notes, I’d like to show my working! Where do I start with a tough line, and how to I end up on the translations I settle on?

いつも私を守ってくれた

For example, this is an interesting line, and the final translation is a bit out there if you look at it without seeing the thought process. The key word here is 守る, which is often translated as “protect”, so the lowest-hanging fruit for this line would be:

She always protected me.

But it sounds weird and conspicuously like “anime-english” which I always try desperately to avoid. So I tried this instead:

She always took care of me.

This translation gets the literal meaning across better, but it has a fatal flaw. The word 守る has strong connotations with masculinity in general and throughout the series, yet “taking care of” someone makes it sound too feminine. In this line, it’s important that Juri’s masculinity is emphasised and contrasted against Shiori’s femininity. So then I thought, maybe this:

She was always protective of me.

But this is no good either. The くれた in 守ってくれた makes it clear that Shiori views the care/protection that Juri provided as a positive thing, yet this translation comes across as slightly bitter. In English I think “being protective of someone” has the nuance of restricting one’s freedom, like an overbearing parent.

I felt like there were no good options for this line! Then it struck me like lightning:

She was my rock. (no orange because I didn’t use an equivalent word at all)

“Being someone’s rock” is such a masculine thing! It also carries these patriarchal notions of stability (masc) vs instability (fem), which I think the series tries quite hard to weave into the story as criticisms of patriarchal gender. Juri at least in part represents women who seek success not through liberation for all women, but by becoming a patriarchal dominator herself.

Not to mention, 守る is often depicted in RGU as being something that a man does to their female lover. The “my rock” translation also carries romantic connotations, which is obviously important for how the Shiori/Juri relationship is portrayed through the dialogue.

This translation departs from the literal meaning quite heavily, but it preserves the subtextual meaning much better, which I think is more important in this case.

あの動き、まるで先輩の剣だ。

The way she moves… it’s exactly like Juri. (my initial translation, which I didn’t use in the end)

The word 剣 means (literally) sword, but it can also be used metaphorically to refer to someone’s sword technique. Take this panel from Ranking of Kings:

それは王の剣じゃない！

That’s no way for a king to fight!

That’s not the “sword” of a king!

So the question is — how do you translate this when the swords are both literal AND metaphorical? When Utena says 剣 in this line, they’re talking about the technique (剣 as a metaphor). But the writers want us to make the connection that it is also literally Juri’s sword, pulled out of her heart, which in turn is a metaphor for her anger, insecurities, and angst. It’s a metaphor for swordsmanship, which is meant to be interpreted as literal through dramatic irony, which literal meaning is meant to be reinterpreted as a deeper metaphor. I love Utena.

If the swordfights can be interpreted as philosophical debates, the swords can be considered the worldview that each character wields. Since the Black Rose duellists don’t use their own swords, they could be said to be tapping into, stealing, and exploiting the worldviews/swords of their respective victims, represented by their literal ripping the sword out of the victim’s 心 (heart/mind).

With no word in English that can capture the metaphorical triple meaning of 剣, I had to settle for something else:

Those moves… it’s like she stole them from Juri. (no red because I didn’t use an equivalent word at all)

I think this phrasing gets across a similar feel that 剣 does. The base reading, and the one that the uninformed and naive Utena intends, is that Shiori is just imitating, “stealing”, Juri’s moves. The next level up is that she literally did steal something from Juri — the sword from her heart. Then the final level is that what she stole was not just a physical sword; she literally stole the metaphorical moves by stealing the sword, because the moves are the sword, the sword is the angst, the angst is the worldview!

Thank you to @dontbe-lasanya for your amazing edits as always!

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Rose divider taken from this post