Utena Fansub Ep 34 Translation Notes
Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 34 The Rose Signet.mkv
This episode is the episode that made me want to retranslate the series. Partly because it’s a really important and emotional episode, and partly because Christmas = Valentines day (I’ll get to it)
未（いま）だ語られざる、それは、薔薇物語ー！
The untold, untellable story… The Tale of the Rose!
Since this line is echoed later in a much more grim scene, it needed to sound alternately campy and shiver-inducingly dark, so that was my first requirement. On top of that, the Japanese is spoken in an old-timey/dramatic affect with いまだ being used instead of まだ or even いまだに, and the ざる negative form, so I felt I had a little creative licence to phrase it however I liked as long as it sounded dramatic, hence “untold, untellable”. They’re saying that the story still can’t be told, despite them ostensibly telling it right now. I think this phrasing is super interesting and probably implies that the story they tell is incomplete and wrapped in metaphor — they can’t tell this story directly. In fact, I believe the story Dios/TEofW tells baby Utena later in the episode is also incomplete and hints at the real story through metaphor. To go even further, Revolutionary Girl Utena, the show itself, is surreal, self-contradictory, and metaphorical! Perhaps this is a meta description of the show itself, and what message the show is trying to convey.
Princess: 助けてー！クリスマスイーブなのに一人なの、わたし！ Rose Prince: 大丈夫！僕がフランス料理の店を予約しておきましたから！
Princess: Help! It’s Valentine’s Day, yet I’m all alone! Rose Prince: Never fear! I’ve already reserved a table at a lovely French restaurant.
Despite it being a throwaway line and not particularly important to the plot, this was one of the lines that made me think “I need to retranslate Utena.” The original Japanese actually says “Christmas Eve”, but, and I will die on this hill, the closest English-speaking cultural equivalent of Japanese Christmas Eve is actually Valentine’s Day. Japanese Christmas Eve and anglosphere Christmas Eve are wildly different celebrations with very different cultural norms and expectations.
In Japan, Christmas (and Christmas Eve) is a PURELY commercial holiday. Only 2% of Japanese citizens are Christian, and I’d wager most Japanese people will not be able to tell you what the original celebration of Christmas is about. Despite this, Christmas decorations cover department stores, fast food outlets release Christmas specials, and every Japanese person knows who Santa is. In Japan, Christmas is purely a celebration of consumerism masquerading as a celebration of joy/love.
Christmas is not a family affair. That role is reserved for New Year’s, funnily enough. While anglophones are getting drunk and making out, adult Japanese children return to their hometowns to watch the New Year’s song contest with their families and eat a large traditional meal.
Instead, Christmas takes the role of a romantic holiday. There’s even a word, クリぼっち, short for クリスマスひとりぼっち (all alone on Christmas). It’s considered a sad thing to not have a date for Christmas, but having drinks with friends is the next most socially acceptable outcome — remind you of any western holidays? Consumerism under the facade of love! Pressure to have a romantic partner! Drinking with friends as the fallback! It’s Valentine’s day through and through!
それはまだ、世界中の女の子がお姫様だった頃のお話です。その頃、世界はまだ完全な闇に包まれていてませんでした。
This story begins long ago, when every girl in the whole world was a princess. A world that had not yet been engulfed by absolute darkness.
I’ve gone back and forth on this line a lot, but I’m pretty happy with the result. The key part here is the second sentence. On my second draft, I had a moment where I realised that the “darkness” being spoken about here is probably the same “darkness” from the song Absolute Destiny Apocalypse. There’s the “Darkness over Sodom” etc, etc, but there’s also a “darkness” or 闇 (yami) that I covered up in my translation because I didn’t think it would be that important. Here’s a quote from my translation notes of ep 2:
絶対運命黙示闇
Absolute destiny: Apocalypse!
Note the slight difference here in the japanese. 闇 means darkness, and 黙示闇 isn’t a real word, it’s just a combination of “Revelation” and “darkness”. The last kanji in the more common 黙示録 means “record” as in “the records of the Revelation”, the Book of Revelation. While the meaning doesn’t change much with the substitution of 闇, it makes the line feel a bit darker, a bit edgier, which made it feel appropriate to include the edgier classic name of the song here.
At the time I only saw it as a switch up for drama and edginess, but looking at this now, I think I realise what it all meant. The revelation, the apocalypse being sung about is the darkness that engulfed the world when the prince was sealed away. It’s seriously making me consider going back through every episode and retranslating the lyrics to
Absolute darkness: Apocalypse!
When I’m finished, I may do a final watch through of the whole series again and make some final touch ups, and this may be one of them. But for now I’m focused on this episode, and I really wanted to make the darkness connection more obvious. I originally was less subtle: “A world that had not yet seen the revelation of darkness”. But I decided against this — the obvious hint isn’t there in the Japanese, and it’s not my job to shill my own interpretations of the work. Aalthough it’s only a small hint, using the phrase “absolute” here hopefully provides enough for viewers to connect the two concepts.
That’s it for the translation notes, but I’d like to continue my analysis of this episode in a standalone essay which I’ll post later :) stay tuned!
As always, a big thanks to my editor, @dontbe-lasanya! I didn’t discuss it in the post, but the “Saving yourself for your prince” line was all theirs and it really improved that scene!
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Rose divider taken from this post.