10 replies to this topic

[thesilvergunner]

This probably won't effect my reading pleasure, but does anybody else feel like The Black sheep's Crook as the name of the group aster belongs to sounds better than Black Bull's Rod? I find that, especially at the end of Chapter 5 that if they said "We are the Black Sheep" instead of "We are the Black Bulls" it would have made significantly more sense in english at least. Also the skull on the robes looks more like a sheep skull than a bull skull...

Edited by thesilvergunner, 10 April 2015 - 04:42 PM.

[klich]

yes i totally agree, also there is definitely something to be said for the idiom of a black sheep being out of place. 

Edited by klich, 11 April 2015 - 02:01 AM.

[vinceled]

This probably won't effect my reading pleasure, but does anybody else feel like The Black sheep's Crook as the name of the group aster belongs to sounds better than Black Bull's Rod? I find that, especially at the end of Chapter 5 that if they said "We are the Black Sheep" instead of "We are the Black Bulls" it would have made significantly more sense in english at least. Also the skull on the robes looks more like a sheep skull than a bull skull...

How can it look more like a sheep when sheeps don't even have horns?

[JackApostrophe]

How can it look more like a sheep when sheeps don't even have horns?

 

First, the plural of "sheep" is "sheep". Second, plenty of sheep do in fact have horns. Rams in particular tend to.

[klich]

Case and point.

seriously the cook is even a SHEEP for goodness sake, how can anyone say "black bulls rod" makes any sense?

A comparison if you will 

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Bohe5b47bnBnmBmF94taF3j8u_9xZSx4bRuy156CosI/edit?usp=sharing

Edited by klich, 12 April 2015 - 03:30 AM.

[Indekkusu]

黒の暴牛 

 

牛 = Cattle

 

羊 = Sheep

[berubetto]

However, 暴牛 = restive bull. If that idiom has negative connotations like "black sheep of the family" does in English, then Black Sheep's Crook might be a better translation. Does anyone know the full Japanese name of the group, including the crook/rod/staff/stick o'pokey guidance?

 

As for the skulls, my first impression was that it was a sheep's skull, but cattle have been modified by humans since they became domesticated with the process accelerating since science kicked in. Some cattle have broad faces, but some do not. Some have downward-pointing horns. See:

 

http://www.shutterstock.com/s/%22animal+skull%22/search.html?page=1&inline=125564159

 

BTW, I love the series! Thanks!

[klich]

ya i see how the skull could maybe seem slightly bovine from just a directionality of the horns stand point, but if you look at how they are bent inwards i think it tends to look more like a sheep. 

 

also has anyone else noticed all of the sheep themed things around the "black sheep's crook' like the cook who is a sheep or that sheep skull broom with the blank wool mane   

[berubetto]

Directionality: That's why the image I chose was one of a cow's skull that had downwardly, inwardly pointed horns.

 

Sheep-themed things: The sheep cook was made from the food-obsessed girl's cotton magic, who may or may not be influenced by the name of the group. If the kanji is indeed the one for bull, then the girl's choice of a sheep could been influenced by the word "cotton" since bulls aren't cottony and sheep are. The sheep-skull broom could also be a bull's skull. 

 

We're kinda conflating three issues in this thread, so let's separate them out.

(There are no actual spoilers below. It's just to cut down on the length for those who don't care about the analysis, only the result.)

Spoiler

 

1. In the mangaka's mind, is the group the Black Sheep or the Black Bull?

Evidence: The textual evidence according to Indekkusu is: 黒の暴牛, 牛 = Cattle, 羊 = Sheep. The skull is difficult to interpret objectively without input from the author. As evidence of this, neither cattle nor sheep have two widdle white things poking out the sides of their skull-cheeks nor a star on their skull-foreheads.   Artist modify things all the time, so the mangaka could have modified the down/inwardly pointing horns of a certain type of cow in a way that suggests a sheep to some people.

Result: Dunno, unless we ask the mangaka over Twitter or something. The text, though, is pretty strong evidence and the art evidence varies from weak to uncertain at this point.

 

2. In the English translation, what's the most practical translation?

My opinion: Sheep. At this point, sheep. Unless in the future a live black bull gets sacrificed to Yami in the manga, so that you can tell it is a black bull before it becomes a skeleton & skull.

 

3. In the English translation, what would have been the ideal translation?

Result A, where ideal=ideal in the professional world: Whatever the mangaka would choose when given the choice of two or more options and a good bilingual dictionary plus some pointers from the translator.

Result B, where ideal=abstractly ideal: Whatever would be the phrase that would have the same *impact* in English as the phrase 黒の暴牛 does in Japanese.

 

Ooo, this is the tricky part. As I said above, 暴牛 = restive bull. So the translation for 黒の暴牛(Kuro no Abarebushi) would actually be Black Restive Bull, *or even* Guilty Restive Bull. According to my dictionary, kuro can mean "guilt; guilty person" instead of /as well as "black" and "black go stone," go meaning the game, so the last doesn't apply here. Restive or Unmanageable certainly applies to the group and would in Japan be a negative trait. (See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=restive&allowed_in_frame=0for the word history of Restive.)

 

Black as a color in idioms often has negative connotations in English, too, with one of the notable exceptions being "in the black" as vs. "in the red." But because there are exceptions in English, Black by itself won't carry the connotations of Guilty and Restive; neither will Bull, especially together as Black Bull. (Bull by itself has negative connotations as in bull-headed or as a euphemism for bull...crap, but positive associations relating to power.)

 

However, English does have a black-animal idiom with negative connotations: Black Sheep, which easily carries connotations of negativity, standing out in a bad way, outsider status, unmanageability, and even can lead us to a presumption of guilt. So we can leave out Restive, which sounds odd in English, and still have the same impact as Kuro no Abarebushi with simply Black Sheep.

 

The bottom line is being correct is often about making a choice based on what evidence is available at the time you have to make that choice, and then being consistent thereafter in applying that choice. For example, some punctuation style guides would say I should have used a lot of quotation marks in this reply, but that would have made my hands hurt due to my illness, so I chose to use initial caps instead unless I felt quotes were needed to make things more clear.

 

We, here and now, don't know if the sheep cook was a conscious choice as part of a pattern *or* if it was a coincidence that got emphasized by the choices in the English translation. We just don't know. But depending on the goals of our discussion, we can pick a translation that fits those goals, and think that the sheep cook is kinda funny no matter what.

 

I hope this was interesting for, like, at least one person besides me. Heh.

Edited by berubetto, 19 April 2015 - 11:56 AM.

[ChiPsiUp]

Okay, am I missing something here? This is a raw image of one page from the second chapter.

 

http://goo.gl/JJikSP

 

The name of the group is 黒の暴牛 . 

 

There's no mention of a crook, or a rod at all, so I don't see how you get "Black Sheep's Crook" from there. 

 

And you can see the ofurigana next to the kanji in this page, and it isn't supposed to be read "Abarebushi". It's "bou gyu". 

暴 = meaning rampage, force, violence, or outburst.

牛 = meaning cow, or in this case bull. 

 

Now, JapanDict does have an entry for 暴牛 which says it means "restive bull" in English. That's that's not actually a word and it makes no sense in english. But if you look at the related entry for 暴れ牛, which is how you would actually write "abareushi", you would see a translated sample text, see here: http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E6%9A%B4%E3%82%8C%E7%89%9B

 

The sample sentence talks about mechanical bulls, and the clear context that 暴れ牛 means something like "a wild ox". 

 

So the more direct translation should be something like The Rampaging Black Bulls. 

 

If you want to get a little more creative and alliterative, go with Bucking Black Bulls. 

 

Sheep is right out. There's nothing in the original text that suggests sheep outside of their logo. And unless it's mentioned on the very next page there is absolutely never a single mention of "crook". 

[vinceled]

Just for information, the official translation by Viz uses "Black Bull" for the group name.