What on earth does 后天 mean? Did I get a kanji wrong? The closest to a meaning I can find is "The day after tomorrow" in Chinese... but that makes no sense. I'm thinking the third one is 本牛物 but that doesn't make much sense either.
my best guess at this point is that the middle is supposed to be 後天 (kouten) meaning 'learned, acquired, postnatal' this of course makes it the opposite of the left, 先天 (senten) meaning 'inborn, innate, inherent'
the main support for this argument is in the logical flow of the picture and the reading of 后 as kou there's some logic in it to think that Kyon is innately a girl (left) learns tomboy traits (middle) and becomes real Kyon (right)
my dictionary contains an entry for 天后 as meaning 天子, or 'son of heaven, emperor' but this really doesn't make sense
I can't figure that out either, not even sure how it is supposed to be read [Kisakiten, Kisakiamatsu, Kougoten, Kisaiten]. In any case, do not discard mistake on part of the artist either. For now, the closest we can get to a translation seems to be "queen heaven" =|
uhmm, based off on seabook's partial conclusions, "Kouten" might mean: "Point of intersection", "posteriority" or "changing for the better". Unfortunately, the kanji for those meanings differ from the ones used here. [Sorry double post]
Whichever you all use, whatever it is please do NOT use bablefish, it sucks big time! Bablefish is boblefash!
Plus, seabook's explanation is the most plausible. Also, see if anyone knows who dumped the kanji in, cos' like virgo pointed out, the kanji he's dumped in doesn't make much sense.
"Queen heaven" is a direct translation of the component Kanji, which is really not the way Japanese works, so it's a bad translsation. If the author had wanted "queen of heaven", he'd have used "后の天".
Also "后" is apparantly the simplified Chinese equivalent of "後" in the traditional (in addition to it's normal meanings), which explains why the only citations to the phrase I could find were in Mandarin. Japanese usually uses the traditional Kanji (being that the simplified system was only developed by mainland China 50 years ago).
I'd say seabook is perfectly right, since the dictionary gives "a postori, aquired" as the definition for "後天" which is a perfect antonym of the left (innate, inherited) , which it contrasts with.
It also explains why middle Kyon is so much more disturbed and embarrassed that the left Kyon. Left kyon was always a girl (innate), wheras the middle Kyon apparently used to be a guy. I'm gussing either Haruhi shoved him in a school uniform, or she used her subconscious magic god powers to make him so.
I'm still confused as to why the author decided to use 后天 in Japanese though. Perhaps because it was hand written, and 後 is moderately complex? I don't know.
The first two are both "Kyonko" so to speak. It's just that only the first one is natural, and fits the now-accepted model. The third is ordinary Kyon.
The direct translation for 先天 and 后天 are 'First Day' and 'Day After' respectively. I think it would roughly mean 'Before' and 'After' or 'First Draft' and ' Final/Next Draft'.
Unlike Japanese, Chinese Characters are used in more than one word (in a sense).
Jiubei said: The direct translation for 先天 and 后天 are 'First Day' and 'Day After' respectively.
I guess that makes sense if we imagine Kyon was turned into a girl and gradually reverted back to his original form over two days. Did the artist give any explanation on pixiv?
Unlike Japanese, Chinese Characters are used in more than one word (in a sense).
That sounds like you don't know Japanese. Or English. :/
LaC said: That sounds like you don't know Japanese. Or English. :/
Ｔｈａｔｓ ｗｈｙ Ｉsaid in a sense man -_-;; I ｃｏｕｌｄ ａｃｔｕａｌｌｙ ｅｘｐｌａｉｎ ｉｔ ｂｕｔ ｉｍ ｌａｚｙ． ｔｏ ｐｕｔ ｉｔ ｓｉｍｐｌｙ... Chinese character is nothing like kanji other than that the kanji having roughly the basic meaning for the character it looks like.
"darudere" seems to be a new term coined specifically to refer to Kyonko (a "new genre" as the blogs are calling it). The 'daru' portion derives from the adjective "darui" meaning dull or sluggish. I think it may refer to Kyon's cynicism in this sense. Some people have apparently been arguing that it should be "tsundaru" (tsuntsun and darudaru) but "darudere" appears to have won out.
