So much for the Osanai route.

So, on the one hand, Otaku is so very clueless about what's going on that I just want to smack him upside the head. You'd think he'd have some inkling about things, but no, it's just "huh, I wonder what that was all about?" over and over.

On the other hand, Osanai is giving up a bit too easily for my liking. Sure, she started out at the beginning trying to set him up with Kinjyou, but let's face it; that relationship has barely accomplished anything. He doesn't do anything with Kinjyou other than be at the same location, stutter a bit, admire her in his head, and then nothing. The fall/catch thing from before the school festival was something, I guess, but it's a one-off that didn't really seem to go anywhere either in actually getting them to interact further.

I suppose Osanai is just that self-sacrificing, or maybe has some sort of hidden confidence issues, but without actually being shown it it just doesn't really fit for me.

He already got clues but still couldn't figure out the problem. Im not blaming him since it's his first time someone liked him, he maybe thought that a guy like him wouldn't even be on her league and tries to avoid misunderstanding things. That may be the result as to why he's dense.

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The amount of ellipses (...) used in the translation is, I think, a little excessive.

For the person translating this, I would advise against trying to equate the usage of triple dots in Japanese and English. There isn't reason to believe that writers in both languages use them the same way, or that readers interpret them same way, even if the Japanese borrowed the ellipsis directly from English. It's probably not true that ellipses represent pauses of the same length in both languages, or that English ellipses combine additively to produce a longer pause.

In English,, there is essentially no reason to ever have multiple ellipses in series. A person stuttering is typically represented with dashes, either alone or in conjunction with commas and ellipses. Usage of an ellipsis at the start of a word balloon is a little awkward, as "trailing on" (as the opposite of "trailing off") isn't something people normally do, and a pause is implied by the balloon break. In this case, moving them to the end of the previous balloon seems more natural. In most cases, an ellipsis should at least be followed by a space; the exceptions apply mostly when it is used in formal writing to represent material omitted from a direct quotation. Finally, remember that English has a diverse inventory of punctuation marks.

Keep up the good work.

Meat_balls said:

He already got clues but still couldn't figure out the problem. Im not blaming him since it's his first time someone liked him, he maybe thought that a guy like him wouldn't even on her league and tries to avoid misunderstanding things. That may be the result as to why he's dense.

Exactly my point.

The guys an Otaku his expectations goes along the lines of him crushing on someone not the other way around which is why his so damned focused on Kinjyou.

Said focus pretty much blinds him to some obvious signs of affection aimed at him which he will also have trouble noticing thanks to the whole Otaku thing as well.

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.

Let's hope for a good act three, folks.

Well, he's making progress; he's at least savvy enough that he's noticed SOMETHING is very wrong, even if he hasn't quite put it all together yet.

I'm more curious about Otomore and where she's going to fall in all of this, because she's mostly been unrelated to the other three heroines' stories so far...

LTalon said:
I'm more curious about Otomore and where she's going to fall in all of this, because she's mostly been unrelated to the other three heroines' stories so far...

The worst case is that she's completely ignored because Otaku forgets to even talk to her if she's not in his path.
Maybe something can happen if she comes to talk to him.

Arcana55 said:

For the person translating this, don't try to equalize Japanese usage of triple dots to English usage of ellipses (...). In general, Japanese is more liberal in its deployment, and a one-to-one matching will tend to produce English with an excessive amount of them. In particular, there is essentially no reason to ever have multiple ellipses in series. Also, a person stuttering (due to social ineptness or some other reason) is typically represented with dashes more so than ellipses. Finally, and this is more subjective, usage of an ellipsis at the start of a word balloon is awkward. Usually moving it to the end of the previous balloon if it has the same speaker is a better alternative.

Keep up the good work.

While I appreciate the suggestions (even if they were meant for the person who did the first translation today), I have to respectfully disagree. For one, I am a proponent of presenting translations as close to the original author's intent as possible, even if that includes "excessive" use of ellipses. Similarly, the use of multiple ellipses in a row does serve a purpose as it indicates the length of pauses between words/thoughts. I doubt everyone is like me, but when I read something, it is typically read aloud (in my head) in the character's voice. Thus, the pauses, and the length there-of, do serve a function for me. Where the pauses are located (i.e. moving them to another bubble) is along the same lines. Moving them chafes me.

On the topic of stuttering, I also defer to how it was originally written when translating. If the original used ellipses, I'll use ellipses. Using hyphens is typically reserved for closer instances or like today's picture where a word is cut off mid-utterance. Examples:

そ... そうですか... (I... Is that so...)
なっなんで? (W-Why?)
ちょっ...! (Wai-...!)

The use of "っ" is, admittedly, a Japanese colloquialism that is somewhat difficult to intimate in English, as it is typically used as a "sudden break" in speaking and I often have to take it on a case by case basis. Sometimes it's fine just to add an "h" somewhere, as this produces a similar "pause" sound in English; sometimes a hyphen is necessary; sometimes an exclamation point is the best for representing the sudden emphasis.

tl;dr thanks for the tips, but I personally think everything you said was subjective, rather than just that one point.