恋空 ー Koizora (Prologue, Pages 1 & 3)
Prologue
もしもあの日君に出会っていなければ
こんなに苦しくて
こんなに悲しくて
こんなに切なくて
こんなに涙が溢れるような想いはしなかったと思う。
けれど君に出会っていなければ
こんなに嬉しくて
こんなに優しくて
こんなに愛しくて
こんなに温かくて
こんなに幸せな気持ちを知ることもできなかったよ…。
涙こらえて私は今日も空を見上げる。
空を見上げる。
If I had not met you that day,
Such difficulty
Such sadness
Such pain,
Then I would not have experienced these feelings
But if I had not met you,
Such happiness
Such tenderness
Such loveliness
Such warmth,
I would never have known such feelings of happiness.
Pushing back the tears, I look up at the sky again today.
I look towards the sky.
Page 1
あ～！！超お腹減ったしっ♪♪」
待ちに待った昼休み。
美嘉はいつものように
机の上でお弁当を開く。
学校は面倒。
だけど同じクラスで仲良くなったｱﾔとﾕｶと一緒にお弁当を食べるのが唯一の楽しみなのだ。
━田原美嘉━
今年の4月高校に入学したばかりの高校一年生。
入学してからまだ
三ヶ月足らず。
仲良しで気の合う友達も出来て結構楽しく過ごしていた。
チビだし
バカだし
特別かわいいってわけでもないし
特技なんてないし
将来の夢なんてあるわけもない。
高校に入ってすぐに染めた明るい茶色のストレート髪。
ほんのりと淡いメイクがまだあまり馴染んでいない今日この頃。
中学校から平凡な生活を送ってきた。
普通に友達もいた。
普通に恋もした。
付き合った人数は三人。
多いのか少ないかなんてわからない。
だけど共通してるのは
どれも短期間で終わりを告げているということ。
本当の恋なんて知らない
知ってるのは遊びの恋
ただ一つだけ。
恋なんて
しなくてもいい。
そんな中…
君に出会った。
このまま平凡に終わるはずだった美嘉の人生は、君に出会ったことによって変わっていく…。
“Ah! I’m so hungry!”
We waited forever for the lunch break.
Like always, I, Mika, open my bento box on the desk.
School is a pain.
The only part of school I like is eating lunch, with my best friends Aya and Yuka, that I met in the same class.
-Mika Tahara-
I’m a freshman and I just entered high school this year in April.
It’s been a little less than three months since I enrolled, but I’ve managed to make some good friends and am enjoying my high school life.
I’m small
I’m dumb
I’m not special or cute.
I have no special skills.
I have no dreams for the future.
As soon as I entered high school I dyed my straight hair light brown.
I’m still not used to my light makeup these days.
Since middle school, I have lived an ordinary life
The usual friends
The usual romances
I have dated three people in total. I don’t know if that’s a lot or a little.
But what they all had in common was, they all ended quickly.
I don’t know real love.
The only kind of love I know is play love.
I do not need to fall in love.
In the midst of these feelings,
I met you.
My life, which was supposed to end as ordinary as it was, changed all because I met you.
Page 2 Not Translated
Page 3
三人はﾉｿﾞﾑの存在に気付かないフリをしながら、弁当を食べ続ける。
「あれ～無視？俺と友達になってよ♪番号交換しようぜ！」
あまりのしつこさに喉が渇き、
イライラしながら近くにある麦茶を手に取りごくんと一口飲み込む美嘉。
「えぇ～どうしよ。まぁいいよ！交換しよ♪」
沈黙の中、
突然言葉を発したのはｱﾔだ。
美嘉とﾕｶはギョッとした顔で目を合わせた。
ｱﾔが笑顔でﾉｿﾞﾑと
番号交換をしている。
信じ難い光景…。
ﾉｿﾞﾑが満足げに教室から出て行くのを確認し、
ｱﾔに問いただした。
「なんであんな軽そうな男に番号教えるの？？痛い目見るよ？！」
そんな美嘉の心配をよそにあっさりと答えるｱﾔ。
「だってあたしｲｹﾒﾝ大好きだからぁ！ウフッ♪」
ｱﾔは大人っぽくて綺麗な女の子。
スタイルがよくロングで少しウェーブがかった赤茶色の髪が特徴。
男運が悪く付き合う男は軽い感じの男ばかり…。
だから彼氏が出来ても、付き合ってすぐ別れての繰り返し。
「ｱﾔ、あんな男に本気になっちゃダメだよ。」
真面目な顔で心配するﾕｶに対し
ｱﾔは軽い返事をした。
「大丈夫だってぇ♪」
The three of us continue to eat our bento lunches while pretending not to notice the existence of Nozomu.
“What’s that…ignoring me? Become friends with me. Let’s exchange numbers!”
His insistence makes me thirsty, I pick up the barley tea near me and take a drink.
“Hmm... What should we do? Well, okay! Let’s exchange numbers♪”
In the silence, surprisingly, it was Aya who spoke.
Yuka and I, startled, looked at each other.
Aya smiles and exchanges numbers with Nozomu.
What an unbelievable sight!
After confirming that the satisfied Nozomu had left the room,
I questioned Aya.
“Why did you give your number to such a womanizer?
“You’ll get hurt!”
Aya quickly answers a worried Mika.
“Because I like hot guys, ha♪.”
Aya is a mature and beautiful girl.
Her prettiest feature is her long red-brown hair, which is often wavy.
She always picks the wrong guys, she has such bad luck with men.
Even if she gets a boyfriend, she ends up in a cycle of dating then quickly breaking up.
“Aya, you shouldn’t trust a guy like that”
Aya’s serious face, opposite to Yuka’s worried face, answered in an off-hand way “It’s all right”.
Translation rationale -
The main focus for the translation of these works was the naturalness of the translations. Since Koizora is a very colloquial story some of what was said didn't translate well literally and it was necessary to stray from the original to make the translation natural and understandable.
In the Japanese original Mika (the main character) speaks in third person as well as first person, however, in English, it was unnatural to have Mika changing between these two perspectives. Therefore, as the translator, I made a decision to keep almost the whole story in first person so the reader would not be confused about the narrative voice.
It was necessary to make decisions about which words to use to properly convey the feeling and imagery of the story. Such as changing “surprised” (in my first draft) to “startled”, which conveys a more negative feeling. It was also important to keep the language used colloquial, as this is supposed to be a high school girl speaking. For example, I changed “Since middle school, I have lived a rather ordinary life” to “Since middle school, I have lived an ordinary life”, while the change here is subtle it is important to the overall feeling of the story.
In terms of cultural grammar, in the Japanese original they talk about eating their “bento” lunches inside the classroom. One decision that was made was to keep the Japanese word bento instead of changing it to the English translation “boxed lunch”. This was decided because even if the English reader has no knowledge that this story is of Japanese origin, they will read the word bento and most likely be able to understand that this story is set in Japan, or at least not in the United States.