Zero no Tsukaima Novels Discussion Thread

[crimmy88]

Ah. Its too bad i cant understand or read japanese because i'd really like to help with the translation of the novel =(

I know!! Volume 8 is what i'm anticipating for cause of all drama i hear will happen in it. The other chapters are good but i'll die happy on the day i can read that volume.

same ehre! lol

[holyman282]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

All volumes are important, anime did change quite a few things in all of them, yes they totally screwed up volume 8 trying to put a whole book in 4 minute ending, but don't be willing to jump straight to it. even the volumes that had more attention from animes are different and quite interesting by themselves...

Plus we had one one discussion like that on B-T (skipping ahead) and it drove one of our translators (Momogan) away as when people are asking to skip it, makes it rather discouraging for some of the translations. Juts be patient.

Hopefully we will get more translators to increase speed.

By all means I'm opposed to skipping ahead myself. I'm those sort of obsessive guys that must read something from beginning to end without skipping any chapters and I reckon it's more enjoyable and productive that way. I always read the chapters in order and stop if there is a gap between chapters.

Just saying that when i finally read volume 8 i'll be grinning from head to toe. I can already imagine when all of volume 8 is translated, I'd be setting aside maybe an hour or 2 and settle down to be completely enthralled by volume 8 which I heard from summaries to be epic!

[crimmy88]

@holyman282 does that mean you stopped reading at vol. 2?

[crystalalien87]

^^^i did exactly what you did lol...i bet you are talking about chapter 5 huh? well if you look to your right of the chapter neame you will see the rest of it translated as the preview. I believe the preview is the actual chapter but with a speedy translation...i didnt really find anything different from it then the others...but the chapter everybody is waiting for is Volume 5 chapter 2 and 3 i believe...

[Deadwings]

I believe the preview is the actual chapter but with a speedy translation...

Then there's no danger i guess... I'm reading the novel but I'm a bit worried of missing something important if I read the prewiev versions.

PD: By the ways thanks to the tranlation team!

[holyman282]

The previews don't mean that they haven't been translated just that it's a rough translation. I still think that the preview translation is pretty decent. Yes crimmy i did stop at volume 2 when i thought that the previews weren't fully translated chapters but I started reading again when matt informed me that they were translated but just roughly.

which means that i'm basically up to volume 4 but stopped cause i'm not sure which previews are completely translated and which aren't.

[Darknemo2000]

Well, I actually even corrected some of the actual translators parts where i could see the mistakes. So no, preview translations does not skip anything.

In fact normal chinese translations are more likely to skip something because again the translators work with chinese raws that are translations of japanese ones and sometimes chinese raws skip sentences or words.

Since my previews come from Japanese raws I can guarantee that no sentence is skipped, however why it is still preview...Well because I still do use the MT and dictionaries a lot. I can translate simple sentences but with longer ones I still use MT (2 of them) and 8 dictionaries.

But all and all previews (well at least mine one's, the ones done by Matt were based only on online translation tools and were horrible, so I had to replace them) are as close to normal translations as you can get. And in some sense are likely to follow the story better because no sentences are skipped.

Mind you that volume 5 chapter 2 is not so important for you to wait for. It is about Tabitha and Kirche only while Saito Louise and others appear only in the very beginning and in the very ending of it and it does not have much importance to the plot.

So in a sense waiting for chapter 3 makes more sense than chapter 2 because chapter 2 is pretty much a side story.

holyman282, all of the previews are fully translated now. As I have replaced all Matt's translations (except for the very first which was corrected by Vaelis, and I only added few sentences that were mistranslated). So you can read up to 5 volume chapter 2 without any doubt. They are completed and finished.

Mind you that volume 4 is also considered one of the worst in ZnT novel series, not because of the plot but because of the way it is written. It is full of 'jumps' and character talks look kind of wooden (specially Montmorency's) but it is not the translators fault in this case. It is just Naboru was really terrible when writing it (I'm guessing he had a massive writers block and still needed to finish it on time so thats why such volume came into be).

[crimmy88]

=o thanks for doing the translation work Darknemo2000! i thought that username was familiar lol i didnt know you were one of the baka-tsuki translators @_@ anyway good luck with the rest of the series ('o')b

as for the novel.. i cant believe the anime didnt include..

Spoiler for Vol3 chapter2:

louise's kiss when saito was sleeping!

wtfux >=[

[crystalalien87]

ha.... he did the same thing as me lol^^^^ no need for a spoiler tag

[Fynal_Fyre]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Considering that three of the four void users have familiars already, the only one left is Tiffania.

Thanks for clearing that up, Serenade. ^^

But there is a reason I don't want her to be the last familiar, for one, I don't desire to see her thrown into the conflict that embroils Saito and Louise.

But then, also the fact that Siesta, Louise and Saito are linked (usually) in some way or another, it may be possible.

[Darknemo2000]

For those that are interested, the part 2 of chapter 3, volume 5 is finished. Meaning that 50 percent of thsi chapter is translated... This already make a two chapters of previous volumes, as the chapters in volume 5 are so huge.

[crimmy88]

thanks for the update Darknemo2000!

[_kira_]

thanks for the updates...

after reading it i kinda feel for henrieta she isnt the type to command armies and lead a nation, deep inside her the only thing she really wants is to live a quiet life with the person she likes...

but we cant all get what we want...

[Darknemo2000]

I don't know... Don't forget that the main reason Henrietta leads those armies is revenge and not some ideas of peace or friendship. She wants to kill everyone who got involved with that Wales incident.

She is far from a helpless girl, I think. She can be a rather bloodthirsty bitch at times too, and even if innocent people die for her vengeance and she cry a little but then do the same thing again if needed.

All and all I find Henrietta rather controversial character.

[crimmy88]

Hmmm.. I never really considered Henrietta's actions to be more because of revenge o_o I always thought it was because she didnt want Wales' death to be in vain

[Darknemo2000]

Well this is a quote from volume 5 chapter 3 when Henrietta talks with Agnes

"I won’t forgive anyone who were related to that night’s incident…Countries… People… Everyone. Yes."

I do not think that it sounds like she does that just for the saint memory of Wales. More like she just wants to have her revenge.

[crimmy88]

ahhh.. I think missed that line @_@ I tihnk I should read the whole chapter again. I read it half-asleep >_<

Sidenote: darnit! we're closing in on the Agnes volume. I hated that arc in the anime :\ I hope the volume changes my opinion of it o__o;;

[Darknemo2000]

Actually, I hated Agnes arc the most in both - anime and novels. In anime it was worser as it took the bigger half of the season centering of a rather side-story which ended up the main plot squeezing into a few episodes and eventually skipping the whole book 8. So no good memories from Agnes arc in anime...And in novels..It wasn't as focused as in anime.

Well at least it wasn't badly written like lets say most of Volume 4 is, it is just taht character Agnes is rather boring and annoying in my opinion.

[holyman282]

I reckon volume 4 wasn't all that bad, i mean sure it wasn't that interesting but it's not bad enough to call volume 4 the worst volume. I've just read all of volume 4 and some of the parts like Louise's jealousy were quite funny and entertaining.

Oh by the way dark are you guys like doing the volumes in order now instead of randomly doing a chapter you want to do? I see like a chapter of volume 7 place of courage stuck at 5% for ages.

[Darknemo2000]

You have to understand that we have many different translators (or had, since right now I am the only active as it seems) and some prefer skipping ahead "because it is more interesting". And the translator that you mentioned was one of those skippers. i never skipped chapters and always translated the next one I could (I do not translate volume 5 chapter 2 because I know that vertiful still plans to go back to translating sometime, besides the whole chapter isn't that important to the story one way or another).

So it is not like we are doing the volumes in order now, because again I always did volumes in order it is just that we have many translators and some of them prefer random jumps.

I was always against those random jumps by the way, but still translation even if it is of a random chapter is still better that none, right?

And again you are discussing the plot of volume 4. and as I said the plot was ok, the problem was how it was written. The sentences felt sometimes too choppy and short or sometimes too long, sometimes the meaning was very hard to trace and some dialogues (like Montmorency's) felt too forced, not really blending with a real character.

As for the plot and scenes - they were pretty nice, but the way it was written it was really one of the worst volumes in ZnT novels...