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Cyprene · 2012-08-09, 15:18

Hi there everybody. My name is Cyprene, and I'm the translator for Sengoku Collection. I hope you're all enjoying the show. When I was working on the latest episode, episode 19 "Vengeful Fangs-IS", it occured to me that parts of it might be difficult to follow for a western audience, especially one who's not familiar with the tropes its using. Some of you, I'm sure, understood it all, including the things that we couldn't really get across in the translation. For the rest of you, I'd like to give you some background information, along with a few other little notes that might be of interest.

Spoiler for Episode 19 Spoilers:

First, you've probably noticed by now that each episode of Sengoku is based off of a different source. We've had Michael Moore, David Lynch, Japanese women's prison flicks, French existentialist films, and a good dozen others. This time the source is Japanese "ero-guro" mysteries, which were a popular genre around the 20s (and one that remains popular to this day). They're exactly what the name implies: mystery stories with lots of naked girls, who usually get brutally hacked apart. Rich families with old mansions and dark secretes. Twist endings. So good times all around. If the plot is taken from a specific book, it's one I'm not familiar with, but it wouldn't surprise me. If you enjoyed this episode, a good book to check out might be "Summer of the Ubume", by Natsuhiko Kyougoku. Vertical has an English version available.

On to the episode itself. As you might've pieced together, the whole episode was a dream, where an amnesiac Akechi Mitsuhide is being forced to remember that she killed Oda Nobunaga. Who are these people? If you're watching episode 19 of a show called "Sengoku Collection" you probably already know this, but Oda Nobunaga was a powerful Japanese warlord in the mid-1500s. He (She?) came very close to conquering Japan, only to be betrayed and killed by Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnouji temple. The series starts with the incident at Honnouji, where Nobunaga falls into the burning temple. We know she made it out alive, since she's been going around and harrassing various historical figures for a season and a half, but Akechi doesn't, and evidently she feels pretty bad about it that she repressed it. At the end she finally remembers what happened.

As is typical for the genre it's coming from, there were a lot of little hints dropped. Since they all took the form of puns, I couldn't call attention to them with a note (Notwithstanding the fact that CR in general has a "no notes unless you REALLY need them" policy) without giving away the game. I saw one of the posters already mentioned one of them, but there were two others.
Hazama Okemi is a reference to the battle of Okehazama, a critical battle in Nobunaga's carreer.
The character of "Matsuko" is a reference to Matsunaga Hisahide, another of Nobunaga's retainers. The "spider" nickname is a reference to a particularly rare and famous teapot he owned, that Nobunaga coveted.
At one point we see the name of the murdered girl, Ayako, onscreen. Her name is written with the kanji for Ayameru (Kill) + Ko (Girl). So it literally just means "the girl who was murdered". Needless to say, this is not a real name.

I hope this clears up things for anybody who was confused, and I hope you all enjoyed the episode. We've got five episodes left, so we're almost to the end!

2012-08-09, 15:18	Link #273
Cyprene Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006	Hi there everybody. My name is Cyprene, and I'm the translator for Sengoku Collection. I hope you're all enjoying the show. When I was working on the latest episode, episode 19 "Vengeful Fangs-IS", it occured to me that parts of it might be difficult to follow for a western audience, especially one who's not familiar with the tropes its using. Some of you, I'm sure, understood it all, including the things that we couldn't really get across in the translation. For the rest of you, I'd like to give you some background information, along with a few other little notes that might be of interest. Spoiler for Episode 19 Spoilers: First, you've probably noticed by now that each episode of Sengoku is based off of a different source. We've had Michael Moore, David Lynch, Japanese women's prison flicks, French existentialist films, and a good dozen others. This time the source is Japanese "ero-guro" mysteries, which were a popular genre around the 20s (and one that remains popular to this day). They're exactly what the name implies: mystery stories with lots of naked girls, who usually get brutally hacked apart. Rich families with old mansions and dark secretes. Twist endings. So good times all around. If the plot is taken from a specific book, it's one I'm not familiar with, but it wouldn't surprise me. If you enjoyed this episode, a good book to check out might be "Summer of the Ubume", by Natsuhiko Kyougoku. Vertical has an English version available. On to the episode itself. As you might've pieced together, the whole episode was a dream, where an amnesiac Akechi Mitsuhide is being forced to remember that she killed Oda Nobunaga. Who are these people? If you're watching episode 19 of a show called "Sengoku Collection" you probably already know this, but Oda Nobunaga was a powerful Japanese warlord in the mid-1500s. He (She?) came very close to conquering Japan, only to be betrayed and killed by Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnouji temple. The series starts with the incident at Honnouji, where Nobunaga falls into the burning temple. We know she made it out alive, since she's been going around and harrassing various historical figures for a season and a half, but Akechi doesn't, and evidently she feels pretty bad about it that she repressed it. At the end she finally remembers what happened. As is typical for the genre it's coming from, there were a lot of little hints dropped. Since they all took the form of puns, I couldn't call attention to them with a note (Notwithstanding the fact that CR in general has a "no notes unless you REALLY need them" policy) without giving away the game. I saw one of the posters already mentioned one of them, but there were two others. Hazama Okemi is a reference to the battle of Okehazama, a critical battle in Nobunaga's carreer. The character of "Matsuko" is a reference to Matsunaga Hisahide, another of Nobunaga's retainers. The "spider" nickname is a reference to a particularly rare and famous teapot he owned, that Nobunaga coveted. At one point we see the name of the murdered girl, Ayako, onscreen. Her name is written with the kanji for Ayameru (Kill) + Ko (Girl). So it literally just means "the girl who was murdered". Needless to say, this is not a real name. I hope this clears up things for anybody who was confused, and I hope you all enjoyed the episode. We've got five episodes left, so we're almost to the end!