June 10, 2012

Marika's wham line

 Let's be clear; I like the translation: "If you want a fight, you've got one!"

But I have a suspicion that the translator took some liberties with that, and I find myself wondering just what Marika really said. Especially since it was the line they used for the calligraphy which is always at the end of each episode.

/images/05151.png

Listening to her, it sounds like she's saying "kono kenka, katawa".

With that and the calligraphy, I get this:

こ の
ケ ン カ
?? たわ

kono (this)
kenka (fight, brawl),
something ta wa.

It's not a topic wa; that's printed as は.

It could be kaatawa or kattawa. The first syllable sounds long to me. But I can't make any sense of it, using the dictionary, and I can't figure out what the kanji is from the calligraphy. I can't find a kanji that looks anything like that.

片端 katawa is a word; it means "crippled" or "deformed". (That's the one in Katawa Shoujo.) But that's not what she's saying.

æ–¹ kata means "method of" or "manner of" and if that was it, the whole thing could be read as "This is the way we fight." But it isn't; that's not the kanji they're using. (Besides, what is the "wa"? It sure as hell isn't a feminine softener!)

There isn't any word that begins kaata. There isn't any word that makes sense that begins katta.

So I'm totally stumped. What is it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Japanese at 01:09 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 244 words, total size 2 kb.

1 obviously 買った

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 10, 2012 01:13 PM (5OBKC)

2 I don't know if it's obvious, but yes, it's "katta". 
kenka wo uru (Sell a fight) means to pick a fight, and kenka wo kau (Buy a fight) means to accept a challenge to a fight.


Posted by: tellu541 at June 10, 2012 01:29 PM (q5Mzl)

3

katta is a conjugation of kau "to buy"? What verb tense is that? Imperative?

The trailing wa is an intensifier?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2012 01:35 PM (+rSRq)

4 Past tense.  And that's correct about wa.  

Posted by: tellu541 at June 10, 2012 01:42 PM (q5Mzl)

5 It was not quite obvious, but obviously I had my Kinsley moment, here.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 10, 2012 01:58 PM (5OBKC)

6 That boxed kanji in the lower right corner appears to be "dragon", which is the only one I know.

Posted by: at June 10, 2012 02:20 PM (L1IVj)

7 Usually in calligraphy, the box contains the signature of the calligrapher.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2012 02:49 PM (+rSRq)

8

For whatever it's worth, I added "If you want a fight, you've got one" to the TVTropes page yesterday, as a "wham line".

Because it sure rocked me back a bit when she said it.

The way nearly all the episodes seem to end on cliffhangers makes me think that this show will work particularly well when mainlined, in another month or so. A lot of the complaints from people that it moves slowly won't really apply when you can watch four or six (or eight or twenty) episodes in close succession.

As we watch it week-by-week, it makes every week seem long until I can watch the next episode.

I see from the ANN page that Sentai has licensed this. I wonder when it'll start coming out in North America?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2012 02:54 PM (+rSRq)

9

I just ordered the premium versions of all the remaining BDs. BD 4 just became available a couple of days ago. The others stretch out and the last one comes out in September.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2012 03:20 PM (+rSRq)

10 Are the BDs Japanese-only?  CDJapan doesn't have them listed with the "english subtitles" marker.

Posted by: Mikeski at June 10, 2012 08:50 PM (1bPWv)

11

Yeah, they're Japanese-only. I'm not getting them because they're really of much use to me. I'm getting them to encourage a sequel.

I've bought quite a few Japanese BDs now, and Dog Days was the only series to include English subtitles.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2012 09:17 PM (+rSRq)

12 Just in case you guys missed it, Omo received a signage by Tatsuo Sato at AX, in person, of course, and it has the same signature. URL: http://yfrog.com/nx2xrcbj

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at July 03, 2012 04:44 PM (5OBKC)

13

That's not surprising. The signatures are of the humans who did the calligraphy, not the characters who read the line in the show.

In at least one case I looked at, the line was Marika, and the calligraphy was signed by Mikako Komatsu, her seiyuu, who apparently also wrote it.

But it looks like Sato did most of them.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at July 03, 2012 04:51 PM (+rSRq)

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