There's a page up now on TVTropes about our favorite recent series. As always, it's loaded with spoilers for those who haven't seen the series, but there isn't anything there I didn't already know after having watched 8 episodes.

There's something I was considering adding, but held off because I wanted to check with the more knowledgeable among you. It's this: the word "privateer" doesn't appear in the EDICT database. The Japanese word for pirate is kaizoku but there doesn't appear to be any word for privateer.

I'm guessing that historically they didn't do that. The concept is one they learned from the west, after the Meiji restoration when Letters of Marque had already been abolished in the west.

There doesn't appear to be any term for "Letter of Marque", either. What's getting translated into that phrase is something that means "license to plunder" or something to that effect. Unlike "Letter of Marque", which is a term of art in maritime law, the Japanese is just an informal phrase describing it.

When, in ep 6, Misa gives her history lesson to Chiaki and Marika, there's a point where Marika gets confused: "We're pirates, yet we aren't?" And I keep thinking, Of course not. You aren't pirates, you're privateers. There's a difference.

But if there isn't any Japanese word for "privateer", then her confusion becomes a lot more clear.

Am I offbase here?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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