Release: Polyphonica trial edition

[gp32]

Our translation of the trial edition of the 2005 Kinetic Novel by Ocelot, Polyphonica: il mondo in Commedia maggiore e minore is now COMPLETE.

There are some among you who will recognize this title as our April Fool's joke from this year.

That joke ends only now.

Finally, this piece is notable in that it is one of the most complex pieces of writing that insani has translated to date. We'd like to believe that any translation of sufficiently complex Japanese writing -- be it by Suzumoto Yuuichi or Sakaki Ichiro or Nasu Kinoko -- would read something like this. Or perhaps you -- you to whom this friendly challenge is written -- will prove me wrong?

[vampiresaru]

thank you for another release! I'll have to try it out tonight ^_^

[Spiritsnare]

YES. THE REAL THING. And I'll gladly take the challenge. :D

edit What scares me about the download is that it still has the Red Shift icon...>.>

edit II However, don't let that stop you. This is indeed the real deal.

[Zephyrus]

Thanks for another release, downloading/reading it now!

[gp32]

Originally Posted by Spiritsnare

edit What scares me about the download is that it still has the Red Shift icon...>.>

edit II However, don't let that stop you. This is indeed the real deal.

Come, I wouldn't be that cruel, would I?

No, wait, I would ...

[Spiritsnare]

Being finished with the work, I would like to congratulate Insani on a job well done. Excellent localization - and as gp32 mentioned earlier, it is rather...verbose, if I may use the word?

Personally, I'm having one of those "I wish people actually bought planetarian so that insani would actually have a thought about localizing the full work" moods...x.x It appears to be quite promising, too.

[vampiresaru]

ahhh!!! it left me wanting to read the whole thing! ..... now I just need to get over the parroting stage of learning japanese ^_^



anyway thanks once again for the release, it was quite enjoyable

[gp32]

Originally Posted by Spiritsnare

... it is rather...verbose, if I may use the word?

There's verbosity, and then there's verbosity. There are some authors who are verbose without there being any point to it all, but I don't think that Sakaki Ichiro is one of them. The impression I get is that he's consciously using complex words and phrasings in order to say something about the world that he's built and the story that he's telling; you can certainly tell, for instance, just from the wording that this story is not set in modern reality. As for the quality of writing -- would you expect any less from the author of Scrapped Princess?

Originally Posted by Spiritsnare

Personally, I'm having one of those "I wish people actually bought planetarian so that insani would actually have a thought about localizing the full work" moods...x.x It appears to be quite promising, too.

Other than planetarian, this is the most acclaimed of the Kinetic Novels. It's a richer work, with many more characters, and -- believe it or not -- with higher production value. It's well worth the purchase, but, as you note here, I will not be supplying a full translation.

[Nephillim]

Congrats on having translated yet another piece!

I personally appreciate the style it was written (or translated?) in, with verbosity in the opening and the subsequent toning-down as the story moves on to the "present". The delivery feels oddly like Fate/ Stay Night-ish though...

I guess the demo does give you a nice sample of what to expect out of the story, but I feel it would have fufilled the role of a demo to a greater extent had it ended on a cliffhanger.

Originally Posted by Spiritsnare

Personally, I'm having one of those "I wish people actually bought planetarian so that insani would actually have a thought about localizing the full work" moods...x.x It appears to be quite promising, too.

Seconded. I guess I'll probably only get to this standard of reading comprehension after around 6 years of formal lessons ^^;

[l|ammamama]

Originally Posted by Nephillim

Seconded. I guess I'll probably only get to this standard of reading comprehension after around 6 years of formal lessons ^^;

That, or 3 or 4 years of self study =p

It's not all too hard really. Just think of what you've probably learned from anime (if you're a subtitle person). Granted, not all of it is exactly correct, but nonetheless, if you compare what you've just picked up, to what you can see on the list for the JLPT level 4, it's not much more work you'd have to do.

awesome release. but I probably won't go play it till a week or two later knowing me.

[gp32]

Originally Posted by Nephillim

I personally appreciate the style it was written (or translated?) in, with verbosity in the opening and the subsequent toning-down as the story moves on to the "present". The delivery feels oddly like Fate/ Stay Night-ish though...

Something interesting about the piece is that, upon startup, the reader is left looking at his first screenful of text -- a screenful that has more than one non-jouyou kanji in it. I've always thought that it was a kind of warning shot, proclaiming "if you can't read this, you might not enjoy this piece". Which is fine, except for the fact that, as you can see, the complexity of the piece quickly devolves into little above that of a standard school comedy.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather see more of that intelligent, dense writing from the beginning and less of the random fanservice and the tired old gags that you see in a thousand different light novels. As for the delivery, and its similarity to that of Fate/stay night ... well, can you fault an author for knowing his target audience?

I got a chance to read through this piece tonight. Nice work!

I thought it was interesting how the demo, with the exception of the collection of scenes at the end, almost stands alone as a complete story. I assume it's just the introduction to the full work?

Wish I could read the entire work... maybe in a few years.

I also wanted to say that the localization was typeset very nicely. The proportionally-spaced font is a lot easier to read, especially with the large blocks of text that appear in Polyphonica.

[ChocoEd]

Originally Posted by Roto

I also wanted to say that the localization was typeset very nicely. The proportionally-spaced font is a lot easier to read, especially with the large blocks of text that appear in Polyphonica.

Haeleth's to thank for that, since this game used the latest version of his rlBabel extension, which performed marvelously. Real italics, too... *swoon*