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REVIEW: Witch's Love at the End of the World GN 1




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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:56 pm Reply with quote
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the use of German in the text a little dicey, although the language appears to be very much a simple effort to seem “foreign,” as the hexenschule (witch school)'s cafeteria is labeled “mensa,” which is Latin for “table.”

Actually, "Mensa" is what high school and university cafeterias are called in German, and also in other languages where it's a German loanword (such as my first language where it's "menza"). So it fits with the German theme.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
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Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:02 pm Reply with quote
^ I stand corrected! Thank you. Smile Any German I can piece together comes from Yiddish (which I speak very imperfectly, and my family mostly uses a different dialect of it than the more Germanic one), so I appreciate knowing.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:24 am Reply with quote
It shouldn't be necessary to remind one's self that Japan was apart of the "Axis Nations" during WW2 and still to this day write, and teach their history as if they were the victims instead of the perpetrators so I'm not surprised at the anti-semitic feel to this story, because they still just don't get it. It's like the Trumpsters still in denial Trump lost the election.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2020 7:59 pm Reply with quote
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On the topic of not sitting comfortably, it is worth mentioning that there are a couple of elements here that gave me pause. The first is a very clear shot of a witch wearing a necklace with a Star of David on it, which could be brushed off as a mistake – no others appear in the volume – but its presence in the story coupled with the consistent use of the term “heresy” unfortunately makes this story's concept of witches harken back to the fact that many Renaissance descriptions of witches often used images coded as anti-Semitic. This, hopefully unintentionally, can also make the use of German in the text a little dicey, although the language appears to be very much a simple effort to seem “foreign,” as the hexenschule (witch school)'s cafeteria is labeled “mensa,” which is Latin for “table.” Intentional or not, however, it is an issue which may stand out to some readers, and as such merits mentioning.


Witches use the hexagram as well, it's basic geometry that is not exclusively a Jewish symbol.

The ending credits of the first Silent Mobius movie from 1990, another witchcraft-related production, featured a giant hexagram superimposed over the entire Tokyo Bay area.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2020 8:45 pm Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:

Witches use the hexagram as well, it's basic geometry that is not exclusively a Jewish symbol..


The hexagram is much, much more heavily associated with Judaism than witchcraft. Any occult usage/association is miniscule in comparison and I'd go far enough to say that to any layman reader outside of Japan is going to think of Judaism before witchcraft. The mix-up in manga/anime has more to do with general ignorance than anything else, and not an attempt invoke Kabbalah imagery.

Some manga reissues have gone back and altered the artwork for this specific reason.

http://4NN.cx/.146330
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shosakukan



Joined: 09 Jan 2014
Posts: 330
PostPosted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 11:32 am Reply with quote
SHD wrote:
Quote:
the use of German in the text a little dicey, although the language appears to be very much a simple effort to seem “foreign,” as the hexenschule (witch school)'s cafeteria is labeled “mensa,” which is Latin for “table.”

Actually, "Mensa" is what high school and university cafeterias are called in German, and also in other languages where it's a German loanword (such as my first language where it's "menza"). So it fits with the German theme.

A Japanese person who teaches the Japanese language at a school in Magyarország​ talks about menza in a blog article.

Pedagogist Ishikura Mizué has mentioned menza in a treatise on university dormitories in Československo.

I sometimes see Japanese Germanists mention Mensa in what they write in Japanese.
Since Dōgakusha's Apollon German-Japanese Dictionary includes the word 'Mensa' in its 1500 important words, the word 'Mensa' may be a piece of rudimentary knowledge for Japanese people who learnt the German language.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
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Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 11:50 am Reply with quote
Thank you, shosakukan, that's really interesting! I love learning things like that, and since my German is, as I said, limited (and I have no Hungarian at all besides recognizing the name in its own language), this is especially fascinating.
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