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minamikaze
Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 255
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 Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2024 1:10 pm
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| article author wrote: | | (Senpai is an Otokonoko, This is Him or literally, Senpai is a Boy) |
While it is unclear in Romaji or even the original Hiragana, in this case translating it as "Senpai is a Boy" is not really right.
男の子【おとこのこ】(otokono) does means boy, however 男の娘; おとこの娘 【おとこのこ】(otokono) means a young male with a feminine appearance (esp. one who cross-dresses and has a feminine gender expression).
Anyone who had seen the seen the show would likely understand that "Senpai is a Boy" is a somewhat problematic reading of "otokono". It would probably have been better to omit the "literal" translation of the title in this case. Especially, since in the show, ambiguity is a factor, it seems likely that the ambiguous use of otokono was intentional by the author.
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Beowulf47
Joined: 27 Sep 2023
Posts: 70
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Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2024 11:09 pm
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Seems interesting, will definitely keep my eyes on it.
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ChirashiD
Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 203
Location: WA
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Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 10:30 pm
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| minamikaze wrote: |
| article author wrote: | | (Senpai is an Otokonoko, This is Him or literally, Senpai is a Boy) |
While it is unclear in Romaji or even the original Hiragana, in this case translating it as "Senpai is a Boy" is not really right.
男の子【おとこのこ】(otokono) does means boy, however 男の娘; おとこの娘 【おとこのこ】(otokono) means a young male with a feminine appearance (esp. one who cross-dresses and has a feminine gender expression). |
Yes I can also confirm there is no clear translation to the title, as I pointed out in another thread. Basically when a word normally written in Japanese kanji 男の子 is written in hiragana instead おとこのこ it is meant to add a kind of ambiguity, sarcasm or supposition. So the title is suggesting something like "Senpai is not really a boy" or "I'm not sure whether Senpai is a boy." In the article I suggest just omitting "or literally, Senpai is a Boy."
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MFrontier
Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 14062
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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2024 11:15 pm
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I hope all three of them can be happy.
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ChirashiD
Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 203
Location: WA
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Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2024 9:06 am
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| Stinkabod Lamé wrote: | | The series is not ambiguous at all.... [ Moderation note: post removed. --F ] |
No, we are not referring to the ambiguity of Makoto's gender. Written Japanese, because of the different sets of characters (even kanji itself is divided into 2 or more subcategories), it enables you to add different nuances to words depending on which characters you write them with. One of the nuances is adding ambiguity, or more specifically sarcasm, by writing otokonoko (or many other Japanese words) in hiragana.
Whatever gender you interpret Makoto to be, the fact that the title is NOT 先輩は男の子 shows us the author wanted the viewer to initially be confused about it. You lose that effect if you simply translate the title to "Senpai is a Boy."
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