Talk:千本桜 (Senbonzakura)/@comment-86.245.26.248-20181130200601/@comment-89.130.147.107-20181216015549

Hi Firingsniper,

Upon reading again my perivous comments, I think I might have come upon as too forcefull. for this I apologize. It wasn't my intention to convince you into changing some of your translations for mine, it is just that since some one which such a well argumented interpretation showed up I wanted to take the oportunity to challenge theirs in order to have more arguments in which to examine my own. it isn't that I am dissatisfied with your work, but that I wanted your arguments to help me re-examine my own.

now, there are some parts of your latest message which I strongly agree on while there are some other arguments that don't entirely convince me. if you don't mind, I would like to extent the discusion a bit further

I agree that a translator shouldn't push an interpretation into its work, even more so if it is a poem. translating a poem into its explanation takes part of the expirience away for the listener/reader (hence why I for instance kept "three thousands worlds" as such in my proposed lyrics). that been said, I disagree with you regarding the importance of context. Context is paramount because the meaning of words do change through time, for both the original and the translated language. take for instance the "white collar" you propose, first in japanese, for what I could research, Haikara have different inplications regarding on when it was being used, on early meiji it conveyed insult for trying to look western, on mid meiji it conveyed compliment for being western-like, on late meiji it just described the infatuation with the west as you put it, but nowadays while still mainly conveying the idea of westernization it is used as an era indicator that extents up to mid showa. hence why it is critical to contextualize miku (the narrator) inside the story, that sets whether the narration is pro, anti or just neutral regarding the subject matter. you were spot on when you said

"Lastly, your interpretation, while not entirely convincing, can be molded into a point that the first few verses are merely a concise summary of Japan's modernization"

thats because I see the first verses of the song as a narration of the transition between Bakufu to Showa. it states the modernization period (haikara kakumei) begins as "lets reject the shogunate" (​​​​hansen kokka) then "rise of nationalism" (Hinomarujirushi no nirinsha korogashi) then we are into wwii (ICBM). in this case Haikara is just used to set the timeframe not as a central theme

now, regarding the english "white collar", thanks to the debate we have had so far I can understand what you meant by it, however, that's just not what the word means for an english speaker. that term became popular in the 20 century as a reference to the elite staff that got to work in offices as oposed to factories or other kinds of manual labor, it was mostly used for managers, lawyers and such. for an english speaker, using the term implies talking about rich vs poor not about west vs east. nowadays the implication of the term remains even when it has become culturally outdated, thanks to the advent of computers most jobs in english speaking countries are indeed in offices even if low-pay and in plenty of companies they don't even enforce formal dressing anymore. in a couple decades people might not understaing where it came from without studding history. I think I can see how for a native japanese the term might be asociated with midle class since in japan a dress shirt with a tie is the normal working clothes for any corparate worker ragardless of wage. nonetheless, that asociation is just lost when translating. if you want to insist that the song has westernization as a theme, that's alright, while I don't agree, after reading your points I honestly believe there is a good chance you might be right, your case is compeling. but, if you write "white collar revolution" most people reading your translation will be confused, they would be thinking "is miku saying something happened and now everyone is an engineer, doctor or accountant?"