Talk:千本桜 (Senbonzakura)/@comment-86.245.26.248-20181130200601/@comment-11501835-20181215121949

Hello again,

In regards to your comments, it seems I wasn't very clear on what I meant by the concept of a "standardized military". It's the concept of conscription, where even the common folk are trained as soldiers - compared to the period you mentioned (Sengoku Era) where only the few elite and prestigious were allowed to wield weapons. This change in the role of the military is what transformed its view as an honourable, prestigious and gifted role to a more dutiful, unified one. What I believe you are referencing to doesn't have a connotation of an "unified military", but rather an "unified empire" (think something like the Boshin War). It's important to distinguish the two because both have completely different significations. With this interpretation, it can be said that the whole line about the ICBMs - is merely an anachronism to signify brutal violence.

It is indeed true that taking references from the West was conducted through logical conclusion and while it did Japan a huge technological favour - it's not really about the economic/political aspects of the Restoration that "high collar" alludes to. It's more about culture - where the Japanese middle class adopt the Western ideals more than it has to - you can contrast this with "Americanization" today, for example. It has almost no militaristic connotations (you can reference this from Wikipedia)

We can go on about this forever, but please remember that we are not literary critics - it is not our right to propagate the significances in the song. When translating, I have to determine the limits of the implications words might have, hence why I referenced the meaning of "haikara" in Japanese, and chose what sounded the most similar in English. As I've explained - the word "white-collar" implies a modernizing middle class (with more skill and technology, that here is imported from the West) - "white" alludes to the West, and "collared" implies infatuation (bit of a stretch, but w/e).

What's important in the choosing of words isn't the setting or the message at all, as people seem to think. One might think "Oh? That's weird, why are guillotines, ICBMs, and high collars being mentioned in the same song?" - and that confusion, so long as it's present in the Japanese version, should be transferred over to the English version. To preserve its literal meaning, rhythm and vagueness all combined is what I've aimed at here. It's understandable that anything that's seemingly off is faulted to the translator (Because the listener cannot speak the two languages) - but, inherently translating isn't really a brainy task. Theoretically, all a translator does, is pick up the literary devices and nuances, double-check the meanings on dictionaries, and then phrase it in the same elegance as the original text. There's no independent thinking at all (If I phrase it pejoratively).

Freedom of interpretation isn't really given to translators, and there are limits to what is debatable and what is not - your first comment, saying that "high collar" alludes to militarization, is simply too narrow and false - there are dictionaries made by real masters of literature that determines a common point in interpretation. I'm sorry, but to my understanding the word "high collar" in English absolutely does not connote the aforementioned atmosphere, and there is no perfect equivalent. It's a compromise to use "white-collared", but an argumented one.

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. I can't be too confident about my own interpretation with you saying that. Nevertheless, even if we both agree on an interpretation, it will never mean that I will alter the translation in such a way that it will include implications that are supplemented from anything other than literary analysis - so that whatever poeticism the composer wished to propagate, will be open to interpretation the same way when translated - I hope this answered your dissatisfaction.