You might know me from my dōjinshi reviews at The Random Museum, which focuses on non - H and original (not fandom) works. What you might not know is that I am also a student of Japanese: I took classes at Uni but, nowadays, Google-sensei is my main teacher. Having recently approached the point where I can read fairly easily manga-style dialogue, I decided to confront myself with something slightly more challenging. So I thought, why not put together my two main interests, and translate some dōjinshi?
My translations will follow the same rules as my review site - no H and no derivative materials - with an added focus: I will be translating dōjin novels. There are various reasons for this decision: no scanning / retouching / etc hassles, the desire to distinguish myself from the bazillion scanlations sites already active, and a chance to make available in English a subset of dōjin material which is usually largely overlooked by Western japanophiles.
Keeping in line with my mission statement, my first project will be as obscure as it gets. Those who follow Japanese news might remember the murder of a 4 year old by a 12 year old in Nagasaki, back in July 2003 (just one, actually, of many high profile murders of youths by youths in Nagasaki since then). The incident made the rounds of online news sites, eventually landing on minor aggregator Today Best News. On the site's public forums, however, things quickly escalated when an anonymous girl affirmed to be obsessed with the Nagasaki murder, and that she was planning the killing of her own mother. The chilling question she posed to the forums' members was as following:
"Why shouldn't I kill?"
What followed was a Densha Otoko style chain of back and forth, where a number of people attempted to persuade the girl away from her grisly task, to which she followed with a rebuttal, and so on. Seemingly, the young lady was eventually won over by the forum goers' appeals, and gave up her plan.
なぜコロシてはイケナイの?, 'written' by 高橋健, is a supposedly faithful report of the forum exchange. It's written in a very interesting style too, which preserves the 'forum post' format of fairly short back-and-forths. Niche, I know, but an interesting read nonetheless, and very good Japanese practice as well - the style is fairly colloquial, and the syntax is usually not too convoluted.
So yes, enjoy. As a caveat, I of course do not ascribe to any schedule, and make no promises of any kind...
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