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Utsukushii Kare English Novel and Utsukushii kare/ Nikurashii kare audio dramas/CDs

girlfan62

So I read the translation from the Spanish transcript and wondered about the timeline in it versus the show. The translation has the conversation that opens the first episode of the second season as the morning after the first time they have sex. In the translation Kiyoi has been spending all his time at Hira’s place and mentions him showering there and having his toothbrush there too. He may even be sleeping there though that’s not explicitly stated. So he’s more or less living there when they have sex for the first time. When the second season starts, we see the same thing: their toothbrushes together, sleeping together. I took that to mean they’d been living together for a while already and it was just showing us their life together. However the dialogue in that first scene is the same as the translation which would make it the morning after their first time. So the timeline is off for me. How can Hira be in his last year of college when these events take place when they meet again in his first year? I can’t believe I’m dissecting this to such an extent, but it’s bugging me. Perhaps the novel doesn’t address how much time passes and the series is just moving ahead to set up for the movie which may cover more of their post college years. 

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lollipop

Girlfan, the timelines aren't the same. The entirety of Episode 1 of S2 is a sidestory in the first novel and supposed to be right when they've started dating.
In the book, Hira doesn't live alone at first. He lives with his parents at home, but when Kiyoi needs a place to rehearse, Hira offers his uncle and aunt's house, which is vacant at the time. Kiyoi does partially live with Hira for quite a long time before they put the official label on things, but season 1 also isn't completely following the novel. A lot of the scenes happen in different ways than they did in the novel. 

Don't expect the timelines to match up entirely! 

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girlfan62

Thanks for clarifying. I knew the timelines were different but it threw me that the dialogue in E 1 of season 2 was the same as in the novel  translation that I read. All that matters is that a long period of time passed before that scene in both the novel and the series. I can’t believe how much I care about this story, lol. 

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Ximmich

Girlfan, the timelines from the series and the novels are different. Because of the change that they made in the first season, that skipped  Kiyoi living with Hira for that period before the confession passed, it  has resulted on the characters living together in the second season. The second season  would have been unable to  adapt the story as it is the novel  from the start because of this part that was changed in teh season 1.  

What the series did was showing the characters living together at some point in time without showing exactly when it happened. At least in the beginning, because we found out that Hira is now in his four year of college, when is near to graduate. So basically the series has moved the timeline ahead with two years. 

Even through the timeline was changed, the production team has done their best to include some of the most memorable and touching scenes from the novel, so they will  still be included in the series, even if the timeline is changed. For me is no confusing at all.  I think for people who has read the novel, for things to be less confusing,  is best to either ignore the time skip that the series has or imagine a combination from the timeline of the novel and the series. In my case, i imagined my own timeline that makes sense. 

In my opinion, is very easily to ignore the changing of the timeline in the series  because the changes were done in a really clever way. One exemple is how they had  Hira and Kiyoi act more comfortable around each other in that first morning in which the characters wake up together at the beginning of ep 1, as if that morning is just one among many others. The way the characters interact suggest that they must have been dating for a while for them to act in the presence on the other as if is a natural way for them to do so.  

The changes made to the timeline is indeed because they wanted to cover more of the post-college years, because that is the time where the characters gets  the bigger character development. 

This change doesn`t makes that much of a difference in my opinion, because no matter how much time those two spend together, the changes they go through are really small, and are not reflected in big gestures, but the small changes in the mindset or subtle gestures. Their relationship doesn`t get stronger and the characters doesn`t change in a short time, is a continuous effort and learning along the way from the mistakes that they make, and this is what makes the novels so amazing. 

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angeliviki2022
 Maggi64:
Wow, you already knew about the whole like/love thing?  I guess you have been familiar with Asian film and Asian culture a lot longer than I have.

This was new to me when I started watching Japanese shows. I grew up in the Philippines, where we do differentiate like and love. Gusto kita means I like you, whereas Mahal kita means I love you. There's no confusing the meaning of either, and Mahal kita is not restricted to family. 

In Korean shows, they also seem to differentiate as far as I can tell, using saranghaeyo for love and  joahaeyo for like. Then, we come to Mandarin where Wǒ xǐhuān nǐ can be used for either I like you or I love you, and Wǒ ài nǐ means I love you.

To be newbie Asian show watcher (15 months) like me, it can be downright confusing. ;-)

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Maggi64

Sometimes the Koreans will use  saranghaeyo for love (eg, in "Mr. Heart"), but I hear  joahaeyo for like just as often (eg, in "Where Your Eyes Linger").  It found it odd that the boys in WYEL used "joahaeyo" w/the subs saying "I like you" when they clearly meant love. 

When it comes to Hira in MBM, wow, the context was ab-so-lutely love and not like, which is why I was so pleased that Viki had translated sukeda as "love" rather than "like."   GoogaOOlala, however, had Hira saying to Kiyoi, "I like you."  It felt so wrong for Hira to be saying something that mild after 6 eps of him obsessing after Kiyoi, lol.   At any rate, for MBM the best subs are Viki's and, of course, Lollipops.  

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girlfan62

Ximmich, that Is exactly how I saw the first scene the first episode of season 2 as well. That they were living together for a while already. It was just Hira saying the thing about being too persistent the day before that threw me as in the novel he was talking about the first time they had sex. I should have waited until this new season is over before going to read the translations. So for now I’ll just assume he was talking about another time they had sex. I imagine anytime Kiyoi gives Hira the go ahead, Hira would be extremely eager and overwhelming while having sex with Kiyoi, lol. Your comment about the changes in their relationship being shown in small gestures and interactions is so true. That’s part of what makes this series so special and different than any other BL I’ve seen and why I love it so much.

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girlfan62

Maggi 64, I have found it odd when like and love are used interchangeably in JBL’s too. Generally once you say you love someone, you don’t go back to saying like to describe your feeling for them going forward. Obviously people use like when talking about aspects or characteristics of the person they love, but I think it would be strange to switch back to I like you after you’ve “upgraded” to love already. They’re just not the same level of feeling. 

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Maggi64

The Koreans may alternate "love" and "like" but whenever you hear a character going back and forth between "love" and "like" in a Japanese BL it's a sign the subs are incorrect.  Because if you listen closely, the Japanese are always using the same word (sukeda), and it's only the subtitles that change to translate this word as either like or love.  At this point, I don't even bother with subs when it comes to the word "sukeda" in J-BLs.  As soon as I hear this word, I mentally translate it to be "love" in my head.  For instance, in Old Fashioned Cupcake, the subs had Togawa saying, "I like you to death" during his confession when he was crying.  But he was clearly saying "I love you to death."  I mean, how can you merely "like" someone when you follow it with the phrase "to death"?

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girlfan62

That is so true and funny. It would be extremely weird to say “I like you to death”. In OFC, I think the subtitles I saw said “I like you so much I could die” and then Nozue echoes that when he confesses to Togawa, but they’re grown men for gods sake! Of course they’d say love. I could see teenagers saying I like you to death but not in the case of Kiyoi and Hira. Both of their emotions are too intense and overwhelming to use the word like. 

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Maggi64

Togowa and Nozue were definitely saying the word "sukeda"  which means, in fact, they meant love.  I don't speak Japanese, but I am interested in linguistics so I read up on the like/love thing for Asians, and it's deeply reliant on not only context, but intonation.  Well, when Togawa said "sukeda" so intensely during his confession, and in the context of "so much I could die" he meant love.   Same for Hira at the end of ep 6 for MBM.  His intonation was intense.   Other times, it can mean "like."  So it's tricky.  God, Japanese must be very difficult to learn. 

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girlfan62

Yeah it must be hard just with all the characters let alone with the different meanings from intonation and context. 

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yeaka

Thank you for all your efforts rounding up and sharing resources, Ximmich! The new comments definitely help since those of us subbed to this thread get email alerts for them, and every time I get one I get optimistic for more delicious Kiyoi content, haha. Looking forward to that hint at more stuff soon! ;) (I see them posting untranslated promo clips on IG all the time but never know the context, so I know I'm missing a lot. That last one of Kiyoi in the drunk makeup--I assume--announcing the episode was especially adorable!) 

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Maggi64

I saw trailers for MBM Season 2 of the series, but not for the movie.   However, someone said a movie trailer is out.   I could not find it but if one of you has it, can you post it here?

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lollipop
 Maggi64:

I saw trailers for MBM Season 2 of the series, but not for the movie.   However, someone said a movie trailer is out.   I could not find it but if one of you has it, can you post it here?

Here's the first trailer: https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rp3v62JmZP1zvg06b.mp4

Every week new movie trailers are released at the end of the episodes, so it's at the end of episode 1 here https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/4786099801033728?bstar_from=bstar-web.homepage.recommend.all

and episode 2 here https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/4786180193913856

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