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

Lollipop,  I feel terrible now, cuz I did not know you translated it as "gross," lol.   But hey, at least you did not use the word  "disgusting," which is MUCH worse.    I know that you are  Danish,  so perhaps you don't realize this, but for American and English people the word "disgusting"  is HIGHLY  offensive.  It's the equivalent of calling someone  a pig, or a scumbag.   

Now, for Season 2 GagaOOlala, translated "kimo" to be gross, but for Season 1 they used "disgusting" every time.   Which meant English speakers around the world were basically hearing Kiyoi calling Hira a scumbag.   No kidding, that's how strongly offensive it is to call another human being disgusting.    This is why so many English speaking viewers hated Kiyoi.   As I said, the word "gross" is not quite as negative.  But my fave translation was Viki's use of "creepy."    

I am curious,  do you think  Viki used the word  "creepy" because the context and intonation of "kimo"  meant "creepy"?  I know one of Viki's translators from MDL and she told me that 2-3 people will translate the original transcript, but then the translation is examined by teams composed of dozens of people.   She said their meetings sometimes have over 30-40 people.   And that they'll  edit a transcript dozens of times before it  airs.    She said that one of the original translators had used "gross" but that after a team meeting, the whole team voted and decided that "creepy" was idiomatically closer in context and intonation.   

But it's not just about kimo.   I also enjoyed that Viki translated the word "suki da" to be "I love you" while  GagaOOlala translated it as "I like you. "  I know that technically, "suki da" truly does mean "I like you" but that's only cuz Asians never say "I love you."   

It used to baffle me that Asian characters who were madly in love would say "I like you" instead of "I love you." For instance, in Gu Ha's big confession scene in  "Addicted" he merely said, "I like you."  I thought, wait, after all that Gu Ha doesn't even love Buy Lu Yin?  He merely likes him?  What the hell is that?   It was so baffling that I even asked my Chinese-American friend to listen to that scene to see if it was a mistake in the the translation.   She said, "Nope, that character truly did say 'like' not 'love'."

I was so bewildered that I finally started googling.   That was when I discovered  articles from professors in Linguistics and Asian Studies departments and learned that Asians almost never use the verb "to love."    In fact, one Linguistics Professor joked,   "There is no love in Asia!"  lol.   He said they don't use the phrase "I love you" but that's only because  when they say "I like you" it actually means the same thing as "I love you. "    

 Ever since then,  whenever I read  lovers  saying "I like you" in a subtitle, I just translate it to "I love you"  in my head.  I know, of course, that "I like you"  is technically a correct translation, so I don't judge the translators to be bad or anything (eg, Lollipop, if you translated it as "I like you" I totally get why).  It's just that I know now that the context is "love," not  "like" and thus go ahead and translate it in my head.  Yet the viewing experience is best when I do not even have to translate it in my head, because the show's translators will have already written it as, "I love you," in the 1st place.  For instance,  in Season 1, Ep 6, Viki had translated Hira saying "Kiyoi, suki da" as ,   "Kiyoi,  I love you."   Meanwhile,  GagaOOlala, translated it as "Kiyoi,  I like you."

It seems like a small thing, but I always notice this in Asian love stories.   For instance, the guys in the  C-BL, "Addicted,  the K-BL "Where Your Eyes Linger" and  the J-BL "Old Fashioned Cupcake"  all said "I like you,"  not "I love you."     Oddly,  it was a Viki translation of "Old Fashioned Cupcake"  that used "I like you."   Yet Viki translated the same phrase "suki da" to mean "I love you" in  "My Beautiful Man"  and "The Pornographer. "   In other words, Viki translated  "suki da" one way in some shows, and another way in other shows.    I guess it depends on who happens to be sitting on the committee of translators when they vote.

 Ever since I learned about the Asian like/love issue,  I am hyper aware of when it  shows up in dialogue.  How do you translate it?   Are you a literalist who uses "I like you?"  or do you use "I love you?"

Oh, the word disgusting is VERY hostile. Perhaps you, personally, don't mind it that much, but comments on MDL and Youtube were soooo angry about Kiyoi calling Hira disgusting.  It was that specific word that upset people the most -- because I read even more complaints about that word than when he kicked Hira.  

In fact, I had a convo with one girl who loved the show, but even she was upset by the word "disgusting." When I told  that Viki had  translated the word "kimo" to mean "creepy" instead of "disgusting," she said that she actually went back and increased her rating from from a 7 to a 9.   She also said she rewatched the show and this time mentally replaced "disgusting" with "creepy" and suddenly liked Kiyoi so much better.   And this was a girl who already liked the show!

As for like/love, I think it all comes down to context.  After all, the meaning is also about context for English speakers.  Consider how we use the verb "to love" in a romantic context, but will also use it non-romantically when we say things such as "I love ice cream" or "I love that movie."   We also sometimes use the verb "to like" in a romantic context rather than a platonic context.  Consider how somebody will say,  "Do you like him as a friend?  Or do you LIKE  him, like him?"   You know, when people repeat the word "like" to say,  "I like him, like him,"  they mean romantically, rather than platonically.  

So this stuff is heavily reliant and contingent on context.  Nevertheless, the Asians still use the verb "to love" far, far, far less than Westerners do.  So in this case, it's about more than context.   Indeed, Asians use the verb "to love" so rarely that Linguistic Professors and Asian Studies Professors even write academic papers about the topic.  You can find them if you google the academic website Java.  I have a membership with Java because I am an English Professor, but I am pretty sure it's free to non-professors too.  

At any rate, I read a number of articles on this topic from Linguistic professors and while I still do not why Asians avoid saying "I love you"  I did learn that people only say it to close family members (ie, familial love, rather than romantic love), or might never say it all.   Fascinating, right?   I never knew this until I began to watch Asian Cinema 2 years ago.   

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.  Now I feel like kind of a dope, lol.  Because I was totally clueless about this until I began watching Asian Cinema 2 years ago.  

Of course, I had seen Asian films prior to 2 years ago, but only Asian films that were released across the country theatrically, and subsequently appeared on Netflix and Amazon (ie, rather than on Kissasian, Viki, GagaOOlala, etc).  In other words, they were films that had contracted a professional translation company to do the subtitles. For instance, big hits like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Your Name Engraved Within," and Ang Lee's "Lust Caution." 

Those English subtitles were all done for a Western audience and, hence, they all translated the verb as "I love you."  Now, I had no idea back then that the Asian characters were, in fact, saying "I like you" instead of "I love you."    I only realized this 2 years ago when I began to watch Asian films that were translated by amateurs on GagaOOlala and by volunteers on Viki and Kissasian, etc.   That's  when I started to notice things like, as I said, Gu Ha being madly in love with Buy Lu Yin, yet merely saying "I like you."   And that's when I started to read academic articles on Java.   So all of this is new to me.   

When you said you already knew about this, was it because you have a special interest in Asian film and culture?  Or is this common knowledge to most people and I'm just a dope who somehow never knew about it before?  I'm a tad embarrassed now, lol.

 Ximmich:

The ORIGINAL JAPANESE UNCENSORED VERSION of the second audio drama is now available.

 Similarly with the first audio drama, it shouldn`t be shared publicly, so everyone who wants it, write me here, and i will DM you the link.

Could you please send to me the links?   please

 Ximmich:

The ORIGINAL JAPANESE UNCENSORED VERSION of the second audio drama is now available.

 Similarly with the first audio drama, it shouldn`t be shared publicly, so everyone who wants it, write me here, and i will DM you the link.

hello, could i have the link please? <3

 Maggi64:

I need to know if people enjoy the coupling of these kinds of "opposites attract."

It was interesting and I am interested in reading more. The opposites attract trope always works for me.

I love that show and know exactly the couple you mean. Now I can visualize them when I read it! It’s definitely an interesting dynamic. I’m surprised it hasn’t really been done before in a BL. Especially with the “bad” guy being the openly gay one. I like that reversal of the roles.