From the (e)Bookshelf: From the New World
Feb. 2nd, 2018 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerI've mentioned before the interest I've taken in the anime series "From the New World." It has a lot to do with the feeling there was fresh thought put in, and room for my own further thought, to its exploration of a particular idea science fiction has long included (although part of the novelty did have to do with my impression written science fiction backed away from "psychic powers" decades ago, perhaps not coincidentally around when a general credulousness for the idea crested and ebbed, to leave it for visual science fiction). Before the series had completed its first streaming run, though, I'd managed to hear this thoughtfulness had come not from the beginning of a manga or "light novel" series (or even from an "original production"), but from the adaptation of a serious and self-contained Japanese novel.
That did pique my curiosity, and the perhaps inevitable claims the novel included important things left out or was just "the original, and therefore better" might not have been the only thing making me wonder about ever having the chance to read it. Short of the challenges and rewards of learning another language, though, my sole hope was for someone else to translate the novel. I did get the idea buying the translated manga would show there could be some reward too in the riskier project of translating a long novel, but seven volumes of manga later (and a good number of complaints overheard how much more exploitative it was than the anime, even if I managed to roll with that at the cost of twinges of conscience) that now seemed a forlorn hope.
I suppose I put all of that behind me to appreciate the memories I did have, though, until one day I happened on a comment from someone whose science fiction reviews I more pass by every so often than regularly follow. While it was in the unfortunate context of the person having given up on the "From the New World" manga straight off, he'd managed to get past by finding a fan translation, and that did get my attention. I have some recollections of seeing intimations of fan translations in progress; the problem was that after a while it was easy to suppose they'd ground to a halt unfinished, enthusiasm worn down by sheer length. I could also remember having found some fan translations of "light novels" only to find them stilted to the point of unreadability, similar to but more daunting yet than the way some manga "scanlations" can be unwearying slogs even with the aid of their visual component.
With a bit of encouragement from the comments I'd seen, though, I went looking and turned up the translation myself. The translator's opening note was apologetic about their lack of fluency in Japanese, but it was clear enough right afterwards that some work had been done to make the now-in-English prose readable. It felt more or less like the professionally translated "light novels" I've read, and perhaps, as with the "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" series, the story being more interesting from the start and not threatening to run on without end made it that much more appealing.
The translator had used the particular translations for the story's made-up terms from one particular "fansub," which were different from the official translations I was familiar with and did take a bit of getting used to. As I worked my way into the novel's careful setup of the ambiguous means used to form a society where everyone had the potential to tear it apart with a thought, though, I did get to thinking the anime now seemed quite a close adaptation. That just seemed to brush up my impressed feelings remembered towards the anime, and in an odd way I did get to thinking it was a little bit impressive how the manga had rearranged things and gone off in its own distinctive direction.
I've already alluded to the exploitative slant the manga took on one of the more memorable ideas in the other versions of the story, namely that with the psychic powers to affect the outside world but no ability to "really understand others via close mental contact" (which could be the way most science fiction tilted its takes on the subject), sex was used as a social defuser with a particular emphasis on same-sex pairings in adolescence. The novel got more explicit than the anime could, but only at the points the series had brought it up, and both did include both kinds of pairing rather than the manga's blatant one-sided emphasis. I did notice, though, that the most noticeable explanation was just "it's a good way of avoiding teen pregnancies" rather than, perhaps, "this culture is far from repressed" (and, I'll admit, I did get to reflecting on how exclusive the pairings get and remembered thoughts I'd had before on how the adults didn't seem bothered by distracting urges in tense situations).
Just when I was approaching the end with thoughts of "one close adaptation and one however possibly amusingly skewed one," though, a crucial part of the novel's conclusion did avoid the impression that had hit me the first time I'd watched the anime that some things had worked out a little too neatly for the protagonist. Too, the novel included something I'd only noticed in the manga before, namely that the protagonist was leaving her record for her own far future not just with a private knowledge and uneasiness, but with the awareness consequences might hit everyone in just a few years.
One additional odd thought I did have was that if the translation could be taken as accurate, where both the anime and the manga had tried to create distinctive "both futuristic-looking and past-reminiscent costumes," the novel described the clothes of the characters in terms contemporary to us. Otherwise, although it might have taken a while to happen on, the luck of happening on the original form of a story I've taken a certain bit of interest in left me with a few more solid memories and thoughts I might yet manage to go back to either of its adaptations (even with the manga's less respectable reputation) with some new insights.
That did pique my curiosity, and the perhaps inevitable claims the novel included important things left out or was just "the original, and therefore better" might not have been the only thing making me wonder about ever having the chance to read it. Short of the challenges and rewards of learning another language, though, my sole hope was for someone else to translate the novel. I did get the idea buying the translated manga would show there could be some reward too in the riskier project of translating a long novel, but seven volumes of manga later (and a good number of complaints overheard how much more exploitative it was than the anime, even if I managed to roll with that at the cost of twinges of conscience) that now seemed a forlorn hope.
I suppose I put all of that behind me to appreciate the memories I did have, though, until one day I happened on a comment from someone whose science fiction reviews I more pass by every so often than regularly follow. While it was in the unfortunate context of the person having given up on the "From the New World" manga straight off, he'd managed to get past by finding a fan translation, and that did get my attention. I have some recollections of seeing intimations of fan translations in progress; the problem was that after a while it was easy to suppose they'd ground to a halt unfinished, enthusiasm worn down by sheer length. I could also remember having found some fan translations of "light novels" only to find them stilted to the point of unreadability, similar to but more daunting yet than the way some manga "scanlations" can be unwearying slogs even with the aid of their visual component.
With a bit of encouragement from the comments I'd seen, though, I went looking and turned up the translation myself. The translator's opening note was apologetic about their lack of fluency in Japanese, but it was clear enough right afterwards that some work had been done to make the now-in-English prose readable. It felt more or less like the professionally translated "light novels" I've read, and perhaps, as with the "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" series, the story being more interesting from the start and not threatening to run on without end made it that much more appealing.
The translator had used the particular translations for the story's made-up terms from one particular "fansub," which were different from the official translations I was familiar with and did take a bit of getting used to. As I worked my way into the novel's careful setup of the ambiguous means used to form a society where everyone had the potential to tear it apart with a thought, though, I did get to thinking the anime now seemed quite a close adaptation. That just seemed to brush up my impressed feelings remembered towards the anime, and in an odd way I did get to thinking it was a little bit impressive how the manga had rearranged things and gone off in its own distinctive direction.
I've already alluded to the exploitative slant the manga took on one of the more memorable ideas in the other versions of the story, namely that with the psychic powers to affect the outside world but no ability to "really understand others via close mental contact" (which could be the way most science fiction tilted its takes on the subject), sex was used as a social defuser with a particular emphasis on same-sex pairings in adolescence. The novel got more explicit than the anime could, but only at the points the series had brought it up, and both did include both kinds of pairing rather than the manga's blatant one-sided emphasis. I did notice, though, that the most noticeable explanation was just "it's a good way of avoiding teen pregnancies" rather than, perhaps, "this culture is far from repressed" (and, I'll admit, I did get to reflecting on how exclusive the pairings get and remembered thoughts I'd had before on how the adults didn't seem bothered by distracting urges in tense situations).
Just when I was approaching the end with thoughts of "one close adaptation and one however possibly amusingly skewed one," though, a crucial part of the novel's conclusion did avoid the impression that had hit me the first time I'd watched the anime that some things had worked out a little too neatly for the protagonist. Too, the novel included something I'd only noticed in the manga before, namely that the protagonist was leaving her record for her own far future not just with a private knowledge and uneasiness, but with the awareness consequences might hit everyone in just a few years.
One additional odd thought I did have was that if the translation could be taken as accurate, where both the anime and the manga had tried to create distinctive "both futuristic-looking and past-reminiscent costumes," the novel described the clothes of the characters in terms contemporary to us. Otherwise, although it might have taken a while to happen on, the luck of happening on the original form of a story I've taken a certain bit of interest in left me with a few more solid memories and thoughts I might yet manage to go back to either of its adaptations (even with the manga's less respectable reputation) with some new insights.