Guardian of the God
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God's Appearance
(Book 5 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)
Author: Uehashi Nahoko
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
End of Volume/Hiatus Bonuses
Yay for being done with another translation! *happy dance*
I usually take a week or so between books to recharge a bit, edit the PDF and offline files, do map and image-wrangling for the next book, etc. To make the wait more bearable, I've prepared a few little bonuses here. Hopefully this will help tide you over until Guardian of the God - Return from the Hard Journey starts its posting schedule.
Recipe for Saz/Chaz, the Yogo sweet jam cake Chagum loves: https://www.thespruceeats.com/manju-japanese-steamed-cake-with-sweet-red-bean-filling-2031082
Saz/Chaz
is not in the recipe book "Balsa's Table" and I find that unacceptable. I suspect it
isn't because, based on the drama, it's basically manju, which is available everywhere, even Asian markets in the USA. (Manju is my favorite of
the Japanese sweets, too--Chagum has good taste. Or a sugar addiction.) It could also be daifuku mochi, but based on both the size of the sweet and that it's described as cake-like, I lean toward manju. Manju's also pretty easy to make at home and fill with any sweet filling you'd like. (Mochi is not.)If you lack access to a steamer, baking manju under a shallow pan of water to create steam also works. I've done this baking in an oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes.
Image Gallery (with captions) for Guardian of the Spirit - PDF
PDF, Kindle and ePub refreshes for Traveler of the Void:
The map for the next volume is the same as the current map posted. The map for Traveler of the Blue Road is posted, so I'm working on the one for Guardian of Heaven and Earth.
I'll be re-posting the edited version of Traveler of the Void during hiatus as well. You'll know a chapter's been refreshed when it contains a link to the chapter that comes after it that isn't a "loose" link; that is, chapter titles will be hyperlinked instead of having the direct links listed next to the titles.
Two books down, but still lots and lots to go!
-Ainikki the Archivist
Aaaaaaah I'm so far behind. But, that means I'll never be like "oh no, there was a cliffhanger and I don't know what happens next", lol. Thank you for posting the illustrations that weren't in the Scholastic book (which I was so sad didn't have any illustrations at all!). Balsa is such a badass. :3 And congratulations on finishing another book! Applause! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMy eBook versions also have author's notes for Guardian of the Spirit and Guardian of the Darkness, so I'll be translating those at some point as well. :) I'll post the image gallery for Guardian of the Darkness when I finally complete Guardian of the God.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to break hiatus because I've already translated more than eighty pages(!) for Return from the Hard Journey, but Traveler of the Blue Road is in my future and I remember it being stylistically very tough. (The first part is almost all keigo, so translating it may be rough going. I'm not sure it will be--maybe I'll surprise myself--but I want to give myself plenty of time just in case. I'm also thinking of skipping or shortening my end-of-volume hiatus after Traveler of the Blue Road so you won't have to live with that ending for too long. :( We'll see how well I do.)
I'm glad you have a lot to read while I'm MIA for a bit...posting for Return from the Hard Journey doesn't start until 2/9. I might be mostly done translating it by then at this rate.
Ehhh, I know how Blue Road ends so I won't be surprised. (Besides, I know Chagum lives. XD) So don't mess with your schedule on my behalf. Besides, I'm way behind you so that hiatus may not matter where I'm concerned, LOL. Still blown away by your speed. Go go go! *shakes cheerleader pompoms*
ReplyDeleteI'm not so concerned with the what-happens bit at the end of Traveler of the Blue Road; it's just a gut-punch ending in a way that the others aren't. The first edition didn't even have an afterword or notes to soften the blow. It just...ends. (Later editions have notes that remark on this.) I really love how the drama tied Blue Road to the first book in Guardian of Heaven and Earth, but we have novel pacing to deal with, which means a whole book of Balsa searching desperately for Chagum, who she at least sort-of believes to be dead. (She never gives up hope, though, because that wouldn't be Balsa. :) )
ReplyDeleteRe: speed, the Guardian books were always going to be easier than the Traveler books because they're about 100 pages shorter and have little to no keigo, so aside from descriptions and history/anthropology it's all factory-standard Japanese. The world Chagum lives in is much more stiff and formal and antiquated. I'm also not as good at reading character voice/tone into keigo because the register obscures a lot of things about individual character voices. I'm used to how Chagum and Shuga talk, but the others are going to be challenging. (I can't wait until Chagum gets captured by the Talsh, because then the keigo will end. :) )
I had 10 hours of overtime last week (urgh) and still kept to my schedule, so the buffer time is effective...I suspect Blue Road will be the hardest to translate of the main series, though I've barely cracked the spine on "Where the Wind Takes Us" yet.
Hello, sorry for commenting 3 times in an hour on your posts but are you ever going to translate the cookbook?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to cook some of the stuff that Balsa and Chagum like!
Also, do you happen to know the real world origin of the character names for the protagonists? I think Balsa comes from a kind of tree but I'm not sure about Chagum?
I am translating the cookbook little by little, but it's very strangely written and I don't care for how the recipes are presented. I'm also testing all the ones I can before I codify the recipes so that I can give people more precise instructions. (It's written for people who already know how to cook pretty well. I can cook, but I wouldn't publish a recipe without telling people how long to cook potatoes before mashing them, for example.) I'm planning to have losso (Balsa's favorite food) and Tanda's mushroom stew ready for bonuses at the end of Traveler of the Blue Road, since I think some comfort food is appropriate there.
DeleteBalsa wood is a pretty common type of very soft wood; I built model airplanes with it when I was a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochroma
I always associated Tanda with music (since I'm a musician) but he might have been named after the Tanda Dam as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanda_Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanda_(milonga)
Chagum is a village in Pakistan. (Tanda Dam is also in Pakistan.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puran_Tehsil
Huh, I just assumed she made up the names, and that the similarity between Balsa the name and balsa wood was just coincidental. In the midst of my google-translating one of the names kept getting translated as "one-base hit", I can't remember which, which was amusing. Google also kept replacing Shuga with Sugar Sugar, which was ENDLESSLY entertaining. (And why not just "Sugar"?) But I had no idea that there's a village called Chagum, or a dam or a dance called Tanda. But I guess I've stolen names from the scientific names for various species and from rock formations, and I know other authors who've taken names from places or flowers, so I guess it makes sense.
DeleteYeah, I think she just liked the sound and picked similar-sounding names for other characters based on the main ones. XD
DeleteNever try to Google translate names (unless you want to laugh, that is...) from Japanese. There are roughly 700 kanji that are only used in names and have no intrinsic meaning, so Google might just try to translate the Chinese equivalent in that case. Sugar is "satou" in Japanese so obviously the katakana confusion is striking there (katakana is used to represent loan words from English and other languages. Shuga or shugaru would be how they would adapt sugar (since they don't have a final r capability built into the language). As for why it's repeated twice? I have no idea. Machine algorithms haven't captured the quirks of Japanese yet.
When you translate an entire blog, say, Google treats unfamiliar names as words, and yes, it results in hilarity. But once I figured out which name was being replaced by what.... LOL
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