mi tu li pali ala #1048 - jan pali sin
Full transcript
Page 1
Panel 1:
A nerdy woman, jan Takata, is walking down a pathway.
Panel 2:
jan Takata: "n..."
Panel 3:
A second, more attractive, woman, named jan Sakulapa, speaks to jan Takata, shocking her.
jan Sakulapa: "jan Takata"
Panel 4:
jan Sakulapa: "toki a!"
jan Takata: "a... jan Sakulapa."
Panel 5:
jan Sakulapa: "sina seme? pali li pona ala pona tawa sina?"
Panel 6:
jan Takata: "pali... li ike..."
Panel 7:
jan Takata, continuing from earlier: "...tawa mi."
jan Sakulapa: "a? ike a!"
Panel 8:
jan Sakulapa: "ni la, mi ale o lukin pali pona"
Panel 9:
jan Sakulapa walks away from jan Takata, with a devilish grin on her face.
Panel 10:
jan Takata: "n..."
Panel 11:
jan Takata, hand on her stomach: "insa mi li pilin ike..."
Panel 12:
We cut to the outside of an office building.
Panel 13:
jan Osija, a businessman currently mentoring both jan Takata and Sakulapa, speaks while pointing at a piece of paper: "nanpa li lon lipu ni la..."
Panel 14:
jan Osija, continuing: "o sitelen e ona lon ni"
jan Sakulapa: "pona!"
Page 2
Panel 1:
jan Takata looks offscreen towards the direction of jan Osija. She delivers some narration.
Narration: "tenpo pini la..."
Panel 2:
Narration: "mi tu li kama lon kulupu suli ni"
Panel 3:
Narration: "jan Osija li pana e sona mute tawa mi, taso...
Panel 4:
Narration: "ona... li toki tawa jan Sakulapa taso"
jan Osija, to jan Sakulapa: "kin la..."
Panel 5:
Narration: "ona li toki wawa ala"
jan Osija, with little "kalama lili" SFX on the speech bubble: "kin la, sina o"
Narration: "mi ken ala kute e toki ona"
Panel 6:
jan Takata, thinking: "li ken ala lukin e lipu kin"
Panel 7:
jan Sakulapa looks over in jan Takata's direction, and seems to have an idea.
Panel 8:
jan Sakulapa scoots over to her right side, nudging jan Takata away from jan Osija.
jan Sakulapa: "a! mi sona!"
jan Takata: "a"
Panel 9:
jan Sakulapa: "mi wile pali e ni"
Panel 10:
jan Takata, thinking: "pilin mi la, ona wile e ni"
Panel 11:
The scene is focusing on two coworkers talking to each other.
Coworker A: "a... jan tu li ante mute lon sike ni"
Panel 12:
Coworker A: "pona la ike"
Coworker B: "ni"
Panel 13:
jan Takata is standing awkwardly.
jan Takata: "..."
Page 3
Panel 1:
jan Takata's supervisor is looking over at a computer, with a concentrated expression on his face.
Panel 2:
The supervisor looks up from his computer to jan Takata, who is standing in his office.
The supervisor: "lipu esun ni li seme, jan Takata."
Panel 3:
The supervisor: "lipu ni li ike mute. pakala mute li lon ni"
Panel 4:
jan Takata, looking glum: "mi... mi wile pona e ni"
Panel 5:
The supervisor: "o pona e ni lon suno ni"
jan Takata: "a"
Panel 6:
jan Takata: "taso... mi ken ala... mi sona ala pali ni"
Panel 7:
The supervisor stares menacingly. The SFX read "oko wawa".
Panel 8:
The supervisor: "ni la, o toki tawa jan Osija"
Panel 9:
jan Takata is approaching jan Osija, nervously. jan Osija is looking at her annoyed.
jan Takata: "jan Osija"
Panel 10:
jan Osija: "seme? sina sona ala pali ni kin?"
Panel 11:
jan Osija, with an even stronger annoyed expression: "mi pana e sona ni lon tenpo lili anu seme?"
Panel 12:
The panel shows jan Sakulapa showing the supervisor her work.
jan Osija: "jan Sakulapa ken pali ni pona"
Panel 13:
jan Takata looks down, sadly.
Page 4
Panel 1:
jan Osija, walking away: "pali ni li suli ala tawa sina la, sina o weka tan kulupu."
Panel 2:
jan Takata looks down miserably.
Panel 3:
jan Takata clutches her stomach, which has the SFX "pilin ike".
Panel 4:
The scene shows the same office building, but now it's darker.
Panel 5:
jan Malujama and his coworker are walking together, talking.
The coworker: "jan Malujama!"
Panel 6:
jan Malujama glowers at the coworker, which has the SFX "pakala".
Panel 7:
The coworker: "sina wile ala wile tawa tomo musi meli?"
jan Malujama: "ala"
Panel 8:
jan Malujama: "tenpo sin ala"
The coworker: "aaa! tan seme?"
Panel 9:
jan Malujama: "ni la, mi weka e sona mi lon tenpo ale"
The coworker: "ale li pona. pilin mi ja tawa ni li musi"
Panel 10:
The coworker pauses to look away from jan Malujama.
The coworker: "a"
Panel 11:
You see what the coworker is looking at. It's jan Takata.
The coworker: "jan pali sin li awen pali"
Panel 12:
jan Malujama looks over excitedly.
jan Malujama: "jan pali sin! jan Sakulapa!"
Panel 13:
jan Malujama: "a. ona li jan Takata"
Page 5
Panel 1:
The coworker: "mi kute e ni. ona li pali ike. lukin mi la ona li jan pi pilin ike. pona ala a!"
Panel 2:
jan Malujama: "..."
Panel 3:
jan Malujama, walking away: "mi tawa"
The coworker, shocked: "seme?"
Panel 4:
The coworker: "tomo musi li seme?"
jan Malujama: "mi awen tawa ala"
Panel 5:
jan Takata is working at the computer, miserably.
Panel 6:
A coffee is held out to her by someone out of view.
The out of view person: "o jo"
Panel 7:
The person holding the coffee is revealed to be jan Malujama.
jan Malujama: "telo wawa. o moku"
Panel 8:
jan Takata: "a! seme?"
Panel 9:
jan Takata: "nnn..."
jan Malujama: "jan Malujama"
Panel 10:
jan Malujama, sitting down: "mi open"
Panel 11:
jan Malujama looks over at the computer: "a. lipu esun?"
Panel 12:
jan Takata: "lon. mi sona ala ni"
Panel 13:
jan Malujama: "mi wile pana sona tawa sina. mi ken pini lon tenpo lili."
Panel 14:
jan Malujama: "sina kama sona e nasin ni la lipu ni li kama pali ike ala. lipu ni li pini insa"
Panel 15:
jan Takata, as per usual, looks gloomy and worried.
Panel 16:
jan Malujama: "sina kute ala kute?"
jan Takata: "a! kute!"
Page 6
Panel 1:
The panel focuses on the clock. It shows that it's around 10:10 PM.
jan Malujama: "a. ni li kama e tenpo pimeja"
Panel 2:
jan Malujama: "jan Takata o. sina sona ala sona?"
Panel 3:
jan Takata: "sona a! pona mute a!"
Panel 4:
jan Malujama gets up and stretches his shoulders.
jan Malujama: "pona la mi o tawa tomo"
jan Takata: "a"
Panel 5:
jan Takata: "jan Malujama"
jan Malujama: "n?"
Panel 6:
jan Takata: "ni la, jan ala li lawa sina. sina pana pona tawa mi tan seme?"
Panel 7:
jan Malujama: "n? tan seme?"
Panel 8:
jan Malujama, smiling with self satisfaction: "sina jan lili. sina ken ala lukin?"
Panel 9:
jan Malujama, with an evil grin: "mi wile kama e ni. sina jan pali anpa mi."
Panel 10:
jan Takata looks as though she doesn't understand the words that have just been said to her.
jan Takata: "...seme?"
Panel 11:
jan Malujama laughs devilishly.
jan Malujama: "ijo ante pi sona ala sina li lon la o toki tawa mi. sina kama sona e pali mi. mi wile e ni."
Panel 12:
jan Takata: "..."
Panel 13:
The scene shows jan Takata's house or apartment building from the outside. The angle only show the top of the building, enough to show that the scene has changed.
Panel 14:
jan Takata, in bed: "n... mi ken awen lon pali ni"
This chapter is the second chapter I've translated! (Here is the first.) This one has a whole different workflow. Previously, I would work on it in Affinity Photo 2, using sitelen pona toki pona fonts. The text in those would read from left to right, even though you'd read the panels in normal manga order. This would be a similar reading flow to reading manga translated in english, which isn't bad or anything. However, I found that reading sitelen pona in left to right on manga was harder and more confusing than reading english left to right in manga. Since I have pretty decent handwriting and have done some manga typesetting and lettering in the past, I thought it wouldn't be that hard to write all of it by hand.
So I did it! It kinda sucked to do it all by hand, but I've worked out a decent flow and it's still very pleasant and meditative. I'd estimate that handwriting 8 pages like this took about a week. Then I imported it into Affinity Photo to clean up layers and center the text in the speech bubbles, which took about a day. I asked someone in a toki pona discord to proofread it, and the proofreading and revising process took a few days, but then it was all done! It was a gargantuan amount of labor, but I think it was all worth it.
I have two main goals when doing this:
The first was to create a "most authentic" version of a manga translation for this manga. The scanlation group for Hatarakanai Futari, unko mans, does an exceptional job translating this manga into English. It's one of those manga scanlation jobs where you could just sell their work as a tankoban and it wouldn't look out of place. It's official quality. I'd feel like I was letting down the prestige of the group if I was releasing a lower quality translation than they were. Moreover, this level of quality is what I'd imagine an official sitelen pona translation would use. I don't think they'd handwrite it all, but I think there'd be a font that a hypothetical official translation would use that would look similar to what I'm using. Sitelen pona fonts are very limited and all assume that you're writing from left to right, so I have to do it all myself. I also think that working in the same direction as the Japanese raws makes it really easy to fit all the dialogue into the bubbles. I never really feel like I'm struggling to fit everything in, which was a frequent problem I had when working in english.
The second goal was to just get more attention on Hatarakanani Futari! This is my favorite manga, bar none. When I was reading it for the first time, I cried around every 15 minutes. It's a page a day manga, so chapters like this would be slowly dished out to you over the course of a week (I think). Many chapters are just a page or two, but these longer ones are super impactful, and I think the overall length of the manga really serves to get you to understand these characters in a way few other manga can. The length is an asset!
I have many more thoughts about this, but I'll save them for future blog posts. The long and short of this is that I would be happy if this project got more people to read this manga.
