Finally, thank you for the typo reports. We're in the midst of doing final wordsmithing and translation checks, so we'll be sure get them fixed while we do that.

I'm verifying the translation as a whole one last time, and I personally think that I've improved a lot since I started, so some sentences might change in this round of edits, but thank you again for pointing out those typos, we'll verify if they're still there!

You guys are doing an amazing job here, so this is the least I can do! Maybe because I'm a slow reader, I just tend to notice this stuff while reading as normal.

It's also neat to see the subtle mismatch between what we're told in the prologue, what Eda says, and what Terra guesses about Circ history. Eda is either lying about Magiri, or she doesn't know, and I'm sure the next novels will get around to that.

Yeah! I meant to say that it's odd that Eda says Magiri never came down after her.

It was also funny (and a little scary) that Eda implied that the squids attacked the tracker's vessel because she ordered them to. And the way she talked about the previously crashed ships made it sound like she only bothered to save the decompas? Though it looked like she also wanted to confirm that Diode as a Twister meant no harm to Terra, so it's not clear if Eda hates Twisters or men.

Actually, the way chapter 11 ended up working out reminds me of how in the webtoon Her Tale of Shim Chong (spoilers for Series: Her Tale of Shim Chong) the goddess of the sea took mercy on Shim Chong and her Lady. If I had a nickel for every yuri tale in an ultra-patriarchal dystopia where this happened, I'd have two nickles, etc.

Other than that, I'm already working on volume 2, and things will get quite intense from now on, so it's a shame how we won't be seeing those moments in drawn form. Honestly, same with the whole Eda and Magiri deal, I really like their tragic romance.

I really enjoy the kinks and twists in the forbidden history of the Circs. The part that can give the renegade fishing pair some hope for the future is that Eda and Magiri were both women who played key roles in establishing humanity on the planet, and even were free to be a couple. But in a way it was their relationship that ended up causing Magiri to give up on her leadership after losing Eda to the planet's depths. They were just normal, flawed people, but due to the near total erasure of the past by the natalist regime, by the time Diode and Terra can learn about them, it's as little more than a sort of feminist legend, an allegory. It's only by a stroke of incredible luck that Terra could meet the real Eda face to face.

Rock and Linia are such an interesting pair! I wish we'd gotten a little more of them, I feel like using an abandoned weather facility as a(n implied lesbian) hangout was the most punk thing in the album. I hope they're still able to have fun operating the instrumentation in the observatory.

I just wonder if they plan to leave FBB behind at some point because a whole life in that small weather station sounds a bit depressing. Though I guess both of them might just be the kind of introverts that don't mind the isolation.

And the way she talked about the previously crashed ships made it sound like she only bothered to save the decompas? Though it looked like she also wanted to confirm that Diode as a Twister meant no harm to Terra, so it's not clear if Eda hates Twisters or men.

I have a different read based on Eda's desription of Iron Ball and the living clay and her own and the decompa's relationship to them. She is 'synced' with iron ball's consciousness and, through the clay, so are the decompas. A decompa in trouble in atmosphere may be noticed by her otherwise slumbering consciousness, whereas a twister would not under normal circumstances. Don't forget that during the incident, Kanna also tried to sync her consciousness with the clay to shape the ship. It didn't go well for her, but it was probably that act of desperation that let her be perceived by Eda and Iron Ball and subsequently rescued. Other twisters were not likely to have attempted the same during their incidents. Eda was able to connect and communicate with Terra during the incident, while Kanna remained unconscious and Eda had to ask Terra about her, despite her seeming to have a deeper insight into Terra's mind and past without asking. "What did they teach you in school?" etc. Without that connection through Iron Ball's consciousness that the decompas have, yer average human is probably only perceived by them through the effects of their actions. A crashing ship with a dying pilot is invisible, while a decompa in emotional crisis is a screaming alarm beacon in the sea of clouds.

last edited at Apr 26, 2025 10:20AM

A crashing ship with a dying pilot is invisible, while a decompa in emotional crisis is a screaming alarm beacon in the sea of clouds.

That was my impression as well. It's not that Eda/Iron Ball are ignoring the twisters, it's that they're not in a state to synchronize with it. She's aware that twisters and decompas often fall as a pair because she is able to talk to the decompas, but the twisters are still more or less invisible.

I like how this setup is a commentary on the bioessentialism of "men are rational and use language; women are irrational and use emotion." The setting signals that this really is a social construct - the first human (besides Eda) to decompress was actually Papa Henri back in the prologue, but over time it's become a social role that the Circs justify as having a biological basis. It seems like their mechanism to preserve social stability despite the economic necessity of decompression (and transformative thinking it involves)... make men a closed book to decompression, force women into the role, and then control them with patriarchal structures. The whole concept and power structure around it hang together really well.

Also, what a start to vol 2. I adore how Diode has been paying attention to Terra's history with groping and both makes sure she's okay with moving forward, then moving it in a direction that lets Terra discover her boundaries in their own relationship. I love how attentive and considerate they are of one another.

Finally, as a housekeeping note, we're slowly working through the last batch of TL edits chapter by chapter. I have gone ahead and replaced the prologue through ch5 with the finalized versions (typo reports welcome!) and will be posting subsequent chapters as we finish. The newer version is a little shorter after some fixes and wordsmithing, so there will be a gap in the page numbers until we get to chapter 11.

Once we're finished, we're going to take a short break before we continue with vol 2. We just wanted to make sure the manga-only readers were aware there was more to the series once that wraps up next week.

last edited at Apr 26, 2025 1:39PM

It would also explain how/why Eda remained unaware that Magiri had died attempting to meet her again. Eda must have had the talent that allows people to communicate and 'sync' with the iron ball's conciousness at least enough to make first contact and be saved. If Magiri didn't have that same talent and/or had not synced with the clay in the time when it's nature was just being discovered, her conventional vessel being crushed in the atmosphere would have passed unnoticed by Iron Ball/Eda. It's a bit of tragic irony that Eda still mourns the idea that Magiri never came to look for her and must have moved on without her, while we the reader know that she couldn't move on and died trying to find her. If she had not flown off the handle, crashing her ship like Eda before her, and had instead investigated the properties of the clay first, she may have been able to find her lost love.

last edited at Apr 26, 2025 9:01PM

Casually dropping diode getting tossed back to the gendo clan in the final paragraph of the chapter is cruel.

Typo/error report

Ch. 11

Diode buried her face in Terra's chest without hesitation and Terra, dumbfounded, and dumbfounded, let it thump against her.

Remove "and dumbfounded,"

Vol. 2 ch. 1

They managed to send Pri away, but appearance put an end to their flirting.

Change "but appearance" to "but her appearance"

It's good that the pair used those precious couple of hours to discuss the important stuff because they really got split up immediately, holy shit. I only have wild guesses on how they can reunite now.

Also, thank you all for sharing your theories on Eda and the limits of her ability to detect people that fall under; they make a lot of sense.

last edited at May 6, 2025 6:27PM

Casually dropping diode getting tossed back to the gendo clan in the final paragraph of the chapter is cruel.

Just came here to say this. I am crying omg ;_;

Is there a good way to donate to or otherwise support the translation effort?

Typo/error report

Thank you for the continued typo reports, these should be corrected on the Dynasty and website versions.

Is there a good way to donate to or otherwise support the translation effort?

I think the best support is just building buzz for the series in the West. Both of us really just want to have more people we can talk about this series with.

Meika is a really interesting character to me. Her dynamic with Diode and the contrast in how they deal with comphet reads a bit like a modern twist on a Class S story. She's compelling because you can kind of see the tragedy to her character, since this chapter does a really nice job of illustrating how her acceptance of the inevitability of marriage is destroying her and her relationships. On the flip side, this chapter does a nice job of establishing how her acceptance is bending around to reinforce patriarchal structures, given her expectation of Diode to support her through it and the lengths she'll go to make sure that expectation is met. The paragraph showing how Diode is just totally worn out from dealing with her relationship with Meika was heartbreaking, it's really effective at illustrating how toxic and abusive that relationship must have been beyond the glimpse of the dynamic we got here. Fascinated to see where this goes.

last edited at May 14, 2025 2:19PM

Fuyou is looking really bleak and I wonder if it's even worse for the girls who are not pseudo-royalty. As much as I hate Meika, the thought that she will probably be stuck there alone soon is still kind of a downer.

last edited at May 18, 2025 4:34PM

Thank you so much for the translation, I think this series scratches an itch that no other current series does; I was really bummed when the manga got axed. I really want more people to read this, so I have created an EPUB of the first volume from your translation posted on the fatbeachball website. Where can I contact the translators so they can determine if this is something they are interested in, and if interested, distribute it via their channels instead of me randomly posting it and (inadvertently) claiming credit for their work?

Thank you so much for the translation, I think this series scratches an itch that no other current series does; I was really bummed when the manga got axed. I really want more people to read this, so I have created an EPUB of the first volume from your translation posted on the fatbeachball website. Where can I contact the translators so they can determine if this is something they are interested in, and if interested, distribute it via their channels instead of me randomly posting it and (inadvertently) claiming credit for their work?

We actually considered doing that very early on, so I believe it is something we both are interested in, since the only way to read our translation is through here and the neocities page itself (aside from a pdf that we haven't really shared anywhere public), but I'd prefer to do that after I receive some translation feedback for volume 1 I'm waiting for, as we might have to make some changes to it. Thank you for the offer though! I'll post here when I've gone through it again, we could probably just link a download for that on our site or here.

The only way to contact me currently is through this thread and Dynasty's discord server (my username there is a bunch of numbers but the display name is the same as here), but I might set up an email later just for this.

It's nice how a lot of the names are quite weird, even the Gendou ones, which started to use a more western name order at some point after Magiri's death. The Gendou love being all different and taking pride in their traditions, but I guess they had to follow some sort of regulation too. If anyone's interested, here are the kanji for the all the characters from the Gendou clan so far since I think they're pretty cool:

Gendou Magiri
弦道間切
Kanna Ishidourou Gendou
寛和石灯籠弦道
Iwana Ishidourou Gendou
岩魚石灯籠弦道
Ozuno Ishidourou Gendou
小角石灯籠弦道
Chuuya Gennissee Jigou
忠哉幻日斎次号
Nurude Shikiriyouni Keiwaku
白膠木仕切鬼蛍惑
Meika Shikiriyouni Keiwaku
瞑華仕切鬼蛍惑

I'm done with chapter 1.3's rough translation also. Really excited for you all to see what's to come too! It really was a shame how the manga ended when things were only starting for them because there are lots of fun moments I'd have loved to see. (minor spoilers for this volume) We even get a drunk Diode scene, Terra rambling about turtles, which would have been really cute, Terra getting Really into how the koi work to the point it scares Diode a little, and also details on why she settled for DIE-OVERDOSE as her nickname but also, I think the koi fishing section has one of the coolest visuals in the whole work along with a certain scene near the end of volume 4... Still thinking about it.

Fuyou is looking really bleak and I wonder if it's even worse for the girls who are not pseudo-royalty. As much as I hate Meika, the thought that she will probably be stuck there alone soon is still kind of a downer.

Also yeah, I don't hate her, I quite like her actually haha, but it does suck to think of her situation and of the many other there. I probably already mentioned this in an older post on the manga's thread, but if not, minor volume 3 spoilers Diode mentions that they aren't allowed to make use of contraceptives to stop their periods, so most of them endure it while others buy them through what is sort of a black market Meika is clearly agonizing while everything slowly kills her, but she doesn't have the same courage as Diode to make that gamble and run away, so in her current situation, considering her position as the daughter of the Clan Chief, it's likely the trackers would go a lot harder on her than they did on Diode, which was already quite... Yeah. So, she would also need an escape plan as extreme as Terra and Diode's of fleeing to the GI, and even then, she is just too tied down to how things currently work and her own responsibilities, so it goes back to her lacking the courage to make that choice and above all, not having the same opportunity to and knowledge.

Anyway, it's just neat how she is an opposite of Terra and Diode. Sadly the other things I could say about her go into heavy spoiler territory...

Just Diode perfectly predicting how this kidnapping was gonna shake out. "Well you see my wife's got that dog in her so she'll be back to rescue me shortly."

hello everyone :) i had been following the manga for a while, and was fortunate to be on vacation in japan right when the otherside picnic + twinstar joint release event happened, so i made it over to junkudo books and picked up a physical set. and WOW are the books a lot better than the manga.

i normally read only around a pace of 1 japanese volume per year so i really gotta pick up the pace... i thought, until i found the fanlation, which at least helped me get started quickly and get hooked. and i'm really impressed with yall's work! it's a really high-difficulty translation and i felt like the vibe was really well preserved and sometimes there are even some flashes of creativity in the translation that make me grin. kinsei-san, your prose is honestly just really pleasant to read. and of course girlswhokiss-san is kicking ass with all the research this demands. please keep it up.

even so early in the story i feel like this is shaping up to be a pretty singular work of yuri. i've never seen such explicit discussions of comphet or trauma-informed consent negotiations in japanese fiction before. and what kinsei-san posted earlier about meika being a class S subversion, i thought was really insightful. it made me think perhaps ogawa-sensei built the setting with population concerns and comphet on purpose as commentary on the way japan's birthrate situation influences its family-centric social dynamics. also, just, the way book 2 picks up right after book 1 ends, showing us that yeah, terra and diode do need to talk stuff out, both for their relationship and for planning their escape, was really realistic (sadly so, in the case of escaping, especially living in the US today...). i had been expecting a timeskip and while a lesser author might have glazed over that stuff i'm really glad ogawa-sensei took the time for it. i'm excited for this ride.

i have some typo reports for volume 1.

prologue:
- "said bit more" -> "said a bit more"
- "study it had taken" -> "study why it had taken"
ch5:
- "their resting spots in the on the cliff-like faces" -> delete "on the"
- "if you don't think that's not physically possible" -> fix double negative
ch6:
- "receptist" -> "receptionist"(?)
- "started at them" -> "stared at them"
- "they were they were brought into another room" -> delete "they were"
- "Wait, please a moment!" -> add another "wait" after please(?)
ch7:
- "need one other" -> "need one another"
ch8:
- "righa" -> "right"
- "she she stood on tiptoes" -> delete "she"
- delete the paragraph break before "A barrette?" (i believe diode says this, and she's speaking in the previous paragraph. the jp is definitely more liberal with its paragraph breaks than we'd write in english and it's ambiguous there too, but i think it would be out of character for terra to answer diode's question with a questioning tone.)
- "actions which can taken" -> add "be"
ch9:
- "gave her have free rein" -> presumably you meant either "gave her free rein" or "let her have free rein"
ch11:
- "what to do, to do," -> delete "to do,"

i have some translation feedback too but i will of course be discussing it with girlswhokiss-san directly to avoid flooding the thread with vague uncertainties lol.

よろしくお願いします〜

Thank you for the typo reports and your help with the translation itself, both feedback and my own questions!

might be a silly question, but the chapters are called like that on purpose right?

Yeah, numbering them properly broke the way the volumes are divided, so Kinseijoshi opted for 3 digits, first digit being the volume and the other two the chapter number. I was confused by the same thing before too

Go get wife back!

Just Diode perfectly predicting how this kidnapping was gonna shake out. "Well you see my wife's got that dog in her so she'll be back to rescue me shortly."

Meika just completely missed the scene where those two proved they were 100% ride-or-die for one another.

i thought, until i found the fanlation, which at least helped me get started quickly and get hooked. and i'm really impressed with yall's work!

Thank you for the kind words, as well as the typo reports and second pair of eyes on the translation. Those have all been fixed on the website and in the Dynasty versions.

even so early in the story i feel like this is shaping up to be a pretty singular work of yuri. i've never seen such explicit discussions of comphet or trauma-informed consent negotiations in japanese fiction before. and what kinsei-san posted earlier about meika being a class S subversion, i thought was really insightful. it made me think perhaps ogawa-sensei built the setting with population concerns and comphet on purpose as commentary on the way japan's birthrate situation influences its family-centric social dynamics.

There's definitely an aspect of Japan's social dynamics woven into the book, since I do remember Ogawa-sensei tweeting about some of the feminist perspectives he had been reading for background. One of these specifically concerned the psychological effects of train groping, and I would not be surprised if the trauma-informed consent negotiation was heavily informed by that reading.

But taking a wider perspective, it also seems like a comparison of the way different social systems work. Chapter 1.3 sort of starts extending the Endeavours as a metaphor for Space America with the surveillance, and Pohi's perspective on the QOT also suggests that contrary to the Endeavours' assertions, perhaps they're not the most egalitarian clan around.

also, just, the way book 2 picks up right after book 1 ends, showing us that yeah, terra and diode do need to talk stuff out, both for their relationship and for planning their escape, was really realistic (sadly so, in the case of escaping, especially living in the US today...). i had been expecting a timeskip and while a lesser author might have glazed over that stuff i'm really glad ogawa-sensei took the time for it. i'm excited for this ride.

I think the character dynamics are the real joy of this series. It's definitely here for the worldbuilding and adventure, but at the end of the day, they take a back seat to these two doing the hard work of figuring out how to make their relationship work. Doesn't pull any punches.

I'm thinking about Pohi bending the rules to cover for Terra despite not being unhappy with her own marriage. Unlike Eda and Diode's mother, she's not the type I would expect to be an ally, and yet... Maybe from the relative security and autonomy of her position, one where her husband is convinced of her loyalty, she can act on her intuitions as a fellow woman and decompa, as well as some of the values she may have carried with her from her home clan.

Just one sentence from this part that might need clarification:

and whether Terra really was discussing boarding a man’s boat after barely a week later despite no prior connection

"after barely a week later": "after" and "later" provide the same meaning. I suggest removing "after", adding a comma after "week", and adding "with him" to the end. It would go: "and whether Terra really was discussing boarding a man’s boat barely a week later [i.e. her split from Diode], despite no prior connection with him"

last edited at May 29, 2025 1:45PM

I’m at chapter 7 of book 1 now, and omg it’s just so much gayer than the manga. Like so, so, so gay.

Like Terra basically views it as her job to undress Diode with her eyes and to have feelings.

last edited at Jun 1, 2025 5:02PM

Eda casually drawing attention to the age gap one and a quarter books in when Terra is beginning an incredibly stressful rescue mission is so good.

I'm a little curious about Eda, she seems skeptical of Diode, to say the least. She kinda second-guesses Diode when they're inside of FBB ("is this girl giving you trouble?"), and hints that she's only doing this wife heist with Terra because Terra will blow up the warp drive ship on her if she doesn't. Pointing out the age gap and the fact that Terra's facing down 20,000 people to get Diode back almost seems like her impish way of asking "you sure you wanna do this?"

Also I love how oblivious but earnest Terra is when describing Diode's piloting style. Somehow even made her experienced lesbian copilot blush.

I’m at chapter 7 of book 1 now, and omg it’s just so much gayer than the manga. Like so, so, so gay.

wait'll you get to the equivalent of manga chapter 17, it characterizes them completely differently in my opinion.

I'm a little curious about Eda...

she also doesn't hesitate to make the sort of casually horrible remark about terra's bodily autonomy (last chapter) or size (this chapter) that diode would've hated. she's giving me kind of a "older queer who thinks bluntness is better than psychological safety" vibe..? i wonder if she's like that because of her own tragic past, or like. why is she like that.

I’m at chapter 7 of book 1 now, and omg it’s just so much gayer than the manga. Like so, so, so gay.

wait'll you get to the equivalent of manga chapter 17, it characterizes them completely differently in my opinion.

Indeed - the novel has so much more complexity, trauma, and difficulty with vulnerability, so the payoff is much greater. Manga had a weak ending, novel sticks the landing and kills it.

I finished novel 1, it was fantastic and I’m going to start sending folks the link. Thank you for the translation, girlswhokiss.

For the sake of my heart I am going to wait until novel 2 is done before reading it, I know I cannot deal with chapter by chapter ;)