Ok so I'm here to quell all the anger and discomfort, so please put your pitchforks and torches away!

First thing: "Don't lump us in with someone like you."
While the Kisses Only girl does use "omae" (お前), that can be read as impolite depending on context, can as well just mean simple "you". I can see why person translating it could assume she was kinda looking down on the other girl since omae can also be used to people you consider of lower status than you, but honestly in this case I feel like it was more of a simple "you" and it is really hard to tell anything more, since we simply don't have much information about their relationship and how they would normally address each other. TL;DR I'd say more accurate translation would be "Don't lump us together." or alternately you could go for "Don't even compare us."

Second thing: "A relationship where you haven't done anything beyond kissing, how noble!"
While word "toutoi" (尊い) can indeed mean "noble" it can also mean "precious; valuable; priceless; exalted; sacred​". And especially with the way it is used in the sentence, it really give me impression the "noble" here is meant more as something of high value, something precious and worth protecting. So I have to say in this case the choice of word "noble" can be pretty misleading. It would be more like "A relationship where you haven't done anything beyond kissing, how precious/priceless!" I would even go as far as suggesting "A relationship where you haven't done anything beyond kissing, how devoted!" because I think it expresses the best what Tamamusi was going for.

So yea, Tamamusi is pretty much simply saying she encountered a relationship you should cherish with all your heart, because you most likely won't ever see something like that again in your life. Something that is indeed, incredible. She does not say that is the way it should be and you should be ashamed for not being like that.

last edited at Apr 23, 2018 6:59PM

As Tara said earlier, the short length of the story limits the amount of context you can draw from. You simply can't read very far into it because there isn't much there; it's just a funny, little story Tamamusi wanted to relay to her audience.

While the Kisses Only girl does use "omae" (お前), that can be read as impolite depending on context, can as well just mean simple "you".

http://i.imgur.com/w1Nkw9q.jpg

And of course I forgot. Obligatory Gollum picture:

Actually I decided to look at "A relationship where you haven't done anything beyond kissing, how noble!" line again, since I mostly focused on that "noble" word and later I remember something that kept on nagging me. Actually the whole sentence should go a bit different, which would make it easier for people to realize what Tamamusi's intention with it was. It should actually be "A relationship where you only kiss, that is surely very precious!" I can see how translator tried to shorten it into "how", but in this case this "how" should be read as "how amazing is that" rather than "how it is something you should admire and copy".

Also I guess the best comparison to what Tamamusi meant by it would be something like seeing a unicorn.

And while I'm at it. It isn't really mistranslation, but the whole "Mika and I haven't done anything except kiss" and "A relationship where you haven't done anything beyond kissing" is really bugging me in how unnecessary complicated it is. "Me and Mika are only kissing." or "Me and Mika are only going as far as kissing." if you want to be more "literal" and "A relationship where you only kiss." or "A relationship were you only go as far as kiss." Maybe it is just me, but I don't like the tense used, especially since put this way it puts more stress on them not having sex, when it actually stresses more that they go only as far as kissing. And what bugs me the most is the fact the tenses are switched. Kisses Only girl says it in present continues, when narration is in present simple. But I'm just nitpicking at this point.

last edited at Apr 23, 2018 7:57PM

Also I guess the best comparison to what Tamamusi meant by it would be something like seeing a unicorn.

I have to admit that my impulse was to look for (but not find) a clip from the old (very old) Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon show, which had a couple of recurring characters who had a bit that went:

"There's something you don't see every day, Chauncey."

"What's that, Edgar?"

(Then Edgar would describe something foolish and unexpected about a moose, a flying squirrel, or a couple of Russian spies, etc.)

That was my sense of the narrator's response to the decade-long kiss-only yurism: it's just not something you see every day.

Topical.

Am I the only one who didn't really read into it that much? We talk about 'pure love' and 'handholding' so much that it kinda just sounded like 'wow that's rare this is actual irl pure love' without the whole nonsense about sex.

without the whole nonsense about sex.

You say “nonsense” like that’s a bad thing.

Look, we don't fuck around when it comes to fictional girls having sex, okay??!!

Look, we don't fuck around when it comes to fictional girls having sex, okay??!!

We don't fuck around about fucking around.

Ok so I'm here to quell all the anger

TBH, the only anger I'm seeing is from people angry that other people didn't like this particular story much. Which seems a bit silly.

I'd say more accurate translation would be "Don't lump us together." or alternately you could go for "Don't even compare us."

I'd probably translate her line as "Our relationship's a bit different than yours", then. Still a somewhat unpleasant thing to say (since she's directly contrasting her purity to other relationships that, therefore, have no or notably less purity), but with less of an edge.

I've only ever heard "don't lump us in with someone like you" with negative connotiations, it's almost always used in a way to distinguish oneself. Ie, if I say "Don't lump me in with that group", I'm usually implying I'm better than these. It's actually a line that English translators I work with actively avoid, because of these connotiations in colloquial use.

Case in point: Were I to post "don't lump me in with straight people" on twitter, I'd have 50 angry responses rather quickly :P

last edited at Apr 24, 2018 2:04AM

Fenny posted:

I'd say more accurate translation would be "Don't lump us together." or alternately you could go for "Don't even compare us."

I'd probably translate her line as "Our relationship's a bit different than yours", then.

She is literally only saying "Don't put me in the same category as you." There is nothing negative in what she said, except for use of "omae" which I really think was just meant as "you". My point is, she doesn't really compare their relationships, or say 1 is better than other. She literally just says they are completely different.

I didn't like the use of word lump as well, cos it felt negative, but dictionary was telling me it means exactly the same thing as she said, "to lump stuff together" and I couldn't think of alternative quickly so I just left it like that.

EDIT/ And even if she actually did mean it in negative way and might even be looking down on them and feeling superior because she takes pride in having a "pure" relationship, so she doesn't want to be put in the same bag with other people who have sex, because she consider her relationship one of a kind, I think it is save to assume it is only what that character thinks and not what Tamamusi thinks, especially considering the narration.

last edited at Apr 24, 2018 8:58AM

I get that Tamamusi probably did not intend it as a glorification of "purity", and I get the translator's choices played a part here. My impression is that she was actually low-key making fun of the "pure" trope, and that her commentary was more along the lines of "whoa, such a thing actually exists", rather than peddling how this relationship is somehow better. That being said, it still rubs me the wrong way.

Purity-san being a bit of a bitch in that last panel...

And this is why it rubs me the wrong way. Because she is being a bit of a bitch, even the people scrambling here to somehow offer different interpretations can not get past the "lumping together" and "omae" carrying negative connotations. Basically, you are saying that even in Japanese this could be read negatively very easily, but are still imploring us to disregard it and assume Tamamusi did not mean it that way. And I am not buying it.

That being said, I am also not going overboard with this. I do not think the author intended to use this character to mock sexual relationships or anything like that, I think she used the Purity-san and her line for comedic purposes. I am just saying that I personally did not find it that funny, is all.

Basically, the author's commentary in the very last panel does not bother me, the slightly bitchy character is the one who is rubbing me the wrong way, and even as far as she is concerned, I can see why the author would go for something like that.

last edited at Apr 24, 2018 8:53AM

I agree with Nevri—I find that this whole discussion seems to be lumping a character’s attitudes with the author’s in a (to me) very confusing way.

Maybe it’s because I’ve read a ton of Western autobiographical comics/graphic novels, but this whole story seemed pretty straightforward to me. A parallel might be a story in which a mangaka encountered a girls school where the students had a Rose Council and “petite soeurs” and went around saying “good day” and straightening each others’ ties, but where she also got some attitude about her being a lesbian, then wrote a story about how freaking awesome it was without it being a commentary on anyone else’s way of life.

I'm dubious as to whether this is actually autobiographical? Unless there's some external info that says so somewhere, couldn't this just be a story written from a first person perspective?

Tamamusi has tweeted that it's a true story (実話)
https://twitter.com/tama_64/status/961091552335581185

On different note, I actually found her saying this all in 100% seriousness funny and shocked reaction of other character to it clearly showed Tamamusi did not take it seriously, but more like "Wow, really?" and probably "There are people like that?".

As I said, autobiography comics have been a longtime interest of mine, but I haven’t seen nearly as many straight-up autobiographical manga, and most of those have been long-form memoir-type things rather than the shorter slice-of-life pieces that are extremely common in Western alternative comics. So it’s interesting to me that this piece immediately read as autobiography—it just doesn’t set up the scenes or treat the dialogue the way that fictional stories (even ones based on real events) usually do.

Basically, there’s a kind of randomness to the details in autobio that almost always gets smoothed out in fiction. For example, take the fact that the first two girls are kissing on stage before the curtain goes up on a play. In fiction, something would be made of that—the curtain goes up and they get caught, or it starts to go up and they scurry away, or something. But in this story, that’s where they are because that’s where they were.

Tamamusi deserves a medal for admitting she's only ever slept with one girl in such an offhanded way.

What if they're just waiting until marriage lol? I have a Christian friend who won't sleep together with her bf until marriage (but doesn't seem to hesitate telling me they get by by masturbating alongside each other, like how the fuck can you stay so chill in that state and why are you telling me this lol)

Tamamusi deserves a medal for admitting she's only ever slept with one girl in such an offhanded way.

What? Where?

Man, who would've thought two pages would inspire so much discussion.

A5PECT posted:

Tamamusi deserves a medal for admitting she's only ever slept with one girl in such an offhanded way.

What? Where?

I think they refer to when other girl says Tamamusi already slept with female senpai. How they concluded it means Tamamusi only slept with someone once is also puzzling me.

Yes its pure, like all lesbians!

last edited at Apr 25, 2018 6:37PM

Oh Tamamusi. Classic Tamamusi lmao