cheerfulI actually think it's completely unfair to read a series only in the hopes of seeing favorite characters from other serieseses in it, but I have to admit, when Negi showed up in UQ Holder!, we were very excited. It's not just the fact that he showed up--we're pretty sure that's happened before--it's the fact that he was so very adorable about it. And then there was the contrast added by Nagumo when he called him "the most evil of immortals," while the flashback showed him being sooo cute, and sooo polite. Contrast makes everything more...more. So we hearted it.
And now we can get into some technical translaty stuff. Nagumo didn't technically call Negi "the most evil," except that technically he did. It's a letter of the translation versus spirit of the translation thing. The word Nagumo used was "saiaku," which is a word that most Japanese people tend to use in hyperbole and literally means "most bad" or "most evil." So technically, he did really say "most evil," but since it's usually used as a hyperbole, it's usually more accurate to translate it to something boring like "worst." So we thought that going with "most evil" might be a little extreme, but then we translated more of the chapter, and more of Nagumo's spiel about his encounter with Negi, and more of Nagumo's opinion on what should be done about Tota, and we decided that yes, "most evil" was the most appropriate way to translate that word.
Speaking of Nagumo, I am highly amused by the fact that it took some training to get myself to stop typing his name as Yakumo. Yakumo is not an uncommon name in Asian-style fantasy series, and it means "eight clouds." (It also sounds like "Giacomo," which is why Athena apparently has songs from The Court Jester going through her head now.) Nagumo means "western cloud," but can also mean "seven clouds." So it's like I just kept getting the number of clouds wrong. Nana nana nana nana♪
As for Negi having appeared before, we're still not convinced that Jinbei's story about "mermaid flesh" is entirely truthful. Of course, we have to allow for the possibility that it is, in which case he's got to be an ancestor of Negi's, because seriously. Ken Akamatsu has drawn like eight million characters all with unique hairstyles, and somehow this guy with the same hair, who happens to have strong connections to Evangeline, is not a Springfield? I don't think so.
Okay, we're going through the characters and Zazie and Poyo have the same hair. ...Yeah, our theory still holds.
Also, we're very eager to see how the creepy guy who fought Karin is related to our favorite girl-from-the-future.
Today I'm thankful for Thin Mints, super cute cameos, making good progress at work today, getting a chaos crystal in FF13-2, and The Court Jester.
