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Talk:Hifuu Club

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Revision as of 10:38, 15 February 2020 by Ennin (talk | contribs)
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Pun?

Sealing Club (秘封倶楽部 Hifuu Kurabu) - this is possibly the first time I've seen the romanji, and is it just me or is its name a pun on having two members? i.e. "1-2 Club" (一二倶楽部 Hifu Kurabu) --Prime32 (talk) 14:25, 14 August 2012 (EDT)

秘封

I thought someone else would get to this eventually but since this has been bothering me for a while and this translated term has remained in the fandom for years and no one seems to have challenged then I guess I'll just take this matter up now. The current translation of 秘封 is misleading and kind of hilariously wrong. 秘封 is composed of 秘 (hidden/secret) and 封 (seal). Where does "sealing" come from? The current name makes it sound like they're a club which goes around and seals secrets which is the complete opposite of what they do. They uncover mysteries, not hide them. Furthermore 秘封 is actually a word which originates from a the Japanese poem anthology, Kaifuso (see: https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A7%98%E5%B0%81-2078225). It means something that is purposefully sealed, hidden or obscured. Basically "occult", which fits perfectly with the themeing. Not to mention the fact that GFC released right after PCB, in which the main aesthetic theme was poetry. Okay so to cut to the chase 秘封 should be "Secret Sealed" and not "Secret Sealing". It's a secret occult club. The only reason to not change it would be for keeping tradition, which is not a very good argument at all IMO. —Ennin (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

The reason behind the misleading translation was that the original title in Japanese was also misleading.
it's poorly explained in Japanese at the point people didn't know it's either Hi-fuu or Hi-hou until ZUN clearly said it was Hi-fuu and he never intended to pronounce it as Hi-hou on a stream in 2016.
秘封 sounds more like "秘密を封じる" but their actual objective is like "封じられた秘密を暴く", which is really supposed to be 封秘. Without further elaboration from ZUN the best answer we can come out as an interpretation based on the contents rather than the title name alone is "Concealed Secret Club", which is still misleading as it sounds like THEY have some sort of secrets to keep, so we have to add the exposure part somewhere.
And now it becomes "Concealed Secret Exposing Club", and we appended a new word that wasn't in the title originally.
There have been a few Hifuu projects where I had to provide an English translation for localization purposes and I used the existing translation just for the SEO. For wiki purposes, we just need to explain the meaning of each kanji and let the readers figure out what it really is supposed to mean.
I was doing a bit of digging around on this and found an aricle on Pixiv talking about the club's name. The writer notes that the way in which the club's name should be interpreted is a question for the fans. They go on to note that, as of 2015, the most common interpretation is not 「秘密を封じる」 ('sealing secrets') but 「封じられた秘密を求める」 (pursuing sealed secrets). I don't think Secret Sealed Club works well as a name because that makes me think of 秘密の封じた倶楽部, or the Secret [Sealed Club] - basically, it can be interpreted as two adjectives that describe the club itself and not what they do. Why not flip our interpretation of the kanji around and go with 'Sealed Secrets Club'? They're a club devoted to sealed secrets.
Personally, I've always interpreted the 'Sealing' in their name to refer to the act of 'sealing' a case or secret after uncovering all the mysteries. It makes me think of something like the different seals that Reimu uses when tackling youkai. Based on the current information, I don't think we need to make any changes other than maybe add more explanatory notes. Biggest Dreamer (talk) 07:42, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Secret Sealed Club is still misleading and ambiguous. The original title is literally missing an important verb and you dropped "求める" which is the critical verb that defines their actions in your example. Let's not even mention how "sealed secret" itself sounds redundant as it wouldn't be a secret if it weren't intentionally hidden in the first place.
The better take here is just keeping the original title as "Hifuu Club" with explanations for Hi and Fuu individually until ZUN can better explain his creative choices on this name.
That really must have been a misunderstanding on those Japanese fans' parts. 秘封 was always a word, albeit a rather archaic and poetic one. The only reading for that word is ひふう so the fact that some fans thought it was "hihou" just shows how hard people misunderstood 秘封 to be a a ZUN-made combination of kanji instead of an actual word that exists in Japanese. It's not something ZUN just made up. He intentionally chose that archaic out-of-usage word just like he intentionally used the old-fashioned kanji way of writing club (倶楽部) instead of the way more common katakana (クラブ). The Japanese dictionary definition of the word hifuu literally means "secret/hidden and sealed". There is no room for any other extra interpretation as far as I see it. Again, coming off the heels of the highly Japanese poetry-inspired PCB, it makes sense for ZUN to use such a word for the club's name in GFC. The quite thorough Touhou Motoneta Wiki also favors this take (https://seesaawiki.jp/toho-motoneta_2nd/d/%BE%AF%BD%F7%C8%EB%C9%F5%B6%E6%B3%DA%C9%F4). That wiki's contents is a result of many Japanese fans arguing on a message board, mind you.
Anyway, this really isn't a problem in Japanese at all. It's not ambiguous in Japanese, it's clear that the name means Hidden Club/Secret Club/Private Club/etc. As in a club that's actively hiding its activities. Not a club that "seals secrets". 秘封 is the descriptor in this case and not a noun. That's why I proposed "Secret Sealed Club". That's two adjectives. If it weren't proper name it would look like "secret, sealed club" in a sentence. In the story segment for "Merry the Magician" it's stated that the main purpose of the club is "exposing the boundaries that surround this world". However, it's stated in the next line that "it's supposed to be forbidden though, as there is the fear they may become destroyed". The club must stay hidden. It's a secret club, that's why there's so few members and that's why it's called 秘封. Because if more people knew about it, fantasy (i.e. Gensokyo) would be in grave danger. The prologue for GFC spells it out: "an occult club from an age that knows not of Gensokyo". Here ZUN uses "オカルトサークル"(occult circle). He also uses "オカルト集団" (occult group) to refer to the Hifuu club in BAiJR's comments for "Merry the Magician". As you probably know all too well, it's a common ZUNism to make English-Japanese puns. 秘封倶楽部 literally means "occult club". Occult as in "hidden" or "secret" but also as in magic. I think I've made my case pretty clear here.
Long story short, 秘封 is literally just a fancy old poetic word that means "secret", "concealed" or "hidden": occult. That's it. Problem is that "Secret Club" sounds naked and dumb. So to get around that, the kanji by kanji translation is taken and you get "Secret Sealed Club". And, no, I do not believe that it's redundant at all. It's not any more redundant than Okina's title of "The Ultimate, Absolute Secret God". You can use two adjectives with a similar definition to describe one noun in English. That's not grammatically incorrect or "redundant" at all. It's just basic English (?). I really don't get that criticism, Draco lol. So yeah...I also support just using "Hifuu Club" but tbh that really doesn't change anything and the English fandom would still use "Sealing Club". That "sealing" should be abolished one way or another. I took a millennium to respond. I don't have much free time these days :p
Ennin (talk) 10:26, 15 February 2020 (UTC)