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Talk:Imperishable Night/Story/Barrier Team's Extra

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Manjuu

"まんじゅうとかでしょ? (Say, manjyuu?)"
This Reimu's line is based on a famous Rakugo "Manjuu Kowai (まんじゅうこわい: Manjuu is scary)". (Rakugo (落語): Japanese comic story)

Here is the outline:

Young people told about what is scary, but a young man said he was fearful of nothing. He started boasting about how unscared things scared by them are. But, he suddenly stopped talking, and he said "Manjuu is scary." He was terrified in bed. The other people laughed, and planed to kid on him. They bought many kinds of manjuu and put them on the bedside. They went to the next room and called him to awaken. He woke up, and screamed at the manjuu. They were pleased at his complaining. But, they noticed something odd. They took a look inside. Holy cow! He was eating the manjuu with gusto! They found they were cheated. They asked him. "What on earth do you really fear?" He answered. "I fear delicious tea."

--Robert

Regarding time designations

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary says that "丑三つ時" means "midnight", and Amikai translates it as "dead of night". So, where did "2 a.m." come from? I think that would be "丑の刻", not "丑三つ時", right? Plus, I think "midnight" or "dead of night" would sound better. =P

-Winane 17:31, 12 December 2007 (PST)

Actually, 丑三つ時, ie. The third of the hour of the cow or something along those lines, refers to the time period from 3 to 3:30 am. 丑の辰刻 refers to 1 - 3 am, and is in turn divided into four segments, of which 三つ時 is obviously the third half-hour one. --爆龍 02:57, 19 March 2008 (PDT)
For the start of Phantasm of Eiyashou, the time "2:00 AM" is displayed for a short time. You think "midnight" is good because you don't understand "丑三つ時" can be tranlated as 2:00 AM? Or because you have a stronger reason to translate as "midnight"? There is my little detailed explanation about 2:00 AM under 2 paragraphs from here, starting like "I was not sure what..." (But mine may not be needed any more^^;) And there is my opinion about translation of "丑三つ時" under this paragraph.
I think it isn't serious problem when "丑三つ時" starts. "丑三つ時" is a common word to say about midnight. It is abbreviation of "草木も眠る丑三つ時". It sounds too historical! When most present Japanese people hear that phrase, they may think "Huh? Scary story or something else has begun?" but they never think "Sure, your story tells me something in bla bla bla time..." Perhaps some people don't understand that is the word of time.
In many scary stories many words appear about Old, Ruin, Darkness, Death... Perhaps we can be terrified when we feel what is apart from our lives or activities. It's only a kind of manner to terrify us. So ZUN uses that word. Then, why should we translate as a detail time? It's no necessity, I think. The translation should be "Ushimitsudoki" or "Ushimitsudoki time", if you think it's important that Ushimitsudoki matches with the time in the game. And it should be "midnight" if you think it's important that Japanese people just understand "丑三つ時" means deep night or else.
I was not sure what time "丑三つ時" is, and used the google search engine.[This page (Edo Jidai no Jikan)] shows us how to count time. This is semilar to 爆龍's explanation, but a little more long.
Its summary: In Sengoku era, they started to count time with the earthly branches, ie. "十二支". Each word of 12 is adapted per 2 hours. But 2 hours is too long and inconvinient. So It was OK to divide 1 word of time into 2. As time goes by, they came to divide into 3, and finally into 4 (using "一つ" ~ "四つ", literally meaning "the first" ~ "the fourth). So "丑三つ時" is "the third of four time areas of '丑'".
But the problem is what time "子" begins at, because that decides when "丑" begins. The start of 1 day is identified with the start of "子"? Or the end of old day & start of new day are come in the middle of "子"? Some studies say the former is good, my above link page tells it start at 0:00 too. But I think the latter should be adopted. Earthly Branches in Wikipedia adopts the latter system. I remember being taught same time count system in my highschool age. Koujien, so-called most authotorized Japanese dictionary, tells the same, too.
My conclusion is that "子" is 23:00 ~ 01:00, "丑" is 01:00 ~ 03:00, "丑三つ時" is 02:00 ~ 02:30. Getting this information, what do you think? Does your opinion about the translation of that word change?--Masuo64 08:38, 19 March 2008 (PDT)
Ah, thanks to both of you. That's exactly the kind of explanation I was hoping for. Never knew about that Earthly Branches stuff before, so I wondered what an ox could have to do with time. ("You don't understand "丑三つ時" can be translated as 2:00 AM?" <- This was the case.) Both explanations were a little confusing (爆龍, I think your explanation seems to have contradicted itself), but I think I understood correctly. Sounds to me like "dead of night" would probably retain the original sense the best, so I'll go ahead and make that tweak (but maybe leaving one or two references to 2 AM, for variety). A trivial matter, of course, but thanks for satisfying my curiosity! -Winane 10:05, 20 March 2008 (PDT)
Wow! It's also my pleasure!! (^w^) --Masuo64 11:39, 20 March 2008 (PDT)
Whoops, silly me, must have been running low on coffee at the moment. 2-2:30 pm would be correct after all, then. --爆龍 00:15, 21 March 2008 (PDT)