Ebook TWITTERING BIRDS NEVER FLY GN VOL 01 Yaoi Manga Kou Yoneda 9781569703274 Books
Ebook TWITTERING BIRDS NEVER FLY GN VOL 01 Yaoi Manga Kou Yoneda 9781569703274 Books
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TWITTERING BIRDS NEVER FLY GN VOL 01 Yaoi Manga Kou Yoneda 9781569703274 Books Reviews
- I have been waiting for my preordered copy of Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai (Twittering Birds Never Fly) for a very long time. I finished reading it immediately after I recieved it, a few days ago. Yoneda Kou never ceases to amaze me with her mature, removed, but almost comical usage of dark themes in the context of the modern world. Her main character Yashiro capitalizes on underworld crime and indulges unapologetically in one of the most deviant sexual tastes masochism. His unlikely first love, which took place in his highschool years, is told in a short story at the back of the volume. Regrettably, this is an unrequited love and the front of the volume includes a short story where Yashiros crush, years later, is seen falling in love with someone else. Compared to a classic, more warm-hearted BL like Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (The World's Best First Love), the story sets itself up by framing our main tale in a character history that dispels the butterflies of romantic happily-ever-after. Wedged between the unfolding misfortune of Yashiro's past years is the the actual title story of the volume Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai (Twittering Birds Never Fly).
Yashiro again picks an unlikely love interest (well, the fact that he can love at all, in this volume, is debated and considered miraculous in and of itself). This time, it is his subordinate in the yakuza, Doumeki whom he fancies (or LOVES? well that isn't clear yet). Doumeki is impotent. Although most of the readers of Yoneda Kou tend to be on the older side, there are some young BL readers that need clarification on the specifics - impotence is psychological or biological erectile dysfunction (as it is normally called). Doumeki, our seme(or tachi) experiences psychological impotence. This means he is not incapable of getting an erection physically, but he has a very severe mental trauma that is governing over his sexual responsiveness. It is not impossible that he will gain proper function of his member once more. (So essentially, not all hope is lost for sexy time between Yashiro and Doumeki ^_^)
Despite Yashiro's very active and very abusive sex life, he seems to prefer the company of docile, quiet, and stoic Doumeki to any other. This seems to be a spell for disaster, considering the main pairing isn't able to interact sexually at all (but ironically, this volume is full of sex). However, as the pages keep flipping, the dynamic between the two is revealed to be quirky, clever, cryptic, and revealing, all in the little bits of dialog they manage to share with each other. Their relationship feels surprisingly very genuine, and though Yashiro's history and character development receive two full short stories in this volume, Doumeki is far from neglected, and receives his own character arc over the course of the story, making this a very eventful, very explosive debut volume.
Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai (Twittering Birds Never Fly) is the award-winning, ground-breaking series that has finally reached the West with its first official English translation (beautifully rendered at that, I might add). If there was only one BL manga that an enthusiast could buy, make it this one. Absolutely stunning!
Edit
Concerning the translation
I bought the print version. There were not any typos that I caught. And the awkward dialog that some people might have found in the Ebook or otherwise might be attributed to implied subject problems.
I called the translation beautifully rendered for technical reasons, as a student of the Japanese language myself The translation this time around captures perhaps the silent content of Yashiro and Doumeki best. It's by far not the worst translation I've seen, and the informality of the yakuza is toned down a bit, to make things easier to read. Since I've tried translating the raws before, the level of implied subject brings a casual aura to the characters' speech that really can't be translated into English with the same efficiency. I think, unlike - let's say - Kyuugo's You and Me, Etc. translation, where the kansai dialect is rendered by dropping the -g in -ing endings, writing up the dialog of the character's yakuza slang in standard American English gives (Yashiro especially) an elegance to the characterization that I think would have been intangible, had the series been translated with a more crass tone in mind.
For instance, in the most recent chapter of Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai (Chapter 13), Yashiro says, "Betsuni bibi ja ne shi." "Bibi" is an onomatopoeia that actually doesn't even exist - I would guess "bibi" is stort for "bikuri," which means surprised. "Ne" is a super-informal, male-used form of a negative, "nai." The line translates to, "I can't say I'm surprised," but honestly the closest equivalent to the level of informality is borderline unrecognizable English (perhaps something like "'cain't I'm surpris'd"). Not to mention, in that sentence, Yashiro never marked himself as the subject ("Betsuni" means not really, "bibi" means surprised, and "ja ne shi" is a super informal negative tag), so it's implied that he's referring to his own emotions, not someone else's....Saezuru is full of dialog pieces like this, that have no exact translation, or the closest one would have some sort of hick implication. That's why I think the translation was well done. I got the feeling that the characters were from societal underbelly, but they were still upstanding and of well-formulated thought. In that way, the awkwardness of some sentences, I can let slide. Japanese to English in general is a very hard translation task. I would still say, at least to the print version, "Well done." - This story is harsh and demented and painful and somehow touching and beautiful in spite of, or maybe because of, the overflowing dysfunction and brutality. I'm not really writing the review for the story though, I figure anyone reading this probably has an idea of what they're getting. If not, be warned this manga is raw and involves serious abuse and violence.
I'm writing the review because the edition sucks. The formatting is inconsistent from page to page. Some pages are pretty clear and fit my iPad screen nicely, other pages are pixelated and smaller than the others. I can zoom in on the smaller pages but because they're not clear to begin with, the pixelation looks even worse. While I can read it, it's just not clear and consistent and pretty like it could and should be. I don't own a lot of manga, but this is the worst that I've seen. I prefer to own my books in digital format because I move a lot and because I don't want to have to take up the physical space in my home with hard copies. That being said, I'm happy to have this crappy copy because I love the manga and I want to support the mangaka. I just really wish publishers would do them both justice by selling editions that were as beautiful as they can be. And we all know how beautiful they can be!
I truly hope volume 2 comes out in a edition and that the formatting is much, much better than this.
Update There are digital versions (PDF, EPUB, etc.) of both volume 1 and 2 at eManga. I believe the translation is the same but the digital quality is FAR superior. Plus it's cheaper there than here. - No doubt that this story has such an enticing story and characters. The art style is nicely done and one of the best.
The only downfall is the way this English adaptation was handled. There's awkward wording in the dialog, sometimes you can't even tell who's doing the talking, and jokes have gone flat. The underlings/lower yakuza members don't address the upper level people properly, which takes away from the nobility/respect that they have for their bosses/higher ups.
Below are a couple of bubbles (at different points in the volume) that stand out for the wording portion.
"...So my brother did know...that money too....it really was..." No idea if this is true to the translation or what, but it's awkward, especially the last part.
"If you're having such a hard time forgetting about my ass...come over to my place anytime. I'll be wating with an open ass..." Yashiro is smart, taunting, and should have a way with words. Using "ass" twice on the same page/sentence is displeasing as there are other words that could have been used.
I feel like a lot of the wording was done to simplify to an american/english audience and takes away a lot of the character's personality and story's deeper qualities that should really be there and what originally brought me into the series. The publisher should have taken better care in how to write things out.
Regardless of my nitpicky, still can't wait for volume 2.
Edit After looking around at other sites for reviews, it seems like a lot of other people have issues with how the translation was handled for the book. Apparently, the ebook, which was released months prior to the print release, had a ton of issues, especially with spelling (didn't notice any typos in the print, but someone with a better eye for that stuff could say otherwise).
Ugh, this series is really good and not one to pass, but the treatment of the book by the publisher just really bums me out. This series has depth, intensity, impact, and doesn't have all the cliche stuff that's in most other BL series, but it's lost in this print.
I'm going to stop before I really sound like a broken record.
Also found a guy's shoulder being clipped in a panel, 6 pages into ch 3. Could have cleaned it up a little bit more |
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