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The Science Lab’s Black Shadow Page 2

Brian — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:47:41 +0000

While washing his hands in the bathroom, Goro looked up at Kazuo.

“YoYoshiyama is nice and cute and all, but isn’t she a little over maternalistic?”

Goro had a bad habit of trying to smugly use difficult words. Kazuo, with his glazed over eyes as usual, looked down at the 20 centimeter shorter Goro.

“Hmmm, why’s that?”

“What? You don’t think so?”

Goro puffed himself up. Due to his red swollen face, he often looked like her was straining himself.

“Yoshiyama, She completely thinks we little babies. Huh! ‘Go wash your hands’ she says!”

“I guess…” mumbled Kazuo. With eyes that seemed stuck in a dream, he continued to leisurely wash his hands.

Kazuko, who had come back from throwing out the garbage behind the school building, put her hand on the door to the neighboring lab. This science lab was the room with all of the chemicals, so it had two doors, one from the classroom and another to the hallway. The one Kazuko was opening was the one from the classroom.

*******

So, I wanted to do this at a page per Tues-Thur-Sat pace, but the story is 112 pages, so what, that’s 37 weeks to finish. Hmmm less than a year. I’ll try to keep that pace at a minimum. Maybe I can get more out. We’ll see. (I’d worry about a DCMA takedown notice if someone actually was reading this…)
Also, in the first page, I incorrectly translated “Science Classroom” as “Science Lab”. I’ve now fixed it (think I’ll go with science room).

The Science Lab’s Black Shadow

Brian — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:33:35 +0000

With classes over, the school building was quiet and kind of bleak. Occasionally, the sound of a classroom door sliding open and close echoed hollowly down the empty hallway. Someone was playing Chopin’s polonaise on the auditorium piano. Third year student Kazuko Yoshiyama had just finished cleaning the science room with classmates Kazuo Fukamachi and Goro Asakusa.

“That’s good enough. I’ll take the trash out. You two, go wash your hands.”

“Oh, thanks…”

Kazuo and Goro walked off to the hallway sink. As she watched them walk away, Kazuko again, felt like laughing. The two of them were a truly funny pairing. Kazuo was tall and thin. Goro was short, fat and round. While both of them had good grades, Goro was a hard worker, if not a little too straight. On the other side, Kazuo was a dreamer. He seemed kind of vague and you never knew what he was thinking. He was a little creepy from time to time, too.

*******

This is the first page of the book. More to come. A side note. All three are junior high students. They’re the equivalent of an American 9th grader, so they’re 14-15 years old. For those that didn’t know, Japanese students clean the schools. There are no janitors. So in the hallways, there are sinks (like this) for the students to wash their hands and get water to wash the floors, rinse the rags, etc. Personally, I think it’s great and American schools should do it, too. Kids keep it cleaner and save money on janitors salary.

As for the names, Kazuko and Kazuo, in Japanese, they’re completely different. I would refer to Kazuo by only Fukamachi, but he gets called that later. So, ummm just be careful.

[Edit] So, reading the next paragraph, they go to the bathroom, not to the hall sink…

The Girl Who Could Run Through Time

Brian — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:31:49 +0000

It
The Girl Who Could Run Through Time
by Yasutaka Tsutsuiwas after school when she heard the sound of breaking glass in an empty science lab. A sweet scent came drifting from the liquid that had spilt out of the broken test tube. I know this smell… thought Kazuko Yosiyama as she lost continues and fell to the floor. When she came to, strange things started happening all around her, things that mingled time and memories.

It’s a story of a young girl’s journey through a mysterious world and painful experiences. It’ll touch our hearts and stand the test of time.

That’s the translation of the back of the book that I’m going to translate. For those of you who look, you’ll notice a new category to the right there. It’s the acronym for the book title. It’s an older book (written in 1976) which is why I’m kind of surprised it’s never been translated to English. Of course, I’ve only done a cursory search, so it might have been at one point in time (it was written in 76). I’m surprised because it’s been turned into a movie (1983), a manga (2004) and recently an anime movie (2006). Someone else might be translating this, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s written for junior high schoolers so it’s a real easy read. I got it because the anime movie was decent and I’ve wanted to read a native Japanese SF story ever since I got good enough to read novels, plus it’s only like 200 pages. I hope those of you who read it enjoy it. I want to try to figure out how to make that section top post so that I can just translate chapter by chapter and it can be read from top to bottom. Oh, and apparently the movie/ anime/ other things have been given the title “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” but I don’t like that translation. Yes, she leaps, but the Japanese word “kakeru” doesn’t mean leap. It means like 50,000,000,000 things, and leap is not one of them, however run is. I hope you enjoy.

Brian Schuch