Slayers - Correction Topic

Terabyte

Volume 5 - Part 2:

[16%] “I said you can’t. ” ► Remove space.
[61%] it’s gonna royally piss some people off! Wait.. ► It should be 3 periods.

pip25

Volume 5 - Part 2:

[11%]: "I'd dabbled in it myself once, but I'd come to the conclusion that it was impossible to accomplish with spells and gestures alone. This priest, however, had apparently done it with ease." This does not seem to make sense in context. Xelloss isn't increasing his magic capacity with mere spells/gestures, just like Lina's research indicated. He is using magic items for this purpose, as Lina herself says further below.
[17%]: "You must arrange them in a cross formation on your body(...)" Is this really about how Lina should wear the talismans? The previous translation and numerous shots from the anime seems to suggest that Xelloss is talking about how she needs to move her arms to a cross posture while chanting the amplification spell.
[31%]: "I had a minor scuffle with them over a certain item back in Lizel." Just to make sure: this is not the name of a town, but of a country on the western coast, Lyzeille (raizeeri). I don't want to say that the above romanization doesn't work, just bringing it up because the previous translation used it as a settlement name by mistake.
[31%]: "It was said to be a magical book that from another world that held the secrets of magic (...)" I'd suggest changing either "magical" or "magic" to something else.

Liz

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

Thanks, I think the first one is just poor wording on my part (she's saying "he seemed to do something impossible with ease, which tipped me off to there being more at play -- magic items!") but I'll double-check the rest. I usually double-check names but I think it slipped my mind in Lyzeille's case.

Terabyte

Volume 5 - Part 3:

[64%] “Would you kindly let us though? If you don’t, ► It should be through.

pip25

Volume 5 - Part 3:

[20%]: "(...) We have no choice! Use him!'" Not sure why, but the single quote completely overlaps the exclamation mark after "him", and thus is next to invisible.
[22%]: "It had come behind us, too... from their base." Shouldn't that be "from behind us"?
[31%]: "He said his ancestor took the manuscript with him when he fled the country." and also [34%]: "But I can't see why he'd make something like that up." and "I-If the guy wasn't bluffing (...)"
I assume it's impossible to tell from the original Japanese text, but the current owner of the manuscript Klotz had killed was a girl. Her ancestor was indeed a guy though, I believe. (Kanzaka originally wanted to write the initial meeting of Zel and Xelloss as a standalone spinoff story, but eventually gave up on it and only provided its outline in an interview: https://web.archive.org/web/20160916203017/http://homepage3.nifty.com/QPHOUSE/gensaku/zel.html)
[40%]:
"I killed her," he said simply, his vapid expression unchanged.
"How?!" Amelia asked.
This exchange comes off as a little odd to my ears, not just because Xelloss is being uncharacteristically blunt, but because the way his sentence is phrased makes it seem as if Amelia's interested in whether he skewered Mazenda with a sword or blasted her into oblivion - while Amelia's question is more about how could he, by himself defeat a person who looked so strong earlier.
[45%]: praytell -> pray tell
[51%]: "Bird." I have nothing to add here aside from the fact that I really like how this part was translated. :) Seemed like a tough one.
[82%]: "(...) but the half-demon must have been in a bad way (...)" There seems to be a word missing here. Hit in a bad way? Hurt in a bad way?

hatguy12

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

Volume 5 - Part 3:

[82%]: "(...) but the half-demon must have been in a bad way (...)" There seems to be a word missing here. Hit in a bad way? Hurt in a bad way?

"In a bad way" is a phrase that means something like "in serious condition," often as in being very ill, injured, or excessively fatigued.

Liz

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

I assume it's impossible to tell from the original Japanese text, but the current owner of the manuscript Klotz had killed was a girl.

Oh, thank you. It probably is just me making assumptions, but I'll doublecheck it and make the appropriate changes.

pip25

Volume 5 - Part 4:

[25%] "I siiidled up next to Gourry." iii -> i
[47%]: "With that, he balled up the "manuscript" in his hand, and..." Why is manuscript quoted here?
[72%]: "He used the Sword of Light to continue to deflect an incoming blast of laser breath(...)" The middle of the sentence sounds... odd. I think this should either be "He used the Sword of Light to deflect an incoming blast of laser breath(...)" or "He used the Sword of Ligh to continue deflecting/to deflect Zanaffar's laser breath, closing the distance in the blink of an eye." If it helps with visualizing how this would look like, the anime portrayed laser breath not as "bullets" of light, but as a sleek, continuous stream of radiance, true to its name.
[72%]: "(...) his hands full just deflecting the beams of laser breath." This is the third time laser breath is referenced explicitly in just a few sentences. I think it could be omitted.

pcj

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

[47%]: "With that, he balled up the "manuscript" in his hand, and..." Why is manuscript quoted here?

Because we don't know if it's really the manuscript or not, and there were clues that it wasn't, we just know that's what he's calling it. Imagine it like Lina's narrating it to you out loud, and she puts up air quotes when she says the word manuscript.

pip25

@pcj
Thing is, the word is never quoted anywhere else in the narrative, including earlier on the same page, when Xellos had already made his claim that the papers in his hand were indeed the manuscript. Also, what clues are you referring to? Why would Lina doubt what Xellos says here? After he displayed no willingness to give those papers to them, such a misdirection would serve little purpose.

Liz

"Manuscript" is always in quotes in the Japanese, and I had it that way originally, IIRC. It's possible it's a relic of that time, though if that's the case I'm surprised both Megan and I both missed that one instance.

Terabyte

Volume 6 - Part 1:

[21%] Even if you evade the law’s judgement, I swear ► It should be judgment (US spelling).
[80%] guarding me, he’ll still going to kill me?!” ► It should be he’s still going to kill or he’ll still kill.

pip25

Volume 6 - Part 1:

[37%]: This is interesting - and weird. In this part of the previous translation, Amelia was, rather vehemently, arguing against bringing Xelloss along. It kinda made sense too after witnessing his power in the previous novel.
Here, however, Amelia is trying to convince Xelloss not to throw his life away by travelling with them, which on one hand is definitely hilarious, on the other hand, it's... well, weird. XD (Note that right after this, Amelia talks about how Zelgadiss would be against Xelloss joining the group as well, both in this version and in the previous translation.)
[54%]: Exact same thing again. Here, people are horrified that Xelloss is willingly subjecting himself to the dangers of travelling with Lina, while in the previous translation, Zelgadiss was warning Lina that having Xelloss as a travelling companion is like begging for trouble.
[71%]: "I knew it! I wasn't sure on account of you got one extra person in your group..." Shouldn't his be something like "on account of you having one extra person in your group"?
[85%] "Even I have heard of Zuma the assassin," Laddock said. (missing "of")

Liz

@pip25 Wow! That's so interesting about the TokyoPop translation. I reviewed the text just to be sure and I just can't see any justification for that reading in the Japanese... It's definitely a double-dunk on Lina.

I won't argue that the take you've described wouldn't be a perfectly rational thing to do the scenes about, but I think the absurdity was what the author was going for.

pcj

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

[71%]: "I knew it! I wasn't sure on account of you got one extra person in your group..." Shouldn't his be something like "on account of you having one extra person in your group"?

The way it's phrased makes him sound like a scruffy street urchin saying it, which is probably the point.

Terabyte

Volume 6 - Part 2:

[54%] with his right hand. “Guduza, Duguld! Retreat” ► Missing punctuation.

pip25

Volume 6 - Part 2:

[9%]: "(...) which would effect even demons, but..." effect -> affect
[45%]: Very minor stylistic nitpick: the phrase "I see" is repeated twice on the page (by different people). It would probably flow better with some variety.
[78%]: "That's a calm way to read someone to their face..." I've tried to look this one up to see if this is some kind of idiom, but Google apparently thinks it isn't.
[78% (same page)]: "You simply seem like the kind of person who wants to be perceived that way by her comrades."
This sounds slightly contradictory in context. Xelloss says shortly before this that Lina's too embarrassed to show how bad she feels about dragging Amelia and Zelgadiss into the mess with Seigram. But if she doesn't show such concern openly, why would Xelloss say that she tries to act that way? The exact opposite is happening, isn't it?
[96%]:
"Anyhoo... What should we do now? Stop by and see Zel?"
"Nah, I think it's fine. Nothing's happened since last night, and our boss'll probably get mad at us if we're back too late again."
"Fair enough... Hey, after dinner, would you give me some more sword training?"
Only by the third sentence did it become clear to me who is saying what. The second sentence is especially tricky, since the style made me think that it was Lina, right until I've read the third one, which obviously couldn't have been Gourry. Adding "I asked" after the first sentence would clear things up a bit.

pip25

Volume 6 - Part 3:

[3%]: "As he passed me, Zuma threw out a kick that I dodged--not because I saw it coming, but simply because I assumed it was." It was... what? Not sure how to interpret the last part. She assumed Zuma was going to kick her, or...?
[46%]: "I'm sick looking over my shoulder all the time." Maybe an "of" is missing here.

pcj

@pip25 said in Slayers - Correction Topic:

[3%]: "As he passed me, Zuma threw out a kick that I dodged--not because I saw it coming, but simply because I assumed it was." It was... what? Not sure how to interpret the last part. She assumed Zuma was going to kick her, or...?

It's very common in English to make a backwards reference to an object (or phrase) that was already used earlier in the sentence. In this case, the part you're missing is "coming", because the "was coming" was used earlier in the sentence.

If it were spelled out completely, you would say "not because I saw it was coming, but simply because I assumed it was coming." The boldfaced words are where the emphasis is in the sentence when spoken aloud. That emphasis is the part that clues you in to a repeated object phrase being used, so when the "coming" is left off at the end, you know that's what it was referring to because that's what was after the previous emphasised word. When it's in writing, it's harder unless you're familiar with that phrasing pattern. Maybe "saw" and "assumed" should be in italics in the sentence for that reason...

pip25

@pcj
Thanks, I assumed it was something similar ;), what got me confused here is that "to see something coming" is itself often used for the same purpose, namely to predict that something will happen. Thus the two halves of the sentence seemingly referred to the same thing.
If the first part actually refers to Lina literally not seeing the attack, then adding "was" after "it", the same way you did in the above example ("saw it coming" -> "saw it was coming"), could make sure the readers won't mistake this part for the idiom.