On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, David Lerman wrote:

At 12:18 AM 12/17/97 -0500, Drakkus wrote:

In the Viz translation, he refers to Tatewaki as "Tacchi" and Kuno the
Younger refers to him as "Daddy." I'm not sure if that last is supposed to
be in English or Japanese, given the confusion of the other students in that
panel. I do know that both Tatewaki and the Principal are under HEAVY
Western influences (Kuno's poetry is largely English in origin), so it might
be that the "Daddy" is an affectionate term borrowed from English.

  I believe that Kuno's speech in the original Japanese is actually
patterned after classic Japanese poetry.  Viz uses Shakespeare in the
English translation as an analog to convey the formalism and archaism of
Kuno's language.  

Definitely - Kunou's quotations are all taken from classical Japanese
literature and poetry.  I've studied a little myself, and I can recognize
a few of the more widely-known passages - the opening to _Heike
Monogatari_, for instance: "The sound of the bell at Gion echoes the
impermanence of all things, the color of the sala flowers reveals the
truth that the prosperous must decline."  I believe Viz translated that
as the bit about the rose distilled, though I can't remember precisely.
The original is one of the most famous quotations in all of Japanese
literature - on the same level as, say, 'To be or not to be.'

Other little tidbits tend to crop up, sometimes with surprising
incongruity.  He opened a letter to Nabiki with "Haru wa akebono" - '(In
the) spring it is the dawn (that is best)' - the opening lines ot the
_Pillow Book_ of Sei Shonagon, which started a section about what times
are best in which seasons and which has nothing to do with the letter at
all.

Basically, if you're going to write Kunou, there's nothing wrong with
giving him Shakespearian lines to declaim.  But if you're going to go
deeper into him than just making him an incidental character, it might be
worth hunting down a translation of some classical Japanese works.  It'll
be a lot more effort, but it might just make the character more
interesting.

-- 
Scott Johnson |
zagyg@io.com  |            This space intentionally left blank.