Literary Brilliance in a Single Scene | True Remembrance
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- Опубліковано 20 лип 2024
- True Remembrance | The Brilliance of a Single Scene - True Remembrance is a short visual novel that I had no real expectations for. All I really knew going in was that it was generally well-received by readers. And for most of my time reading, my general thoughts were “this isn't bad. Not the best story I've ever read, but far from the worst.” But then came one scene in particular that completely changed how I think of this visual novel, where questions were answered and all the themes of the story were brought together, completely recontextualizing everything. This one scene brought this story from I'd say a mid to low B tier to a solid A tier. So please, join me as I take a look at True Remembrance.
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00:00 Intro and Overview
4:20 Blackiris and La (Spoilers start here)
6:38 Marcello, Irina, and the Dolor
13:43 A Bit of Background
15:02 The Scene (Major spoilers start here)
17:50 Memories
23:20 Resolutions and Conclusions
28:05 Outro
Outro Music:
Wolfgang Lohr & Maskarade - Hit the Road Jack
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#TrueRemembrance #VisualNovel #VideoEssay - Ігри
Hi, I'm the guy who translated True Remembrance all those years ago. I'm very flattered that you have such praise for the translation, but it should be noted that perhaps what made this project so special is that the translation itself was a collaboration -- the original author put much of her time and effort in critiquing my translation drafts, and made recommendations on wording choices and nuances. My group never put out a visual novel translation again after True Remembrance, and it feels to me like a fitting end to that era in visual novel history.
Forgive me for the walk down memory lane. Insani was active between 2004 and 2008, during a time when visual novel translations did not exist in the way they do now. The visual novel fandom was very small and it was thought impossible that a full visual novel translation would ever occur. Then, as is the case now, the big commercial properties -- Kanon, Fate/stay night, To Heart, etc., were the major things that fan translators went after. None of those early efforts succeeded. I was the translator for the first complete "AAA" visual novel fan translation ('Wind: A Breath of Heart') but I quickly became disillusioned with both the fandom and visual novels in their commercial form. I made the switch over to only translating indie visual novels in 2005 and never looked back -- I was stupid enough to think that I was doing something of great importance, in bringing these pieces over to the English language as best I could, with permission from the original authors. Hindsight is funny, in that none of it was of great importance. And yet -- all of these indie/doujin visual novel translations do give you a flavor of what the early visual novel scene was like, both in Japan and on the Internet. This was a very special time -- ideas flourished and there were hundreds of one-man shops putting out the visual novel equivalent of short stories for everyone to contemplate and enjoy. These creators of this era -- of which Shiba Satomi-sensei is one -- were to a person too humble to refer to their creations as literature or art, but it's clear to me that this is exactly what they are. Don't get me wrong -- commercial visual novels have their place, and are also pieces of art and literature in their own right. William Shakespeare was the popular pulp fiction of his day, after all. Yet there's something about these smaller works that, to me, speak longingly and convincingly about the human condition, about what it is to express yourself as *you* in the face of everything that would beat you down and push you into conformity.
And for this small part that I played, for the opportunities I got to interact with these indie creators, for all the people who ever reached out to say that they were touched by a visual novel I was privileged enough to work on, I'm eternally grateful.
What insights can I lend to your analysis? There isn't much. I want to speak to two things you brought up, as I still have some of my old translation notes and some of the original author's commentary from back then.
On the topic of Irina: the exact reason why she wants her memory to be erased is indeed left nebulous in the original, but there is a very subtle implication that she turned to sex work to fund her lifestyle. It's very subtle indeed, and I never did ask Shiba Satomi-sensei as to whether my impression was correct. I can confirm that she did want the reader to be left with the impression that Irina was running away from something very personal, something that she herself acted upon that she could not take back.
On the topic of the density of the prose as well as the prose style: Shiba Satomi is one of the best writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading, and certainly the best writer I've ever had the pleasure of translating. Her work is elegant, dense with meaning, and filled with subtletly. Her stylistic choices serve to bring her work into the realm of something close to prose poetry at times -- and the overall goal of the translation was to preserve, as best I could, the density and the luminosity of the original prose. Even the names of the subchapters (which you can see whenever you make a save) make stylistic choices that further your understanding of the story.
It's perhaps fitting to note that life goes on in mysterious ways, just as it likely did for La and Blackiris in True Remembrance. I was supposed to complete a translation of "Mimei of the Transmission Tower" as insani's true final project, and it may well still happen (there's another fan translation of it that exists, though). Shiba Satomi-sensei herself did get married and have kids, and her last weblog entry is from 2014 announcing all of this. I'm planning on reaching out to her sometime soon, and broach the topic of collaborating on "Mimei" as we did on "True Remembrance".
Thank you for making this video -- and thank you for keeping the memory of this little piece of visual novel history alive.
Wow. Thank you for taking the time to watch my video and provide all that interesting insight. I regularly recommend True Remembrance to new VN readers and I appreciate the work you put into bringing it over to us monolinguals.
And just so you know, this was one of the best comments I've ever gotten on my channel. It really made my day to read all that. If you do end up going through with Mimei, I'll 100% be adding it to my reading list.
@@Adze my pleasure; I'm so thankful that "True Remembrance" is still being read today. And who knows -- if you commit to doing a live playthrough of "Mimei", perhaps that'll motivate me to actually go through and translate it ;)
A few more things from my archives regarding "True Remembrance" and its localization that may be of interest to you:
Rook: the original name of this character is "Kyou", which means "incense/fragrance". This fits in with the way he activates his Mnemonicide abilities in the first place, but Shiba Satomi-sensei didn't necessarily want me making a straight-up literal translation of this name. She suggested that I play on the fact that he's a player of games, and pointed out that there's a piece in shogi (Japanese chess) called the "kyousha", or the "incense chariot". It serves a similar function as a rook in Western chess. That's how this character's Western name came to be what it is. Of all the localization decisions that were made, I don't feel like I quite hit the mark on this one.
Rook's speech and his catchphrases: there's a point in the story where Rook slips up and does NOT use his normal, very informal speech. That's represented in the translation as a shift in conversational style for him, just as it is in the original. This is, of course, to build on the fact that there's so much about him that he purposely keeps hidden. Shiba Satomi-sensei and I were particularly pleased with his phrase "fresh start", when he refers to usage of his essential oils. That's present in the original Japanese, and it gives you insight into how he views his role as a Mnemonicide -- he thinks he's giving his Guests a fresh start in life.
Dexter: his original Japanese name means "right hand". Of course, this is how his Mnemonicide powers work. Dexter, of course, is Latin for "right" -- but this reference may be too obscure for some.
"Snow of Memories" and "Blue Sky": of all parts of the localization project, these songs provided both the highest level of technical frustration (as we ended up scripting the subtitles syllable-by-syllable for the ending song) and of sheer localization joy respectively. Shiba Satomi-sensei went over the reasons why the song lyrics were the way they were, and asked me to replicate the essential meanings of the songs in English, preferably in syllable-accurate form if possible. That's a tall order, but the many hours she and I spent really nailing down how these songs and their lyrics should flow, in strict conjunction with the story of "True Remembrance" as a whole, are some of my fondest memories as a translator. The opening movie in particular takes on a whole new meaning after you've read through the story at least once, for instance.
Offhand comments and nuances that are anything but: very much present in the original Japanese, and proof points of how meticulous Shiba Satomi-sensei's writing style is. Analye's quotation about how killing a person's memories is equivalent to killing the person him or herself, for instance -- that's introduced very intentionally, at the right moment, and has reverberations throughout the rest of the story.
The butterfly house: it's strongly hinted in the original Japanese that this experiment was Analye's doing.
Holy cow!! She got married and got a family?! I didn't know that, man. Bless her and her family. And also, thanks for translating this game for all us. Thank you VERY much.
This visual novel legit nursed my bleeding, broken heart post an extermely abusive school life upon graduating. This Visual Novel lives rent free in my head forever. I'm so glad it's on steam now.
I just finished playing it and you were right : the final part of this game is really something else!
I love anything that explores the idea of the jungian shadow, and it is expertly done here without bashing you over the head with it
One thing I noticed is that this VN generally does an excellent job at introducing high-level concepts in a way that isn't completely overbearing (like Jung's Shadow). Like, it also pretty heavily explores the nature of how your memories/experiences affect your identity. That's a confusing topic on the best of days but it all feels very approachable here
It’s better if not all questions are answered and leave the vague question up to the reader fill in the blanks for themselves ,then to spoon feed everything.
Me: oh boy, a new video! i'm excited!
Adze: I really recommend you reading the novel before watching this video.
Me, who managed to get a new job recently so don't have any time anymore and already has 3 novels on the list: ok 🥲
_likes the video anyway._
Will be back at one point in the future. = w=)b
Personally I'm against reviews that are mostly spoilery anyway. It feels more like you're just trying to have a discussion with people who already read the VN, not try to sell people on reading it.