Utena Fansub Ep 7 Translation Notes
Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 07 Unfulfilled Juri.mkv
This is my favourite episode of the whole show. My phone background has been the shot of the falling sword ever since I first saw it. I love everything about it, so I really wanted to be sure I did it justice in the translation!
ただもし彼女が本当に世界を革命する力があるというなら私がこの手で奪ってやるさ。
But if Utena truly possesses the Power to Revolutionise the World, I’ll steal it from them.
BIG MOMENT! This is the first time one of the student council uses they/them for Utena. You may notice that the Japanese is 彼女, often translated as “she”. So why am I translating it as “they”?
In the fountain scene, Juri draws a parallel between Utena and Shiori. She begins to frame all of Utena’s behaviour through a lens of heterosexual lust/love, which makes her completely flip out as it makes her feel more alone than ever because (I believe) she saw a kindred spirit in Utena’s gender non-conformity, and sees that cameraderie dry up because of the phantasm of heterosexuality.
After the duel, Juri has rediscovered hope in herself and in the world. I believe part of this is because she realises she was wrong about Utena. Their duel is essentially over whether Utena is deserving of the ring, which, to Juri, is a question of whether Utena is really driven by heterosexual love. Through her loss she is forced to admit that she was wrong, that Utena is not motivated by heterosexual love for the prince, and there was and still is a cameraderie there. Using “they” is an admission that she was wrong, and an indication that she understands Utena a little more. It’s in direct contrast to the fountain scene when she calls Utena “a little girl”.
That’s my interpretation anyway. Anya’s interpretation is that Juri is distancing herself from Utena in this scene; that Juri has realised that “miracles are real, just not for me”. In this interpretation, “they” also makes sense — by gendering Utena as nonbinary, Juri reaffirms her position as the only girl in the duel system. She is attempting to process the idea that Utena is special by distancing them from womanhood (and therefore she, a woman, is doomed to live without miracles).
“Sure sure, there’s lots of narrative justification for it,” I hear you say, “but it’s simply not in the original japanese script!”
Well, actually, there’s justification for this too. 1. Utena’s use of 僕 (boku) is untranslatable — we lose that gendered meaning in translation. It needs to be added back in somewhere, and this is the place. It’s not a perfect compensation (boku is self-identifying while “they” is an external identification) but based on the narrative elements I’ve mentioned above, I think it’s acceptable. 2. Japanese rarely uses third person pronouns, and doesn’t have a gender neutral one. I think Juri uses it here because she doesn’t want to say Utena’s name (still a bit sore from the loss?) so I don’t see the gendering here as being important to keep in the translation.
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奇跡の力で勝てると自惚れてるがいい。
If you beat me with the power of miracles, you’re entitled to your conceit. (from ohtori.nu)
If by some miracle you beat me, you can keep your shallow dreams. (my translation)
Like I said above, for Juri, this duel is about whether or not Utena is driven by heterosexual love. 自惚れる is usually translated as “to be conceited” but here, Juri is saying that she’ll allow Utena to keep pining for her lost prince with the alternative being that she will shatter Utena’s dreams. With that in mind I thought it better to phrase it in a way that extends and makes clear Juri’s resentment of Utena.
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奇跡を信じて。思いは届くと。
This was the hardest line in the whole episode. I went through several iterations:
Believe in a miracle, and your feelings will be returned.
If you believe in a miracle, he’ll love you back.
Just believe in miracles, and your love will be returned.
Miracles can happen. Your true love will love you back.
The phrase 思いは届く literally means “your thoughts will reach their destination”. In practice it means something like “your feelings will be understood and reciprocated”, and it was hard to find an English phrase that had a similar meaning while still sounding good as a repeatable quote. Anya’s keen eye for natural and polished dialogue really helped here, as they were able to pick the best sounding combination of first- and second-halves of the line. We ended up with
Believe in miracles, and your love will be returned.
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@dontbe-lasanya outdid themself again with this edit. It wouldn’t be nearly as good without their help!
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