Post #3550245
2026-07-03 03:47 UTC
Also something I learned by getting the Japanese version of Taiwan Travelogue: it loses the whole metatextual translator's notes and "I found this old Japanese journal and translated it into Mandarin" framing. Which, if you think about it, makes sense... the idea that this was originally a "lost" Japanese book that finally got a translation, is unnecessary for the Japanese edition. Like, what, in-universe this is a Japanese book that got translated to Mandarin and back to Japanese?? Drop it, lol
Replies (1)
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@renkotsuban@maestoso.org 2026-07-03 03:48
So instead, the Japanese version (and maybe ONLY this one?) opens with a fictional news article about famed writer Chizuru doing the professional talk circuit in Taiwan, like establishing that she is a "real" person (in this fictional setup). All of the meta translator notes from the English version are gone and instead explained organically in the text itself. It's kind of interesting how it's such a vastly different book in Japanese, out of necessity