So, this has been bothering me for a while. In Japanese comics (and I think I've read it in Chinese or Korean as well?), where I would expect to see the verb "paint" (as in creating an artistic painting), it is consistently translated as "draw". I think any common English speaker would see the two terms as generally different.
Now, I'm fairly interested in art and studied art (poorly) in high school, and I've never come across the verb "draw" encompassing "paint" (well, let's not get picky about when mixed or non-traditional media or art forms are used, I'm talking simply about traditional painting using any type of standard paint).
So I was wondering two things:
In the English-speaking art world, or even anywhere in the Western art world, can it be common to use the term "draw" to mean "paint" and I'm just not aware of it? Or is only my experience of the two always (or almost always) having separate meanings?
In Japanese (or other languages), do they actually use a word that MEANS "draw" for "paint"? Or, do they have a third term that encompasses both, and it somehow always gets translated as draw?
Thanks if you know!
you see in Japanese they use 描く(egaku or kaku)which is the same word for to paint, draw, sketch. So it's basically a word used as a broad term for, to make art, if you know what I mean.
There is also 塗る (nuru) which is also commonly used as well, but it's more specific towards painting, varnishing, and /or to plaster things.
I would say egaku is more commonly used because people would learn this earlier in life I think? (don't quote me on this) so it's easy to just translate it as to draw as opposed to nuru.
This is the same with Chinese to paint and to draw are usually 畫(hua). Hua is a commonly used word and children and adults understand it easier than the alternative.
I think it's mostly to do with convenience and using common words though and to be honest, it's kinda convenient as a chinese speaker to have one word that covers everything~ cause I'm lazy~ (づ￣ ³￣)づ
also as an english speaker as well I don't usually use the term "draw" to mean "paint" cause I usually think of drawing with a pen rather than a brush.
WHen I do digital art however then that's a different story hehe ╮(￣▽￣)╭
shit man I'm commenting so much! anyway here's the dictionary I used for that huge ass paragraph heh gotta reference you know?
https://jisho.org/search/to%20paint
Thanks for the replies (and link)! It feels awkward/jarring to me to use draw for paint, but I can at least relax a little by understanding "draw" as generally meaning "to create art". It somehow feels that English is lacking a verb we didn't know were needed!
Haha no problem :D I think English is fine the way it is :o it’s just that the Japanese language is hella sophisticated and really intriguing and somewhat difficult to learn imo. :D
ヾ(❀╹◡╹)ﾉ~
I couldn't go past this paragraph from an article on a science website I was reading:
"Animals have also been often seen displaying bisexual behaviour – interacting with both opposite and same sex. This suggests a more biological purpose, in which it’s proposed that this may increase an animal’s chance of successful breeding later with the opposite sex. That may sound counter-intuitive, but one University of Frankfurt study, published by Royal Society Biology Letters, found that homosexual behaviour increases male attractiveness to females."
(Full article: https://australiascience.tv/what-biology-and-genetics-say-about-same-sex-attraction/
Disclaimer: Obviously, science generally and genetics specifically are complex, so don't take this one out-of-context paragraph, or even this single article, as the whole story. I just shared it for interest/fun.)
even all the male characters in yaoi manga is more mature and good-lookingヾ(☆▽☆)ლ(´ڡ`ლ)
It's not one I've read, but one I thought I might read, so I don't know much.
If I've remembered the synopsis correctly (and the details may not be quite right), it's about a guy and his deceased brother's boyfriend/partner. (There MAY also have been a child of the first guy, but I'm not sure.)
Oh, and it wasn't tagged as any kind of BL, I got the impression it was supposed to have more of a family feel.
I can't seem to get it through a search or tag search, so thanks, if you know it!
Aaaand...I found it. Thanks, Me. I'm glad I asked!
In case anyone wanted to know:
http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/otouto_no_otto/
Perhaps it’s this? http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/otouto_no_otto/
It’s written by a famous bara artist but it’s not BL/bara and i think there’s even a drama
Yes, it was, thanks!! :D
You’re welcome, good job finding it on your own!
Do you prefer it when Korean webtoons (or any type of manwha) keep the original Korean names of characters or use Anglicised versions?
Personally, I get frustrated when the names aren't kept original (I know it can get confusing because I'm not used to Korean names, but I was like that for Japanese names at first, too, and now they seem as normal to me as English names). I know there's nothing to be done about official translations, but I wish the non-official scanlation groups kept the original names.
But, maybe they're doing it because other readers overwhelmingly prefer English names? Do you feel the same?
*manhwa (grr typo; better than one I read elsewhere that came out as "manhaw", which sounds like something else...)
personally it's fine, in the end, i'm gonna end up forgetting their names anyway since i have poor af memory lol.
kidding aside, there's not much difference for me whether the name is kept as original or not, after all, it's not that big of a deal — unless of course if the names have a big significance within the course of the story.
if i read it with the anglicized name, then i'm gonna run with it, and vice versa.
Depends on the setting :) if the story is set in Korea (like most are) have Korean names, as the characters are Korean.
If the story is set internationally then names which contextually fit the characters (e.g., in Momentum the characters would have names which reflected their ethnic backgrounds).
I don't see why Korean/Chinese/Japanese names should be anglicised, seems a bit silly. The only time I think this makes sense is when animes would be English dubbed - but even then it's like, whatever just keep their names.
Mmm, yes, I was assuming normal Korean settings, I suppose that's when I most notice it out of place when they're called clearly English names. I probably don't/wouldn't find it so jarring when the settings are international or supernatural...but I think I still like to read the names the author originally intended for the characters. (I prefer terms like "hyung" or "oppa" to "brother"/"big bro" as well. )
Yeah, I totally agree :). It contextually fits more to hear oppa/seonbae/hyung or whatever rather than "big bro" because while it's a 'direct' translation to english it doesn't really fit. Plus, if you're reading a comic set in a differing culture to your own it's pretty reasonable to have to learn a term or two relating to that culture.
Sorry to go on a bit, but this topic is a really good way to highlight fantastic translators. Who are able to incorporate these specific terms and explain little cultural norms or linguistic sayings so the story isn't lacking and the authors jokes or tone of the story is conveyed.
Agreed! Even when I come across less-skillful translations, I'm still sooo appreciative of their time and effort; the ones that go that extra step are even more amazing.
By far I prefer korean names. Whenever they replace the names they always pick the most boring ones, like Emma （￣へ￣）
Yeah. I've just started reading Green Boy and the (very good) translator changed the (possibly main) girl character's name from Jae-in to Jane. I was sad. Although they sound understandably close, Jane is SUCH a standard, ordinary English name - after all, people can even get called "plain Jane"! Oh well, it's not like it changes whether the story is good or not, I just think it's unnecessary.
lol i mean, i gotta give credit to the translator, 'Jane' is a pretty funny and kinda nice anglicization of 'Jae-in' ε=ε=(ノ≧∇≦)ノ
I've been pondering this lately, as I've seen an increasing number of outraged or frustrated comments complaining that this or that manga is incorrectly labelled as yaoi. In all of the cases I've seen, the point has been that the manga in question does not contain explicit sex scenes.
While I agree that, if your understanding of yaoi has grown up from communities like this, seeing yaoi would raise the expectation of an explicit sex scene somewhere, I'd always thought yaoi as a genre was more than just the explicit sex, but was instead about the more mature/less innocent relationships or content (and therefore generally included sex). Which made me wonder - where is the borderline for yaoi, how do they decide yaoi/not yaoi in Japan?
I toddled over to the wikipedia page to see if it had anything useful to add:
"While yaoi has become an umbrella term in the West for women's manga or Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships, and it is the term preferentially used by American manga publishers for works of this kind, Japan uses the term yaoi to denote dōjinshi and works that focus on sex scenes...The use of yaoi to denote those works with explicit scenes sometimes clashes with use of the word to describe the genre as a whole, creating confusion between Japanese and Western writers or between Western fans who insist on proper usage of the Japanese terms and those who use the Westernized versions."
Interestingly, it seems that a different shared understanding of the terms yaoi and shounen ai is developing in Western culture compared to Japan's usage, and even perhaps a different usage between fans and publishers in the West. (The article goes on to discuss SA briefly, also.)
Is there anyone who has experience of Japanese and Western culture who has also found this difference, or are the two more reconciled than this? How would you define yaoi?
(EDIT: Forgot to leave the link to the Wikipedia article so people can read it properly, sorry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi )
jsut that there are people that are ignorant of the real definition of yaoi or too lazy to read around and just pull their definition from air. wikipedia speaks of how people just don't care about the term. it's true tho.
and yes, yaoi is gay smut for women that has considerable less censors than shounen-ai.
Boy's Love is the real correct term for the whole category/genre.
I had this very argument with a whole bunch of stupid people a few months back. Can't blame them for being ignorant cause they are stupid after all. Always reading stupid Yaoi manga for the fan service and the porn and never the story. No wonder they just assume that Yaoi is porn.
First and for most, Yaoi and Shounen Ai are only subcategories of gay manga and not gay manga itself. The correct term that encompass all gay manga is coin by the term BL short for Boy's Love. Yaoi and Shounen Ai are subcategories within BL that cater towards women. The BL manga that caters towards actual gay men are call Bara which is also a subcategory of BL. These are the three subcategories known to BL. Although there are talk about including Traps and whatnot in BL as well.
Now, the difference between Shounen Ai and Yaoi is similar to the difference between Shounen and Seinen. Like Seinen to Shounen, Yaoi is the adult counterpart of Shounen Ai. Yaoi is cater towards an older audience and the content is more mature where as Shounen Ai is cater towards a younger audience and the content is less mature. This is not to mistake that all Yaoi contains sex because that is not true. There are Yaoi out there that doesn't have a sex scene and there are Shounen Ai out there that does.
For example, A Night of a Thousand Dreams have sex in it and it is not a Yaoi. Venus Kiss and 2-14 Jiken are Yaoi and they don't have a sex scene.
╮(￣▽￣)╭ i got so tired of correcting people i just let if be.
anyway, your definition of bara is wrong. BL is mostly a "fujoshi thing" so majority if not all of the creators were female. meanwhile, bara is a separate category of it's own from bl since it's an actual comic for gay men.
and when i say bara is for gay men, they are people that are not necessarily otaku. it's laymen gay. similar to how seinen is targeted for adult men, mostly office workers.
Yes. I forgot that Bara falls into the caterogry of ML short for Men's Love.
By definition, people who are obsess with any kind of Japanese anime and manga popular culture are Otaku.
i said that because fujoshis are comparable to otakus though otakus are a general term but it's mostly synonymous to male manga/anime nerds.
manga is read by every people and not everyone who reads it are otaku. that is why i said "laymen".
See, these definitions are basically how I have always understood it, too!
...Which makes the borderline between SA and yaoi less clear in certain cases, I believe (just like how you can get shounen and seinen manga that are borderline).
But it also makes me wonder on what "authority" we understand the terms this way. I always assumed it was commonly understood in Japan (the same way that we have genres or labels in English such as "fantasy" or "chick lit" that are commonly understood).
Boy's love or BL for short
by "authority" it should be the manga publishing houses and ofc how the japanese define it since they basically created the whole thing and the terms already existed even way before westeners try to "define" or make opinions of what does it mean.
this should be an easier read http://japanese-hobby.blogspot.com/2017/11/yaoi-meaning-in-japanese.html
and when you say borderline it is because it's how much a seinen or a shounen magazine can be flexible in its limits. still, there is still a defining difference between them which is the target market. as for shounen ai and yaoi digests, it's about the censorship and also age target.
That's because Yaoi and Shounen ai are genre while Shounen and Seinen are demographics.
BL is a demography and yaoi/shounen-ai is under it's umbrella.
Exactly
Because it's always good to have somewhere to go for support:
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
https://headspace.org.au/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
And for most of those helplines, you don't actually have to be suicidal to ring. If life is seriously overwhelming, call before things get that bad - that's exactly what they're there for, to listen to all the overwhelming crap that you can't say to anyone else or don't have anyone else to tell.
Remember that, behind the facade of happiness and capability, everyone's more insecure and stressed than you think. It's not shameful or unusual to find life tough.
(=・ω・=)
Thx my dude
U have been appreciated(づ￣ ³￣)づ
http://www.mangago.me/home/mangatopic/3534245/
I don't know what to say to the person who left the comment in the link, but I know we are a diverse and generally supportive community here and many have gone through similar experiences. It seems genuine, and I can't just ignore a suicide comment. Please leave them your own thoughts if you can.
Gonna be real here, I have seen a lot of posts like these and generally that seems kinda like a call for attention. I have been suicidal a long time ago and I have known many who tried to kill themself and a person who ended up killing themself. They are usually not very vocal about it, especially online. Lets just give them the benefit of doubt. Either way. If you can relate, go from there. Tell them how you overcame it.
I´m gonna talk about my personal experience for a while. I was extremely depressed for pretty much a decade and everything just seemed painful, tedious and pointless. Much like that person seems to feel. I just couldn´t ever see a point in living because to me there was nothing worth living, everything seemed boring and I didn´t want to do anything. I was in the kinda mindset where I thought "If I died now, I wouldn´t regret it and embrace it" or "If there was a button that could just erase me I wouldn´t hesitate to press it".
And for over half a decade that was my mindset and I felt like I´m just on autopilot. It was terrible. And I still feel like this every now and again, it often stems from self loathing. But with time and the dedication of people around me and myself I got better. I learned to love myself a little more each day. Back then I refused to become obessed over franchises and other stuff, or refused to act on hunches. But I decided I should just do whatever makes me happy and if its sitting around at 3am watching a disney movie and eating ice cream. With time and the love of people around me, and my own sheer willpower to live and see the next day I´m still here. Doing whatever I wanted and finding happiness in small things, really helped me. I slowly learned that there is a lot to learn for. Fact is for the longest time I didn´t want to help myself, but slowly with time I thought "Ahh, wouldn´t it be nice if I could enjoy life as much as the others", and I slowly wanted to help myself. And thats why I´m still here.
I agree that we can't know for sure how genuine someone is, but I'd rather "waste" time helping someone who didn't need it, than ignore someone who did.
So, thanks for such a thoughtful reply.
Absolutely agree, you never really know but In all truth I would rather waste my time extending help to someone than refuse to help because it might be "fake" and miss a chance.
You´re welcome, I hope it helped in some form or way, and if not I hope it was at least entertaining to read.
Wow. It’s still a beautiful world.
It seems there are fewer career options in Yaoiland, right? You can be a:
High school teacher
Graphic Designer
Novelist
Model/Actor/Idol
Kindergarten teacher
Convenience store worker
Florist
Salaryman (actual tasks involve showing up to work, wearing a suit, eating a bento, working overtime, going for drinks)
Mangaka
Yakuza [member]
Company President/CEO
Career counselling must be fairly straightforward!
yeah i wanna see lawyer BL ┗( T﹏T )┛
u forgot the prostitutes, the musicians, the artists, the pilots and the doctors :')
+police man
what about architect , host, chef , baseball player
yo there are novelists, porn industry personnel, editors, seiyuus, photographers, fashion designers, gardeners, janitors... royalty? there are a lot more. yaoiland is vast bruh.
I really wanna see more housewife(househusband?) like Tadaima okaeri. But I want the seme to be housewife(●￣(ｴ)￣●)
The hitman
OMG, how could I leave Middle Eastern prince off the occupation list! Thanks for reminding me!
True.
Teacher: You've completed your career choice form, Student A?
Student A: Yes, my first choice is prostitute and my second is doctor.
Teacher: Just let me check the Yaoiuniversity course requirements for your first choice...
Teacher: I see you've chosen "host" as your career, Student B?
Student B: Yep, all my friends are choosing it, too.
Teacher: It is indeed popular. Make sure you study champagne glass towers and calling for bottles of Louis diligently.
i love you
i was supposed to point out emperors and the like. but that works too.
Seen on a meme:
"Never allow a place of employment to wear you out. A job will replace you in a heartbeat, so be sure to never die over one."
Me: Unless you wish to be isekaied.
(Source: https://www.facebook.com/Dawnfrenchfan/photos/a.168076799916725/2825597820831263/?type=3&theater)