On April Fools (Fool's? Fools'?) Day, people usually like to play pranks on others. But I prefer to just poke fun at myself. So the joke this year was that I didn't have any jokes ready in time. Yeah, let's go with that.

Actually, I did have the usual Sailor Moon update on the 1st, and with it came the subtle debut of the new on-site news blog. That's something I've been meaning to do for months, but I put off setting it up for various foolish reasons. This means that you can now comment on Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon updates, and the general status updates can be commented on locally. But the journal will still serve as an off-site mirror for news, in case of potential problems. I'll likely do the same with other, more relevant social sites in the near future. I think the site Twitter is going fairly well, but does anyone have any particular requests for other social sites I should use?

This hasn't been directly implemented into the Dragon Ball section yet, mostly because I wanted to save it for the next update, since it also involves redoing RSS stuff. And the next update might be a while, because there's something I want to try. If it works, it will be super awesome.

But as for general stuff, I really want to tweak the layout, partly because everyone has fancy little phones with internet now. And along with that, I'd like to make the banner look a little more professional. But that's all low priority while I focus on content. On that note, I think the agenda page is way out of date, so I should fix that soon.

Oh, and if you're curious about the Japanese thing: it's going well, but I still have a lot of work to do. Ideally, I'll have something nice to show for it in the next few months.

So obviously a lot of my projects involve translating Japanese to English. But I'm not yet an expert or a professional at it. I often try to explain this in casual conversation, but I feel like I should finally explain it in detail somewhere publicly.

Back in roughly August or September 2000, I started teaching myself Japanese because I wanted to play some video games with no existing translations (at the time, anyway). A noble endeavor, right? Anyway, it wasn't long before I'd mastered the grammar basics and learned to read kana almost as well as I can read the Latin alphabet. But that's the easy part.

Fluency is about vocabulary and ease of use. Eleven years would sound like plenty of time to gain that fluency, wouldn't it? Except that I did not spend the full eleven years actively studying. Probably not even a fourth of that. It's not that I've been lazy about it so much as I've been undisciplined and unfocused for most of the past decade. I've also been hindered by the fact that I haven't had a teacher to guide and correct me, or a pen pal or someone to converse with regularly.

But I have learned a great deal. Far more than the average fanboy. And I constantly see improvement in myself whenever I look back on old translation attempts. (The fact that I can go back and correct my old errors is the main reason I pretty much only do translation work on my site, rather than in any outside group projects.) So I'm confident that my unorthodox learning methods can work (along with some new study methods I'm trying). I've also recently gained the focus and discipline I need, so I'm going to bump up my immersion in the language.

Which finally brings me back to the website, and that stuff I mentioned a couple weeks ago. You'll be seeing an increase in translation projects, as part of this increased focus. I know people would prefer that I went back to the Dragon Ball guidebook translations, but frankly I think it's a little out of my league at the moment. Instead, I'll be focusing heavily on my Sailor Moon projects for the next few months, until I feel more confident about going back to the guidebooks. I need to surpass myself and climb over the wall of Super Translator before I can defeat the Daizenshuu.

Time travel and deadly robots are both common sci-fi cliches. So it's probably no surprise that both of them are used heavily in the Terminator franchise, and in the Cell arc of Dragon Ball. But I believe the similarities between these two series go beyond mere coincidence.

In explaining these similarities, I'll obviously have to spoil major plot points from both series. So, be warned, if that's actually a concern to anyone. But note that I'll only be referencing the first two Terminator movies, since everything else was produced long after Dragon Ball ended.

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First attempt at a double is a success, because both Act 29 and Act 30 are up! Also their reprint versions, Act 32 and Act 33! I guess it's not a huge surprise, because I've done double-length chapters before, but time is a precious commodity. And there are comparisons for both of them, but there are surprisingly few changes considering the amount of exposition in these two chapters. There were a lot of minor atashi/watashi changes, but not nearly as many as there could have been.

I did break one minor thing with the RSS feed last month, and fixing it might cause a double post, so apologies if so. This should be the last of all that.

As you may have noticed, I like talking to myself about TV shows. I like using my blog as an outlet for that sort of thing, because my friends, social networks, and IRC aren't all interested in all the same things I am. (I don't think there's anyone on the planet who shares all the same interests as me.) Also, I hate spoilers, and I don't want to risk spoiling things for other people without the ability to warn first. And I rarely watch anything within 24 hours of its airing, so it's odd to try striking up conversations about things that aired days, weeks, or even months ago.

But anyway. My TV rambles have always been more talking than writing, so I've been wanting to try doing it in audio form for a while. But I couldn't really use my microphone until recently. And on a whim I decided to try it out in late February, rather than waiting until summer. So rather than typing up unordered lists for each episode, I recorded myself saying sentences. It's still just as disjointed, but with brief silence instead of bullet points for separation. And I ended up doing stuff for January, February, and March episodes, so I'm not gonna bother listing every show before the cut. Also, there are no text spoilers, but there are tons of them in the audio files.

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Despite the date, this is a completely genuine update. Act 28 is done! As is the reprint version, Act 31! Also, Acts 21-23 (23-26 in the reprints) have been revised and given separate scripts. And it all has comparisons, of course. With this, the gap between the old stuff and new stuff is now gone, and everything I've done so far has comparisons and separate scripts.

So from now on, it will be all Death Bastards all the time (at least until the arc is over). After a whole year of doing things once a month, I want to try bumping the pace up to two Acts per month. That would still include separate scripts and comparisons, of course. So that means 29-30 (reprint 32-33) is the goal for next month. But we'll have to see how that works out in practice.

Also, I apologize if this update breaks the RSS feed. I've done my best to avoid it, but I'm currently setting up a new site-wide news system and changing stuff around. You can leave comments now!

It was ten years ago today that I first started "Dragon Ball Daisuki" on Tripod. It was a place to put existing active projects, like my American dub edit list and Region 1 DVD charts. But I also started a new project there that day: manga summaries. Although I finished the summaries in 2004, they were a (somewhat intentional) mess, because I chose to write them in a very "casual" style full of my own commentary. But I was a silly teenager back then, and now I'm a much older and more boring person who wants to make things more formal and encyclopedic. Although it doesn't show much nowadays, my love for Dragon Ball hasn't changed at all, and I really wish I could devote as much time to writing words about it as I could back then.

But on that note, this update does feature something from the 80's: improved summaries for Chapters 32-54, including additional analysis and whatnot. I wanted to have the corresponding anime summaries done too, but I haven't had time to do them yet. I guess it's fitting that this is manga only, all things considered. I don't want to make any promises about when the anime summaries will come, but if it takes too long, I'll try to add some other kind of bonus to go along with it.

Also, yes, I do know about the new Episode of Bardock pages, and I've had the V Jump issue with them for weeks already. EoB makes me feel like Sideshow Bob stepping on all those rakes. But I'll get to it in the near future, after more 80's stuff, probably.

March is here, and so is Act 27! And the reprint version, Act 30! This marks the actual halfway point of the main story, which is reflected better in the PGSM structure. As for the older stuff, I now have Acts 19-20 revised and page number'd, which is more than it sounds because that's 20-22 in the reprints. Of course there are script comparisons for all of this stuff, too. The revision/comparison gap is nearly closed now, and then I can put more time into 100% new stuff.

You may or may not have noticed that I skipped Chibi Usa Picture Diary 1 this time. (It comes after Act 19 in the old tankoubon.) I wanted to get the main story re-done ASAP, so I'm leaving the book on my desk until after the Black Moon arc is fully revised. Maybe I'll wait and do it at the same time as Picture Diary 2, which comes after Act 33 (end of the third arc) in the old tankoubon. The reprints group all the side stories together, after all.

I really wanted my next update to be something from the 80's, but someone apparently told Shueisha I like importing magazines. So I just got the DVD and wrote up a summary of the Episode of Bardock anime. I wish it was just a simple copy+paste job from the manga summaries, but there were tons of tiny changes, and a few larger ones too. On the bright side, Ipana was voiced by Masashi "Andy" Ebara. Yes, that Andy.

I'm (sort of) halfway done now, because the script for Act 26 is done! Along with the reprint version, Act 29! I forgot to do the reprint script until last night, but luckily for me there were very few changes. Also, I have revised and compared Acts 15-18 (16-19 in the reprints), which means I'm finally done cleaning up the 2006-2007 stuff. So now it's just a matter of getting comparisons done for the rest of the 2011 stuff.

Over the past year or so, I've seen lots of comments about translation practices, mostly in regard to Japanese to English. Some people favor heavy localization, while others prefer to be so literal that they leave many words untranslated. In essence, I think both viewpoints get too extreme. Too much localization can result in loss, while being too literal can make things confusing. It's all made me do a lot of thinking about my own translation practices, too. I think there's a healthy middle ground, and that's something I aim to show. (Whether or not I'll succeed, who knows.)

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Since every show took some sort of holiday break, I decided to wait and throw November and December thoughts into one giant post. But the problem is I have no short term memory, so I've had to Google to figure out what the context was for a lot of my notes. Also, I can barely read my own handwriting ("armstrong kick" looked like "armstrong lock" and confused me for a minute). So at the very least this has been very interesting for me to type up, but I can't guarantee you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Anyway, many many sentences this time. There are thoughts on November/December episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, and Chuck; the mid-season finales of 90210, CSI: Cheers, Young Justice, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the season finale of South Park; the something finale of ThunderCats; and the series finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Everything is a spoiler for everything, and you can use the anchor links to hop around between shows.

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New year, new month, and new script: Act 25! As well as the reprint version, Act 28! I've also finished revisions of Acts 12-14 (13-15 in the reprints), and of course comparisons for all of it. The Dark Kingdom arc is done again, and the rest of the old old stuff should also be done very soon.

The day is almost over, but I do have Act 24 ready! And its reprint counterpart, Act 27! Also revisions of Acts 10-11 (10-12 in the reprints), and comparisons for both the old and new stuff. (Farewell, Street Fighter and Terminator references...) It may not sound like it, but everything combined amounts to roughly the same amount of pages as I did last month, so I guess I'm still keeping a pretty consistent pace.

Before I get to the actual subject, let me just say that I'm not trying to sell you on anything or change your mind. I'm only trying to explain my own reasons and maybe clear up some misinformation. In other words, this is meant to be informative rather than persuasive. And I feel the need to give this little warning up front because the subject in question is one of the most polarizing forms of entertainment in existence. So much so that non-fans probably would have stopped reading by now, which would be unfortunate considering that's my target audience in writing this.

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So much TV, so many sentences, so little else. This time, the subjects are the season premiere of Chuck; the mid-season premiere of South Park; and October episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, 90210, CSI: Cheers, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and ThunderCats. Lots of stuff and such, including thousands of spoilers, so watch out, and use the anchor links to help avoid stuff.

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It's only taken, what, four years? But the Black Moon arc is complete with this script for double length Act 23! At least I'm consistent now. And I've also revised Acts 6-9, with separate scripts for each version (and of course comparisons) and some much needed clean up work. One tankoubon a month is a lot slower than I expected for this sub-project, but I think it will speed up when I get to the stuff I did in 2011.

Speaking of the revisions, one thing I didn't mention before is that things are more colorful now. If a character has colored manga art somewhere, their name is in color. But at the same time, attack names won't be colored anymore, because I now think it's a little obnoxious. And I've also been de-Wapanizing things a little further, like removing a lot of old quirks ("GC") and reducing the amount of in-story translation notes. Names are now written in Western order (Usagi Tsukino, Mamoru Chiba, etc.), and certain honorifics (oniisan, senpai) are now translated. I remembered it's a plot point that they don't know Motoki's name at first, so that's something you definitely can't omit or change to his name. You can find more details about this and other stuff on the notes page.

The next act is double length in both versions, so it would certainly be a fitting/annoying start for simultaneous double script releases.

Fall TV begins, and so does my desire to shoot words about it at the internet. I've combined both of my ramble formats into some strange concoction of mixed-tense sentence fragments, sprinkled with some profanity for the most natural flavor. Thus, you'll find words about the season premieres of 90210, CSI: Cheers, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the series premiere of Kamen Rider Fourze; and the September episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger and Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes. So a mix of new and old subjects, and of course lots and lots of spoilers, so be careful.

This isn't exactly the new format I wanted to try, because computer problems ruined my plans. But I kind of like this one, so maybe I won't bother to try that anyway.

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October is a relatively big month. First, here is Act 22! This is the penultimate chapter of the Black Moon arc (at least in the older books), and I've already made a lot of progress on the final chapter (which is double length), so yay.

Second, I've finally started a related sub-project that I've always wanted to do: separate scripts for both versions of the manga! Here's the indexes for the old books and the new books, and another page for comparisons between them. I acquired copies of the reprints a couple months ago, but I wanted to finish the Black Moon arc before I started on them. I'm close enough now that I decided to go ahead with it anyway, but so far I've only managed to do up to Act 5.

With those separate scripts also comes a lot of translation revisions I've been meaning to do for a while, which is part of why I haven't gotten many separate scripts done yet. I've also been reformatting the pages to include page numbers from the corresponding books. Act 22 doesn't have most of these changes, and neither does what I have done of 23, but ideally everything will be updated to have all the new changes before it's time to start the Infinity arc.