Still not Sophie.

I put my stupid pointless translations of Japanese things that probably weren't translated yet to practice and indulge my own interests. Except it won't include the stuff I did with a group (so no Xenoblade X promo stuff or fansubbed things fyi fansubbing sucks don't do it) so sux2bu. If you want to point out mistakes in a translation or something, feel free, so I can fix it and learn. Now, since I often post incomplete things and update them without notice later, a brief list of recent updates:

Concrete Revolutio Staff Relay Comment: Yoshiyuki Itou (Character Design, Chief Animation Director) (4/22/2025)
How? Why? Stories of Science (4th Year): Why Does Wind Blow? (4/15/2025)
Tales of Berseria Character Illustrations Image & Impressions: Mutsumi Inomata on Innominat (4/6/2025)

Full index of things I've done here (with significant things listed first) for convenience:  ( Read more... )

Last year today, Mutsumi Inomata passed away at 63. I wished she could have stayed longer. I love her character designs, as a loser who got extremely extremely into Tales games (particularly Destiny remake, Rebirth, Graces, Berseria, and I'll throw Zesty in too for good measure). I was such a fan of her character designs and her watercolor art I watched all kinds of random things like Acrobunch and I even went through the pain of watching Brain Powerd. Truly. I saw that before I got into Gundam, so Toshiyuki Tomino meant little to me. All I cared about was Yoko Kanno and the person I want to celebrate today with this translation: Mutsumi Inomata.

This interview is centered on Genmu Senki Leda, a nice, contained, memorable movie/OVA that she served as animation director and character designer for. It was 10 pages long in the book (though there were also a lot of her sketches of Leda characters on the pages), and took me some time to translate. I also transcribe books by typing everything up first and search for unknown kanji by radical instead of using automated tools so screw you it took a long time to do all the things. The interview is not ultra in-depth about process type things, but Inomata's personality shows through really clearly in it, and it's actually really entertaining because of that. I also just am so happy to hear about some of her tastes. Like, she watched Gamba no Bouken and she likes hardboiled noir type stories. Anyway, I'm rambling now. Let's do this. Bold is interviewer, the rest is Inomata.

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Last Update: 4/22/2025 (Next! Animation director guy. I like his energy and analogies. It feels correct.)

On the official site for, YOU GUESSED IT, CONREVO NEVER ENDS IN MY BRAIN, there's a section where they put a bunch of staff comments and mini interviews as promo mats (oh my god, I love promo mats so much but nobody else ever cares). I bet they're interesting. In fact, the very first one already was, although part of me is shocked that "Wild Cards" was actually what I thought it was when I first read the title, before I'd read anything that was actually said about it. Bet you didn't expect that to be one of Concrete Revolutio's inspirations. I sure didn't, though I understand how. The huge difference between how the director and the writer write is also very funny to me. Director: "So. This thing happened once. And I thought it was interesting. So we made the thing." Writer: "REAL PARAGRAPHS AND MORE PARAGRAPHS AND LIFE STORY AND INTERESTING DEETS"

It will be interesting to see what else the staff members say. Might take me some time to get to more since I'm working on a bigger project too that I've actually given myself a deadline for, but we'll get there.

Comments From Sho Aikawa (scriptwriter) and director Seiji Mizushima (July 3, 2015) ( Read more... )
Staff Relay Comment: Noizi Ito, Hekiru Hikawa, & Ryou Hirao (Character Original Design, Concept) (July 24, 2015) ( Read more... )
Staff Relay Comment: Seiji Mizushima (Director), Sho Aikawa (Scriptwriter) (July 24, 2015) ( Read more... )
Kanetake Ebikawa, Takayuki Nanase, Yoshiaki Ihara, Hideyuki Matsumoto (SF Design Works) (August 7, 2015) ( Read more... )
Staff Relay Comment: Yoshiyuki Itou (Character Design, Chief Animation Director) (August 7, 2015) ( Read more... )

Last update: 2/22/2025 DONE. At least with that section of the book. Next section is Food and Everyday Objects.

Yay, time for part two. At this point I'm starting to wonder if for the future, I should just put these short, large-print books for kids as one post each even when there really are a lot of pages just full of the text. At least for now, though, I'm going to keep this one going this way.

I don't remember what section is going to come after this one, but I'm positive there wasn't a part 3 for living beings. So here's your finale of aminals and fwowers.

Unless otherwise noted, these were written by Yu Ozaki (for plants), or Nobuyuki Irisawa (for bugs), and illustrated by Nobuyuki Irisawa. Not that I'm posting the illustrations, but I can pretend I was able to read that name. I can pretend it's really Irisawa, a name I've never seen before and which feels unusual.

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Update: December 13, 2024. And we end with dinosaurs. I want to be ended. I'm tired of being sick. Here's where I'll be posting the next section's blurbs (why are you reading any of this, what is wrong with you).

Since I said I was going to split up this childrens' book translation by section, here's the second section of the goofy thing. This time it's about living things. It also actually has two sections about living creatures, hence the 1. There will one day be a 2 and it's not entirely my fault. Anyway, nobody cares about this so here we go. These ones were, unless I say otherwise, written by Yu Ozaki and illustrated by Youko Oishi.

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