NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

If any of you have ever wondered what a page of the manga Lone Wolf and Cub would look like translated into Chamorro, here is a page from one of my favorite issues. I wrote about this exchange a few weeks back in my post titled " Lone Wolf and Bamboo Spear ."

After months of nothing there are finally some new issues of Berserk.  I only read 3 mangas, Gantz, Naruto and Berserk. The other two are released regularly and are slowly moving towards their conclusions as a series. Berserk is supposed to be in a similar twilight phase, but sometimes there are months between chapters. The excitement of the plot itself has long since dissipated as the characters and the investment in the story becomes to fade in my mind since it has been so long since they last visited me. The most recent issues of Berserk don't continue the main story arc, but instead give us a view of the main character Guts when he was a child mercenary. The story is interesting, although it is only three issues long, but I look forward the main story arc being kick started again. I was so happy to be reading Berserk this morning that I decided to do something I haven't done in quite a while. I took the latest issue of Berserk and translated it into Chamorro. It was f

I thought I'd do something a little different for my fanslation this time. Usually I provide some background on the manga chapter that I've translated into Chamorro and then offer to give the fanslated scans to anyone interested. This time, ( sa' ti gailugat yu') I've decided to paste here for those interested the translation I did. This time around I translated Naruto chapter 338, which is the issue where Shikamaru gets revenge for the killing of his master Asuma. ***************************** #338 – Iyo-ku Korason Faha Page 1: Kakashi: Maolek na ti atrasao hamyo. Ino: Sakura…Sai…yan Si Naruto lokkue’! Choji: Oi! Ta fanagulumi! Yamamoto: Tåya’ nai hu li’e’ hao taiguenao Kakahi, gof direchas kuetdas. Kakashi: Gof fotte este na kontrariu. Page 2: Kazuku: Måtto un otro na udu, yan esta machalapon gui’. Naruto: Mångge Si Shikamåru? Page 3: Choji: Mumumumu gui’ yan un otro na enimigu. Ti chago’ i dos. Kakashi: Sigi’ guatu dos yan ayuda gui’. Un suruhånu ya

For those of you who may not already know it, I'm a big fan of manga and anime. This doesn't mean I'm an otaku or anything (although normals sometimes call me one), but just that there are a handful of titles or franchises which I really read carefully and follow closely. For instance, in July I wrote a long post about how two of my favorite mangas to read, Gantz and Berserk were going on hiatus for a few months. My geek guts started showing when a simple post about how much I'll miss them ended up being a discussion about the aspects of killing God or Gods in the mangas, or the way in which the main characters seemed to be challenging the very order of things, and how exciting it was to try and see an author make that possible. (Este mina'hasso yu' na hu nisisita umespiha kao esta mana'fanhuyong i nuebu na issue Berserk. Esta maloffan dos meses gi iyo-na hiatus, pues sina esta makpo'.) For a few years now I've been translating manga, most notabl

Here is my latest Fanslation Chamoru, chapter 171 of Naruto, titled "Tatahgue" or "Replacement." This is the second part of an earlier fanslation that I did, " I Tilu na Maga'gera ," which featured a big fight between the three "Sanin" of Konoha, Juraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade. This chapter continues that story, and also helps build up that very familiar and regularly tiresome, but inevitable story arc, in that Naurto will one day become the Hokage or leader of the Konohagure. Apologies ahead of time for those who would like to read this latest fanslation. There might be one or two errors in this one. I saw them when I was first editing it, but in the time since I've forgotten where they were, and no my brain doesn't pick them up when I read the manga. I hate it when that happens. As an academic when you're brain gets blind spots like that and fixes the mistakes you're reading in order to smooth things over, it makes you loo

Thought I'd try out something new, because I was having trouble falling asleep because of my brother's trombone playing. Since I was living in the states for so long and often had little space to practice speaking or listening to Chamorro, in order to keep fresh my Chamorro language skills, I often came up with quick and easy practices to help keep building my vocabulary. One of these practices that I've shared regularly through this blog has been the taking of songs in English, Hindi and Japanese and writing lyrics to their tunes. The lyrics are sometimes related to the original words, but not always and sometimes I change the theme completely to accommodate my own interpretation of the mood of the song's music. Some examples are " Hum Aapke Hain Koun " from the film of the same name, " Call Me, Call Me " and the anime Cowboy Bebop/Cowboy Bopeep, and " Wave of Mutilation " by the Pixies. Another practice I sometimes do is when I'm li

Last year, as a mixture of fun, community service and in general hopes of improving my fluency in Chamorro, I began translating manga comics from English into Chamorro. I call them fanslation Chamoru, although I've been told that since the files are taken from scans that fans make and translate on their own, the correct term is scanslation. After a six month break, I've finally got another one for those interested. Like the last one I made, this is from Naruto. I'm not as much of a fan of the tv show or the manga as I used to be. Limited funds and limited time due to dissertation writing has helped make that possible. But I still follow Naruto closely. I get faint hints of what is going on in the most current issues being published in Japan, but the story as being published right now in the United States is already all well-known and old-news to me. I still enjoy translating them though and have at least two more issues that I've already written, but have to get set

I wrote last year that I'll be trying to put out Chamorro fanslations of manga comics, and asi'i' yu' because over the past few months, I've fallen behind. Its not that I haven't been translating, its more that I just haven't been uploading them. I uploaded last year my first Fanslation which was from the manga Kekkaishi, a one part story titled " The Last Praise ." It was a simple story about death, loss and the connections between the spirit world and this world, and so for these reasons I chose it to be the first. The second that I've done is from the taichi na maguiaya na manga Naruto. As I wrote last year, I resisted reading Naruto for a long time, because it looked like just another dumb, senseless ninja comic. And basically dumb and senseless are ideal terms for describing the main character, Naruto. Eventually however I became attached to it, on the power of its supporting characters, such as Kakashi, Kabuto, Kisame and Might Guy. I e

I've got a busy next couple of days ahead. I'm driving up north to attend Famoksaiyan meeting on Sunday, and I've also got a paper that I'm writing on the presence and absence of decolonization amongst Chamorro organizing in the diaspora, that I've got to finish by the end of the weekend. Don't know when I'll be able to post again for reals, so for now let me sate all of you with some Naruto videoes. I used to hate Naruto, gof taimamahlao na lahi, gof a'gang yan na'estotba. He's so annoying to read, s a' mampos ti kalamya gui', lao todu tiempo manggagana! Todu tiempo ha na'hahasso yu' put Yu-Gi-Oh GX. Ya ayu mampos gof ti ya-hu! What I'm posting below is a battle between Orochimaru and the Third Hokage (from the TV show), and just happens to be the fight from the manga that finally got me hooked into the Naruto universe. Over the summer, my nephew Kinboy left volume 14 in my room on Guam, and over a few weeks I flipped slowly

I wrote several weeks ago that I was working on a fanslation Chamoru or a Chamorro fan translated comic book to help with the work of revitalizing our language. The one I was working on was only to be the first, I'm already working on translating several more. This year is looking very busy and very academic for me, so I actually enjoy setting time aside for this, because it allows me to practice my Chamorro and also just write something a bit more relaxing than my usual stuff on decolonization, imperialism, colonialism and the production of sovereignty. The first fanslation that I've completed is titled " I Ettimo na Tinina " or "The Last Praise," and its a chapter from the manga Kekkaishi . The story is a beautiful one in its own simple way which is why I chose it for the first one I would fanslate. So many manga stories drag on for several issues, hundreds of pages, but this one was a quiet, contained, but still in its own way deep little vignette. If yo

I first heard about Fan Translations or "fanslations" of manga books several years ago from my friend and fellow scholar in waiting, Marianna Hernandez. At that point, I had watched a few anime, but never really gotten into manga, and actually had no idea that it had become a huge thing in the United States. I was told last year that manga sales in the United States had far surpassed comic books sales, and at that point I could barely believe it, but today, after reading several mangas and seeing their shelves expand in bookstores, it seems obvious. Outside of Japan though, the process of getting mangas translated can take a while, and sometimes the publishing in Japan will be years ahead of what it is elsewhere. Apparently, in a million instances of caring for their fellow fans and geeks, there are people out there who fanslate, or take the comics in Japan and scan them, and actually type in translations from the Japanese into their language of choice. When Marianna had fir