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hopefull-mindset · 8 months

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How do you feel about the difference in Nagito's confession in Japanese and English?

In Japanese he kinda pauses saying something along the lines of 'in love with y...' before going on about hope inside.

But in English it's straight to loving the hope in Hajime.

I was hoping I’d be able to talk about this! If anyone needs a further explanation on the translation error, I recommend reading this first. It’s my favorite explanation because it deconstructs the Japanese to English process thoroughly, and the ambiguity of the whole thing really explains why Hajime was so confused. I’ve seen doubt as to fan translations being right at all, so I hope this helps out.

Now there isn’t many new things to say about a game this old with a large fanbase like this, but with new fans means more information to be spread (and misinformation respectively), so I’d be happy to speak!

UMMM I have no idea if anything I said down below is even what you were asking me, maybe you were just asking me about the decision of changing it, which um I don’t blame the official translators for going straight into it because it’s a fairly ambiguous line and most japanese fans go straight into it too when they qoute it, but official translators are not credible for their care of finer details that could be clearly translated into English, so it’s whatever I guess. Japanese fans also shouldn’t be our guide to consuming media of their language since they’re also just people, and I think it’s probably just easier to quote it like that without it sounding confusing the way it does in text.

This has been practically common knowledge by now to know that it was an aborted love confession, meaning there isn’t much to be said on its own. With all that’s been spread about this, a common misunderstanding is with the use of “Aishiteru” (愛してる) being “more romantic” than any other form of “I like/love you” (Suki/Daisuki), which is not true. It’s much more intense than the other two because of it directly using “Ai” (愛) and in turn used less compared to them because of its intensity. In same line of thinking, usually it’s reserved for serious occasions like marriage, a loved one on their death bed, a final goodbye for someone you care for deeply, etc. but none of it makes it anymore romantic because all three can be used platonically. It’s solely dependent on the context it’s used for.

It’s just like how we use “I love you” in English and how many things it could mean at once, albeit we don’t have three separate ways to express it. Well there’s actually more ways to express love, but you only really need to know these three. I know a lot of sources tend to say “Aishiteru” (愛してる) is romantic, but that’s most likely because you’re looking at sources that are talking about it in a romantic context. It’s not platonic in the sense that you’d go up to your friend and say it, that sends a lot of mixed messages and real odd to attempt, but platonic in that someone you truly have a deep connection with, family member or otherwise.

On the contrary, it’s much more common to use Suki/Daisuki (好き / 大好き) in a love confession and everyday life. Usually you wouldn’t even use “Aishiteru” (愛してる) in your entire life, that isn’t uncommon. So typically the most you’ll see or hear “Aishiteru” (愛してる) used is in fictional japanese media or songs. Using it in a confession like Komaeda almost did is like… imagine going up to someone and telling them that you want to spend your entire life together, meet their parents, fully commit to each other, raise children (if that’s what you want), and die together before you’re even in the relationship or even had your first kiss yet. Like obviously you’re not saying all of that, you might not even mean that, but it’s implied with the intensity of it. It’s that extreme and would definitely confuse someone if you tried. It’s not exactly for someone you just started dating either.

Why does “Ai” (愛) make it so intense though? Compared to other ways of saying love like “Koi” (恋) for example (not gonna explain that one), it’s the purest, most heightened form of expressing love verbally in japanese culture because of the giving and profound nature of it. It’s loving in a way that encases a warm feeling all around you, so painfully genuine yet committed. Its something that’s formed over time with much care, and doesn’t ask for anything back. It’s that big to use, but siamotainously it’s awkward and a little embarrassing to use because it’s practically unsaid irl. There is a lot to personal reservations and such, but as a culture, japan is more reserved with their verbal expressions. This doesn’t speak for the entire country, but just in general actions speak louder than something as literal like “Aishiteru” (愛してる).

I had to go over that before I talked about Komaeda because I don’t want there to be a misunderstanding with what I’m about to say. Sorry to break the news to anymore who was star-eyed after learning what “Ai” (愛) meant in context, but the reason I went over that first with extensive context is because Komaeda is not at all liberated when he uses it. Not only does he use it here in the infamous error of all errors in sdr2, he uses it when he talks about hope, talent, and Junko. Shocking I know, but that’s why I had to go over that “Ai” (愛) is not just romantic love so this will be less awkward for all of us.

Ignoring the oddness of it and how dramatic this usage is, it’s incredibly in-character for Komaeda to use it like that considering his sincere and devoted nature when it comes to hope and talent. He says himself that what he feels is selfless, so that’s going to reflect in his speech, but he uses it so casually that it feels like a joke. It’s a quite poetic expression of love, even with all the cultural context, so it’s fitting. He’s pretty no filter with how he talks about it, but with anything else with Komaeda—it’s more complex than that. While being 100% honest with everything he says, his deep connection with hope and talent is borderline obsessive and that brings into question his relationship with love.

I have many thoughts on how his hope/despair stuff works, but let’s stay on topic this one time because a lot is intertwined. With his usage of “Ai” (愛) with reference of Junko, we should all know he doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love the embodiment of despair and despises it in the same breath he even expressed love for it at all. What he feels for Junko is obsession through and through, but what he feels is still genuine connection, it’s just absurdly twisted. It’s why he still uses it, even though at most what he feels for her is contempt. He “loves” it because it’ll be destroyed for what will truly shine in the end. The connection is deep enough for him to take her hand and finally become one with it.

Junko didn’t twist his concept of love completely, it was already a little off, she exploited the potential of it. I’ve mentioned this point before in my twitter thread, but when faced with the motivations in trials 1, 2, and 3 he cannot see past their motivations other than their “hopes”, rather than their actual reasons: various forms of love. My immediate thought while writing was, “was it not really absolute hope that he needed or wanted, but instead the selfless love people like Naegi or Hajime could wield for others?” I can’t tell you how correct that is, but it holds close to when he said what he wanted was somebody’s love before he died.

To really talk about that with more depth, I’d have to do a separate post about his view of people in general. If you’d like to see that, just let me know. I really would like to stay on topic, and you weren’t exactly asking about that.

Now don’t be weird guys, it doesn’t make his confession any less genuine just because his concept of love is kinda fucked due to only being able to feel it through his obsession with hope since all genuine connection is very limited (non-existent) for him, it just puts into more context as to why Hajime was confused. He’s said something similar about his feelings of hope as early as chapter 1.

Does this mean he really did just meant the hope that sleeps inside Hajime? Well obviously not, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about this. It also doesn’t mean that his love for Hajime is on the same obsessive level as Hope, talent, or freaking Junko for the matter. Junko was a whole other situation when his mental stability was at its worst. Here’s what actually happened: right when he admitted he wanted somebody’s love, he immediately backpedaled that claiming everything he said was just something he lied about because he started to see that Hajime might want to grow closer and forgive him, and then then started rambling about total bullshit about Hajime killing him and the potential hope in him, even though he just said that he didn’t get the same feeling from him as other ultimates.

Very funny Komaeda, though I don’t think he wasn’t being genuine there. Maybe he did think that regardless of the “both miserable bystanders” comment because he also thought he himself could be ultimate hope in chapter 5. I feel like we knew this part well enough, so I’ll talk about the confession finally. I don’t know what compelled him to try and confess like that, but maybe he was trying to be more honest after what he did to derail him and backtracked again? Who knows.

He was starting with an actual confession, but why did he backtrack the way he did? I have two potential answers. First answer was that he didn’t want to weigh Hajime down with the burden of his feelings, and made it sound like his typical Komaeda bullshit instead. Second answer is that Komaeda doesn’t know how to express his love for Hajime and derailed it to Hajime’s hope instead because that’s the only context he’s used “Ai” (愛) in and is used to that. Him using it here doesn’t make it less sincere in his almost-confession, it’s just… complex.

Maybe if this was his only hint of loving Hajime, his feelings for him would be more controversial as “canon”, thankfully it isn’t! Maybe both answers are right in their own right, it would definitely correlate with my own thoughts about his stupidly complicated justification’s for getting closer to Hajime and making excuses for him. If you haven’t read it, I said that while Komaeda was catching feelings for Hajime as an individual, he made excuses for himself that the reason he cared for him was because he was an ultimate (meaning someone who carried potential Hope), but the only reason he let himself be close to a “supposed ultimate” was because we felt that they were similar and that he had “an air unlike the others”. Which was probably why he was so confused as to why he still cared after finding out what he did in chapter 4 because his justification no longer worked.

Although we know that Komaeda absolutely does love Hajime, I am relieved that they used different expressions of love here (both Suki and Dasuki) to make sure we know he does love him. Can it be used platonically? Sure, but the context does not position it like that.

That’s my um opinion I guess?? Hope you got more than what you were expecting? I wonder why I keep making long posts when it’s not going to get that much attention…. I was originally going to say that what’s important about him using “Ai” (愛) is the genuine intent there and not the romantic implication of it since context matters more, and that hasn’t changed at all, but this turned into a completely different conversation. My bad.

#danganronpa #sdr2 #hajime hinata #komahina #nagito komaeda #komaeda nagito #hinata hajime #sdr2 meta #sdr2 analysis #why is it when Komaeda is faced with genuine love for someone #he just has no idea what to think of it??#maybe part of the reason he never minded being alone before he died is because he always had hope to rely on to be his only true connection #okay i’m done

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schneereggen · 2 years

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Shinya's and Mika's love look so platonic to me there is no proof it's romance one as much as I love these ships but it's the sad truth while the romance one was clearly explained like mahiru and shinoa your opinion on this? Shinya said to Byako it was only longing/ admiration he said it him self not like he is in love .. and mika's confession was like how you say i love you to your family member ?

I get what you mean, especially because there are too less words to describe different forms of love and too less categories to put it. If we look at romantic vs platonic love, the commonly established difference is if you want to get into the pants of that person or not. But when we consider that there are people that are asexual and still would experience romantic attraction, where's the difference to platonic love?

Thank you for the question because actually I wanted to write about this topic earlier but didn’t find the right approach.

I think we need some definitions to make clear what we are talking about. Because I really struggle to make the difference between romantic and platonic just by looking at the sexual component of both. So I would use some of the Greek definitions and the Japanese words because they are a bit more precise what we are talking about.

Eros - sexual or passionate love - where you desire something from the other person - in the definition eros doesn’t have to be sexual but passionate - what most people mean when you talk about "romantic love"

Philia - friendship - where usually both parties have a benefit from or look up to each other - what most people mean when they talk about "platonic love"

There’s also agape which is unconditional but isn’t bound to a single person (e.g. God, nature, humanity).

And there are the Japanese definitions of love

Koi - is about passion and often selfish - similar to Eros

Ai - sincere, committed feeling that you chose to have and selfless - there’s no direct parallel to Greek as it can be different kinds of love (including Philia and Agape)

If we now sort those thing to the characters

Mahiru - Mahiru desires Guren. She wants to get into his pants, she wants him for herself. She longs for him, which can be seen as Eros and also Koi. So I agree, Mahiru wants into Guren’s pants and love him what you would consider romantic.

Mika - Mika doesn't want anything back from Yuu and he would unconditionally love him. Which could be described by Ai. He doesn’t seem to want to get into his pants. In the classic sense that would make Mika’s love platonic but as I said before, I have a problem with saying that everything that is not Eros or Koi is automatically not romantic. Just because there isn’t a sexual component in their love, they still value each other a lot. And there’s a component to it, that they desire to be with each other. A strong passion to not be separated.

The word choice of Mika’s confession doesn’t tell us anything about what he feels. Because Japanese use the word suki for every form of love. You can confess your romantic love with suki, you can tell your friend you like them, you can tell your family you love them. Shinoa also uses suki when she says “I really love Yuu-san”. Mahiru uses suki “Daisuki, Guren”. So that sadly doesn’t help us at all in this analysis.

Shinya - He says he admires Guren. It is a form of Philia. He values Guren and he needs Guren, just as Guren needs Shinya. Their love is build on friendship. But it’s not clear if that’s all. It may not be koi, which Shinya denies and corrects it to akogare. Still akogare is a strong desire. Even when not sexual, is a form of Eros. Shinya’s love is passionate. He fully understands Mahiru’s passionate desire for Guren and her and his feelings for Guren are all the time paralleled.

Does he want into Guren's pants as well? We don't know. He seems to have put his desire apart for the sake of their relationship. There so much suppressed desire involved that it seems to be more than just Philia. And this taking a step back, also puts Shinya’s love in the category of Ai in contrast to Koi, because he doesn’t expect Guren to return his love and just unconditionally choses to follow him.

Shinoa - She was told that there is just one form of love by her sister and that it's what she should strive for: Eros/koi. Shinoa has feelings for Yuu. But her conclusion how to put her feelings, she decides it must be koi, because this is the only feeling she had been taught. But her love isn't like Mahiru's. It's more selfless in comparison and less passionate. Shinoa looks up to Yuu, she admires his way of doing things, which would be more Philia. She also put her feelings aside for the sake of their relationship, which makes them better defined as ai.

We don't know everything about Shinoa’s feelings yet. She looks at Yuu and is fascinated by him. But Shinoa put her love in the eros category without even understanding the meaning of it. (”That’s happening to girl, my sister said so”) would love to see her figuring out her feelings more clearly. And yes, I go as far as saying we don’t know if Shinoa really loves Yuu in an eros/koi way.

Back to romantic and platonic

I see that eros and koi are romantic love, Philia and Ai can be romantic love just based on different grounds and expectations but both can also be platonic. Just because a love doesn’t have a sexual component, it doesn’t make it less romantic. In that sense, no word can really categorize every form of love.

And the bigger problem is that ONS is full of different kinds of love that you just can’t put a label. And I think that’s nice for a change. Love doesn’t deserve a label and I think what’s most important is that the person who loves, knows where they want to go with this love. Do I want to get sexual with the person? Does I want to be in a romantic relationship with this person? Do I look up to that person? What do I want from that person or do I want nothing back at all?

We don’t have to put labels on everything. And maybe that’s not important, as long as the other person you want to explains it to understands your feelings the same as you feel them. And maybe sometimes you are wrong about your feelings, you just discover that way later. Because feelings aren’t simple.

In terms of ONS it doesn’t matter if Mika’s, Shinya’s or Shinoa’s feelings are romantic or not, because I really don’t see anyone ending up together in the end, as this is not the point of the story. We are used to know directly when to people love each other in a story. But it’s way more realistic to have all sorts of loves represented and this is what makes the characters feel a lot more relatable to me. Because you can’t put them in boxes and neither you can with love.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #shinya hiragi #mika hyakuya #yuu hyakuya #mahiru hiragi #love #anon ask

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