Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! - Chapter 69
Chapter 69: "Made It This Far"
i am going to rip my hair out
You can read the chapter on our various sites using the links below.
| cubari.moe | comick | bato.to |
Check out below the credit page for group comments, which will contain spoilers for the chapter.
Well, this chapter sure is interesting. In a few different ways.
Regarding the unfinished nature of this chapter, Oowara stated on stream that there were several things that popped up for him this month, including one of his staff members being ill and his grandmother passing away. As a result, for the first time, an Eizouken chapter wasn't able to be fully finished before the deadline. He mentioned that the unfinished shading of this chapter was done to resemble the rough shading style of the "rushed" original version of "Hold Onto Your Machete". He'll have this chapter fixed and finished up in the volume release.
On another note, it looks like we now have a gender ordeal. Oowara has thrown a few curveballs at us translators... Both Watabiki and now Sakurada have conflicting information on their genders, and I have and will be trying my best not to fuck up translating their dialogue and dialogue referring to them.
For some background information, Oowara has a rather progressive view of gender and "only identifies as a man because his body is male", as per a tweet which was nicely expanded on in the below article.
https://x.com/dennou319/status/1684619643099684864
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2023-08-08/keep-your-hands-off-eizouken-author-talks-about-his-disability-gender-identity-and-pc-culture/.201006
As was mentioned on the MangaDex (RIP) discussion forum for Chapter 68, the recently introduced Watabiki hasn't had any gendered language actually referring to him as a boy, despite my usage of he/him pronouns when referring to him.
And as of this chapter, Sakurada also has prevalent conflicting information surrounding her gender. Looking back, Sakurada has also not been specifically referred to using any gendered language, putting her in the same category as Watabiki. There are a few more details that give hints surrounding this, like her masculine/delinquent way of speaking and usage of "Ore", but nothing that explicitly sets her gender in stone.
Before anything, I want to say that referring to multiple main characters using they/them all the time as a baseline is a little annoying and makes the dialogue sound unnatural in many circumstances. If a character is meant to be explicitly referred to using gender-neutral pronouns then that would be fine, but I'd like to avoid it if at all possible. There are a few things in the story that support using either kind of gendered language for both characters, which I will go over in the following paragraphs.
Watabiki was shown in a panel in Chapter 68 wearing a skirt back in elementary school, but currently wears what appears to be a male uniform. Just based on the way that he currently dresses, I will be using masculine pronouns until something is explicitly confirmed.
Sakurada is a little more complicated, given that she's been in the story for far longer. Both we and the official translation of Eizouken refer to Sakurada with she/her pronouns. It was easier to assume Sakurada's gender than Watabiki's just based on her hair length, her consistently wearing a skirt, etc.
Her comment this chapter makes it a more present and complex matter than Watabiki's, and it seems like it could even become a relevant plot point in the future. Shown in a panel in Chapter 62, Sakurada seems to have dressed more masculine at some point in the past, but in that same vein, Sakurada appeared to visit the same bathhouse at the same time as the other girls back in Chapter 44. She didn't necessarily enter the women's side of the bath, but there was no additional comments made about the occurance or any attention drawn to it at the time. Given this conflicting information from both sides, I am going to approach it in the same way as Watabiki. Since she currently dresses feminine, I will use feminine pronouns until anything is explicitly confirmed.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant. I hope everyone understands the stuff factored into my translation choices a little better after reading it. This chapter actually has some pretty interesting commentary from Asakusa's front, so I hope everyone enjoyed that.
Side note: "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!" will be on break next month. The next chapter should be out near the end of July. See you then!
Words of Wisdom:
"lupus lupus you have lupus "
ー SPOEKLREIORK