Love, Chuunibyou & Other Delusions An Introduction --- And so it begins... (Well, it actually began back in 2017. Real life is what it is, I suppose.) Despite the many translations this work received (my own included), I was left with a few nagging questions. How much of this show was lost on an audience who, through no fault of their own, lacked the cultural or social background to understand it? What was missed by those not a part of the geeky, obsessive, and often deliberately cryptic 'otaku' subculture? Given the rather large uptake of newly minted manga and anime fans in the West in the last several years, and my desire to help others appreciate as much of these works as I can, I was inspired to start working on these guides. The amount of options that new fans have to consume this media, legally or otherwise, is at an all-time high. While this is certainly a boon for enthusiasts outside of Japan, it still leaves us with some fundamental failings. In years past, trying to convey information outside the translation itself was often handled by the now-infamous 'translator's note' -- an additional block of text on the screen (or the page) explaining some obscure concept, cultural difference, joke, or geek reference in as few words as possible. The result of this brevity was usually a failure to explain the subject adequately, and often caused more confusion than it resolved. Another equally troublesome issue is one of target audience. If for no other reason than simplicity, translators often make an effort to cater their work for an assumed viewership of veteran anime fans. A viewership that, due to longtime investment in the hobby, is much more familiar with Japanese culture, day-to-day life, and idiosyncrasies. As such, they neither need nor want additional information taking up screen space (or leaving a distracting block in the margin of a manga) and so any potential explanations are simply omitted. This often leaves newcomers scratching their heads at things more experienced fans take for granted. Speaking of head scratching, I would now like to make it clear that if you're watching with an English dubbed audio track, please cease and desist immediately before it's too late. The reasons that hobbyists avoid 'dubs' are myriad, but I'll mention one here, and that is 'localization.' When localization occurs, it usually takes on the form of a lazy disregard for what was actually said, usually under the presumption that the viewer/reader wouldn't "get it" anyway, followed by a rewrite of the dialogue into something indistinguishable from its original form. Probably the most (in)famous example of this comes from the legendary '4Kids' who once magically transformed an 'onigiri' (a shaped ball of sticky rice often wrapped with dried seaweed) into a jelly donut through the power of language. While the Internet still likes to joke about this years later, localization is much more egregious (and often politically motivated) in its modern incarnations. Brock shows us a staple breakfast treat. http://docrobot.sdf.org/images/chuuni/donut.jpg I take no responsibility if you watch an English dub and some piece of the source material has been localized away, leaving you reading a part of these guides in confusion. I also have absolutely no way of knowing which subtitles you're watching, although I'll be making an effort to cover as many possibilities as I can in this regard. That said, your subtitles of choice will undoubtedly have a localization or two of their own, along with a few different interpretations of the dialogue. As such, I'll often be commenting on what's actually being said (and I don't always get it right, either.) This is where paying careful attention to the spoken dialogue comes in handy, and you only get better the more you listen. The scope of material this guide intends to cover should allow for understanding the work in question far beyond the boundaries of its main plot. In theory, this should also provide a foundation for understanding other media and provide some general insight into Japanese society as a whole. This is an unintended side effect of giving context to everything I can, lest I leave out something important, interesting, or educational. An intended side effect is the removal of the long-standing rite of passage associated with truly understanding Japanese media -- the notion that one needed to spend any number of months or years researching obscure references, cultural differences, and the language itself before being truly considered a fan by other hobbyists. This was particularly daunting before the advent of the modern Internet. All this being said, I'm certainly no expert and there are things I'm bound to get wrong or just flat-out misunderstand. There's going to be stuff I overthink. There's even more stuff I'm going to read into much too deeply. This is to say nothing of all the inevitable tangents into parts of weebdom completely unrelated to the subject at hand that are undoubtedly coming. I know this going in, and I want you to as well. It'll be fun, or at least worth a cheap laugh or two. --- "Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens."