[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 3

Since I've been so busy at work that I haven't really had time to work on any translations the past couple of weeks (or maybe even three in a row...), we decided to release a Canon chapter from our stockpile this week.

Chapter 3 of the manga covers Morte and Joe's ambush, up to the part where Morte kills Cylon. The manga does still take some creative liberties (I've made a detailed adaptation note list below, for those interested in a comparison), but nothing major.

I'm planning a V24 summary update for next week.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Official SAOP Canon Twitter Account
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

Canon #003

Links for the translation files:

• PDF
• Zip Download

Canon #002

Index

Canon #004

Translation (choice/nuance) comments:

• Page 02: "Dear Adventurers" was 冒険者どの (Boukensha-dono) in the original text. Also, Cylon is speaking in a rather polite tone, so I made his lines a tad more polite/humble.
• Page 10: The word "NPC" was written in English letters in the original text.
• Page 13+: Joe speaks in a very coarse manner, so I tried making his speech more informal and slangy.
• Page 13+: Morte speaks in an informally polite tone with a speech quirk, wherein he elongates the final vowel (usually the sentence ending particle) in his sentences. The elongation consists of an extra small kana for the vowel + a vowel elongation mark (chouonpu, ー). So, sentences that end in desu ka (ですか) become desu kaah (ですかぁー), sentences that end in desu ne (ですね) become desu neeh (ですねぇー) and so on. To account for this quirk, I tried to include some kind of filler phrase at the end of his sentences that I then elongated with an em dash + extra vowels. I also made him sound a tad more formal, but sprinkled his speech with some slang and informal expressions, since he's basically feigning being polite. Strangely enough, Yen Press made Morte sound like the informal guy and made Joe sound like he was speaking regular old Japanese, rather than coarsely informal Japanese.
• Page 16: The internal monologue on the following pages is from Asuna's point of view. The bubbles here don't point to the person talking, but you can tell that Asuna's the one talking here because of her speech mannerisms (e.g., using "watashi" instead of "ore" to refer to herself) in Japanese. These mannerisms are impossible to translate into English to make it clear who's speaking, so I decided to throw in a "Kirito-kun" in the first bubble to make things clear, even though she said "watashi-tachi", not "Kirito-kun and me".
• Page 16: Japanese gamers frequently abbreviate the word "quest" (クエスト) to just "que" (クエ). I decided to translate the abbreviation as "q'st".
• Page 21: The phrase "totally suck" is a Japanese/English hybrid phrase in the original text (激サック, geki sakku = extremely + the English word "suck"). It seems like it is Morte's catchphrase, since he uses it quite often.

Adaptation notes:

• The manga is mostly supposed to be from Asuna's point of view with some brief Kirito point of view moments, while the novel was entirely from Kirito's point of view.
• The manga skipped Asuna and Kirito being stuffed into their bag, carried to Cylon's wagon, and being moved out of town, as well as Kirito's monologues along the way. On the other hand, the manga gives Asuna a chance to express what she's feeling about the whole situation in her internal monologue, which the novel didn't have.
• Asuna and Kirito thinking about punches is a manga original scene.
• The manga gave Cylon some extra lines.
• Asuna's monologues in the second half of the chapter actually belonged to Kirito in the novel.
• In the novel, Morte had already killed Cylon by the time Joe asked for help.
• The manga gave Joe some extra lines to express his displeasure at Morte's command.
• Morte's indifferent response to Cylon's warning about murdering him was not in the novel.
• Asuna's monologue about Cylong's authentic display of emotion is a manga original scene.
• Morte's final dialogue has been shortened. Morte's remarks about how he can't fix his habit of blabbering too much despite being warned by his leader to fix that habit of his was also skipped.
• Kirito's final monologue was greatly shortened.
• Various dialogue trimming.