[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 6

Mtt was hoping to get a little surprise out this week and he would have succeeded too, if it wasn't for a meddling snowstorm! So, we're falling back to our original plan: a long-awaited Canon manga release

Chapter 6 of the manga covers Asuna and Kirito going to the next zone of Floor 6 to reunite with Kizmel. The manga does still take some creative liberties and has skipped over a few scenes (I've made a detailed adaptation note list below, for those interested in a comparison), but nothing too major.

Since I'm not sure if we'll manage to get a certain non-manga project ready for a release by the end of the week, I sure hope Mtt will have a manga release ready for the next weekend. Or that Kaan finally gets around to reviewing the First Day manga from Re:Aincrad... 👀

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 #006

Links for the translation files:

• PDF
• Zip Download

Canon #005

Index

Canon #007

Translation (choice/nuance) comments:

• Page 5 and 6: Kirito's "Yahoo" and "Mamma mia" exclamations were literally "yahoo" (イヤッフウ = iyaffu) and "mamma mia" (マンマミーア = mamma mīa) in the original text.
• Page 7: I chose to go with "Blade Throwing" as the translation for "投剣", instead of Yen Press's "Throwing Knives", since the skill encompasses more than just knives... and the original term uses "sword/blade" rather than "knife" in the first place.
• Page 8: Asuna did not have "Martial Arts" in the novel; instead, she had "Light Metal Armour". The manga is following the original Progressive manga's events where Asuna obtained the Martial Arts skill with Nezha, even though she did no such thing in the novel. Also, I went with "Sewing" rather than "Tailoring" like Yen Press does because that's what the original Progressive manga used as the English translation for the skill name in the original Japanese text.
• Page 9: "Enough about me!" - the original text in the bubble was "そんなことより！" (more importantly!). Then while doing my editing run, I realised that the original novel text did say "いまはわたしの話じゃないでしょ" (We're not talking about me right now), which is more in line with my loose translation of the manga's phrase than the actual manga phrase. I chose to keep it as is nonetheless, because it sounds more natural in English and still as brief as the manga wanted it to be.
• Page 17: 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 18: "Outer Field" (圏外, lit. "outside the area") refers to any area outside of the protection of the Anti-Criminal Code, which protects players from damage within the confines of the town (i.e. it's basically the SAO term for non-safe-zones). Yen Press chose to go with the name "safe haven" for whatever reason to refer to safe zones, but the actual SAO system uses the terms "Inner Area" and "Outer Field" respectively. These are the phrases that appear whenever a player enters/leaves a safe town, so that's the terminology I use in my translations.
• Page 18: "ALS" is written in the Western alphabet in the original text.
• Page 18: In the last bubble, Kirito mentioned that the ALS was on the Forest Elf side in the original text. However, this was a mistake on the artist's part, as the ALS is actually on the Dark Elven side. Kirito's referencing the fact that the two main guilds decided to drop the elf quests, rather than being on the opposite side of the campaign. This issue will be fixed in the tankoubon version, so I decided to omit the error from my translation.
• Page 18: Kirito already suspects that the ALS member people refer to as "Joe" is Morte's accomplice, but he has no solid proof to support his suspicions, so he's trying to keep that name to himself for the time being. Hence Kirito's stutter in the last bubble.
• Page 22: Spirit Trees are the equivalent of Teleport Gates for elves. However, unlike the human Teleport Gates, the Spirit Trees are usually located far away from elven bases. This is why Asuna found it surprising that the castle had a Spirit Tree within its territory.
• Page 26: "I'm very much in the clear here" - the original phrase was セーフ (Sēfu). The English word "safe" got popularised by baseball, so Japanese people frequently use it in the sense of "no one can attack/blame me for doing X" or "I'm not in (moral) trouble". In this scene, Kirito's conducting mental gymnastics to not feel awkward/guilty about touching Kizmel's chest.

Adaptation notes:

• The chapter skipped over Asuna and Kirito's muriqui hunt, the studsuna scene that everyone's fawning over, the inn scene, the effects of Morte's interference with Asuna and Kirito's quest, and the two of them checking on the weapons they managed to secure in the aftermath of the bothched assassination attempt. Though, at least some of those will probably be adapted in the next chapter as a flashback.
• The manga skipped over the first Field Boss dungeon events, including: Asuna and Kirito catching up to the raid party, Kirito sharing his sweet potatoes with Agil's crew, Kirito explaining how an orange player could undo their criminal status, Kibaou sucking at solving puzzles and Kirito having to step up and solve them instead, Kirito approaching Okotan and trying to identify Morte's partner to no avail, the steamy North Pole joke, the boss battle and Agil getting the LA bonus, the rest of the raid party going to the next town while Asuna and Kirito split off to visit the Dark Elves.
• Some dialogue from page 9 originally belonged to Kirito in the novel.
• Asuna's longer line on page 10 is phrased entirely differently from the novel, although the meaning is still mostly the same.
• The dialogue on page 16 is simplified and rephrased quite a bit from the novel's version.
• Reference to the Dark Elf queen's castle was omitted.
• Asuna's dialogue on page 21 was just Kirito's narration in the novel.
• The manga skipped the background on Spirit Trees.
• In the novel, it was Kizmel who rushed over and leapt into Asuna's embrace, not the other way around.
• Asuna's line about being to see Kizmel again belonged to Kirito in the novel.
• The manga didn't mention that Castle Galey's interior decor got an improvement comapred to the castle in the beta test.
• In the novel, Kizmel led Asuna and Kirito to their guest room, where Kirito asked her about the presence of other players in the castle, before bringing up Morte and Joe's attack on them.
• Various dialogue trimming and rephrasings.