[Progressive manga] Scherzo of Deep Night - Volume 2 Original vs Tankoubon Comparison

We were supposed to get a Scherzo chapter release last week, but Mtt has been ignoring me the entire week and I haven't had the time to finish up something non-manga during that time, so I decided to make a little filler release: a compilation of changes between the original Twitter release of Scherzo volume 2 chapters, and the final corrected version on the tankoubon compilation. The changes vary from finishing incomplete backgrounds, to redoing entire panels from scratch, so I thought it would be interesting for people to see the two versions side by side.

Links to our translation of the chapters themselves are posted below the comparisons. Whether or not we'll make a single file for the entire volume eventually depends solely on how motivated Mtt is.
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

Chapter 6 comparison

Chapter 7 comparison

Chapter 8 comparison

Chapter 9 comparison

Chapter 10 comparison

Chapter 11 comparison

Chapter 12 comparison

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 6

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 7

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 8

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 9

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 10

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 11

Links for the translation files:

Scherzo of Deep Night - Chapter 12

Links for the translation files:

Translation (choice/nuance) comments:
-Chapter 6
  • Page c6-01+: Argo has a speech quirk wherein she changes the last kana (usually a sentence ending particle) in her sentence to katakana, when it would normally be written in hiragana. This is accounted for by emphasising the final letter in her sentence in the translation (making it capitalised or look bigger). Argo also speaks in boyish tone, so I made her language more casual.
  • Page c6-02: "Grub" accounts for the fact that Argo uses メシ (meshi), a colloquial boyish word for food.
  • Page c6-02+: Argo uses two types of first person pronouns: orecchi (オレっち) and oira (オイラ). Both are colloquial/dialectal variants of the casual masculine 俺 (ore) pronoun, usually used by people from the countryside. Orecchi seems to be prevalent in Shizuoka dialect and surrounding regions.
  • Page c6-02: The phrase "the Dark Elf side" had "this (side)" as furigana.
  • Page c6-02, 24, 25, 31: Argo uses the word "bath" in katakana (フロ), rather than kanji (風呂).
  • Page c6-03: "Thankies" - Argo used the word サンキュー (Sankyū), which is just the Japanese pronunciation of the English phrase "thank you".
  • Page c6-04: There are a variety of ways to refer to people fighting on the front lines in Sword Art Online. The most common of them is 攻略組 (Kouryaku-gumi, lit. "capture/conquest group". In this case, Asuna uses a longer 攻略集団 (Kouryaku Shuudan), which basically means the same thing but with more kanji. I usually translate 攻略組 as "Clearers", based on the fact that the characters use the English verb "clear" when referring to beating the game (for reference, Yen Press seems to go with a variety of translations for this one term, including "advancement group", "frontier group", "frontline players", "advanced group", "best players" etc.), but since 攻略集団 is longer, I translated it as "Clearing Group".
  • Page c6-07: I used "OFC" for "of course", because the entire word was in katakana in the original text (モチロン). I assumed that this was just he speech quirk affecting the entire word, but "of course" is two words, so I decided to use an abbreviation.
  • Page c6-08: "Minimal assets" was ミニマルボディ (Ingurusshu for "minimal body") in the original text. On a side note, the novel dialogue line made a bigger point at highlighting that Asuna had bigger assests that Argo seemed envious of, but due to the dialogue trimmings, the manga version could be interpreted as Argo being proud of her own spin on beauty. Not sure if this was intentional, or just unintended ambiguity.
  • Page c6-09: Due to dialogue changes (それで、アルゴさんにも着てほしいんだけど = Also, I want you to wear one too, Argo-san --> あの…わたしだけじゃなくて = Umm... not just me) and inherrent ambiguity of Asuna's lines on page c6-08, the manga makes it sound like Asuna had been implying that she wanted both of them to wear swimsuits from the very start. Hence, I phrased Asuna's lines ambiguously so that they could be interpreted either way as well just in case. For the record, the novel's version of Asuna's lines made it clear that Argo wearing a swimsuit was an addendum, not the original implication that Asuna was going for when she asked if it was okay to wear a swimsuit.
  • Page c6-24: Argo uses the term システム外スキル (shisutemu-gai sukiru = skill outside the system). It refers to actions that look like they would need a skill to pull off, but are actually pulled off through the player's own effort. Since it's a madeup term by SAO's characters, I decided to make up my own term as well by analogy based on the word off-line (if off-line means "not connected to the Internet, then "off-system" would refer to being not connected to the system). For reference, Yen Press rephrased the term to simply "unofficial skill".
  • Page c6-25: "Ample assets" was 立派なボディ (rippa na bodi = well-developed/fine body) in the original text.
  • Page c6-27: Argo sometimes refers to herself as オネーサン (onee-san = big sis).
  • Page c6-27: "thx" - Argo shortened the word ありがとう (arigatou = thanks) to あんがと (angato).
-Chapter 7
  • Page c7-06: "I wonder what's this all about, with that reaction of his." - the word "reaction" was in katakanised English and the sentence itself was awkward in the original text due to Asuna splitting her sentence into two.
  • Page c7-11: "Area Boss" (エリアボス) was in katakanised English in the original text, so it seems to be different from other boss terms.
  • Page c7-16: "Message" and "to Shivata" were written in English/Western Alphabet in the original panel.
  • Page c7-18: Asuna abbreviated the word メッセジー (Messejī) to メッセ (Messe). The usual English abbreviation of the same word is "msg", so I just went with that.
-Chapter 8
  • Page c8-04: Kirito's "Wat za hellz, man" is him imitating Kibaou by using the cactus-headed guy's iconic exclamation なんでや! (nandeya), which is a Kansai dialect expression for "what the hell" or "you've gotta be kidding".
  • Page c8-06: Kirito said the number 1440 in kanji. The standard way of denoting such a number in kanji would be 千四百四十, which literally requires him to enumerate each component of the number with what it stands for (i.e. "thousand, four hundred, forty"). Instead, Kirito's bubble just turned the arabic numeral 1440 into kanji as is: 一四四〇 (i.e. "one, four, four, zero), wherein he just the names of the digits individually without regard for the fact that each digit has thousands/hundreds/tens appended to it.To account for this, I used the same logic in the translation and had him pronounce the names of the digits individually.
  • Page c8-06: When speaking to Liten, Kirito uses teineigo (丁寧語), a polite way of speaking in Japanese that entials using the copula "desu" in sentences without a verb, and the "-masu" conjugation for verbs (Shivata's "masu-desu treatment" refers to this specific practice of using polite copula/conjugations in this manner of speech). This makes the speaker's speech sound formal, but not overboard polite, so it's used in either averagely-formal contexts, when speaking to a superior, or when speaking to strangers to avoid intimacy. On the other hand, Kirito doesn't go through these extra steps when speaking to Shivata, as he doesn't shy away from speaking with Shivata as equals. To account for this nuance, I sprinkled Kirito's speech with some formal synonyms whenever he was speaking to Liten before being called out for being too formal.
  • Page c8-06: Sempai/senpai is a Japanese word for "senior" in a line of work or in education. I decided to leave it as is, since most anime/LN fans are aware of it. Also, due to Japanese phonetics, an "n" before a "p" is actually pronouced as an "m", which is why I went with sempai, rather than senpai.
  • Page c8-06: "I'll add my name to that petition as well" - the original text in the novel was それでいいだろ (sorede ii darou = fine/what's the big deal/works just fine with me), but the manga instead uses オレからも頼む (ore kara mo tanomu = I ask from my end as well)"
  • Page c8-08: Liten uses two different words for "clearing": when talking about "clearing efforts", she uses the word 攻略 (lit., conquest, beating something), which is a gaming term for going through (i.e. making progress in) a game to reach the ending. When talking about "clearing the game", Liten uses the word クリア (kuria), which is just the English word "clear" written in katakana. Both of these words refer to the same thing, which is why I translate them similarly. The only difference is that クリア is only used as a verb, while 攻略 can be used as either a noun or a (nominal) verb.
  • Page c8-09: "getting by just fine" - the novel text specifically said that she was referring to getting to the frontline on her own (タンクソロで最前線まで行ってやる), but the manga skipped the "to the frontline" part (タンクソロで行ってやる), so I chose to make the translation more abstract just like the manga had.
  • Page c8-10: "one-point-five" - like Kirito, Liten uses kanji numbers in a non-standard manner in this instance. She technically says one-five-zero-zero (一五〇〇), but "one-point-five" sounded more natural in English.
  • Page c8-12: The word "ban" was written in all-caps English letters (BAN) in the original text.
  • Page c8-13: "[...] why bother with iron gear when I could just skip right to making a full set of steel gear" - The words "iron" and "steel" were written in katakana English (アイアン and スチール respectively), rather than in kanji in the original text.
  • Page c8-15: "abusing a glitch" - in the original text, the word "glitch/glitching" (グリッチ) had furigana text that said "abuse of bugs" (バグの悪用). Since furigana was used to explain japanglish gaming terms that don't really follow how actual English speakers would use them, I decided to ignore this instance of furigana and just translate the intended meaning.
  • Page c8-15, 16: The word "maintenance" in the original text was メンテ (mente), an abbreviation of the English word "maintenance" (メンテナンス).
  • Page c8-16: Liten abbreviated the phrase "friend message" (フレンド・メッセジー, furendo messeji) to フレメッセ (fure messe), since Japanese abbreviate words by taking the first two kana of each abbreviated word, rather than the initials like in English. The usual English abbreviation of the word "message" is "msg", so I just went with that. For the record, the novel version of Liten's line used the full "friend message" phrase.
  • Page c8-17: "banhammer" - the original phrase was BANされる (BAN sareru = be BANned). Since Lisbeth uses more colloquial speech, I decided to localise this phrase.
  • Page c8-17: "steel ingots" was written entirely in katakana English as スチール・インゴット (suchīru ingotto).
  • Page c8-18: 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 c8-18, 24: Another instance of abbreviating メッセジー to メッセ.
  • Page c8-24: There were two different phrases that used different words for "floor": 第五層 (Dai-Go-Sou = 5th Floor), where "floor" is the kanji 層 = layer/stratum, and フロアボス (furoa bosu), which uses the English word "floor" in katakana.
-Chapter 9
  • Page c9-03: The phrase "certain things" was emphasied in the original text with boutens (傍点), which are basically dot-like characters that are added next to specific kanji/kana to emhasise something in the sentence.
  • Page c9-05: The word "window" (ウインドウ) is in katakana English and refers to computer windows.
  • Page c9-05: "I should have hit that yes button" - "yes" in this case is イエス, the katakana version of the English word "yes".
  • Page c9-06: "no-go" / "a-okay" - the original text uses the English words "out" (アウト) and "safe" (セーフ) respectivelly based on baseball lingo, which Japanese loves to insert into regular conversations. Since "out" refers to players on offense being removed due to failing to reach base, while "safe" refers to an offensive player successfully reaching base without being put out, Japanese use "out" to refer to socially unacceptable actions and "safe" to stuff that still (technically) falls in line. Baseball terms aren't used like that in casual talk in English, so I decided to go with a translation that captures the intended meaning, rather than sticking to baseball terms.
  • Page c9-08: "insensitive" - the original phrase was デリカシーのない (derikashī no nai = having no delicacy, where "delicacy" is an English word written in katakana). Japanese use the English word "delicacy" in the sense of "tactfulness/thoughtfulness", but the word isn't as flexible in actual English as Japanese like to use it, so I decided to go with "insensitive" in this case instead.
  • Page c9-10: 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 c9-10: Argo nicknames Kirito as Kii-bou (キー坊) and Asuna as Aa-chan (アーちゃん). -bou and -chan are cutesy suffixes/honorifics for boys and girls respetively. Of course, since boys don't want to be associated with "cuteness", -bou usually only gets used with very young boys, unlike -chan being used for any relatively young and cute girl.
  • Page c9-10: The phrase "the big thing" was emphasied in the original text with boutens.
  • Page c9-11: There were two different phrases that used different words for "floor": 第五層 (Dai-Go-Sou = 5th Floor), where "floor" is the kanji 層 = layer/stratum, and フロアボス (furoa bosu), which uses the English word "floor" in katakana.
  • Page c9-11: "I won't leave you hanging" - the manga artist made a typo in the original text here by writing もっらいぶらず (morraiburazu), when the intended word was もったいぶらず (mottaiburazu = assume important/put on airs). I did not reflect this typo in the translation.
  • Page c9-11, 12: Kirito initially uses the word フラッグ (furagu), which is just the katakana rendering of the English word "flag". The problem is that the English word "flag" is usually used in Japanese gaming slang to refer to event triggers/conditions or, more broadly, variables that determine some sort of outcome (e.g., of a quest) in the sense that taking (or not taking) some action may result in a different ending or quest path etc.. This double meaning (literal flag versus quest trigger) is what results in the ensuing confusion for Shivata. When Asuna is explaining what Kirito had in mind with the word "flag", she used 旗 (hata) - the actual Japanese word for a literal flag or banner. References to the guild flag henceforth then usually use 旗 instead of フラッグ, so I went with using "banner flag" in such instances for clarity.
  • Page c9-12: The phrase "long spear" (ロングスピア) was written in katakana English in the original text.
  • Page c9-14: "half-yesu" - Kirito uses uses the English word "yes" in katakana, so I decided to render it with a "u" at the end to maintain the nuance that he's being a dork here.
  • Page c9-15: "mega-deep shit" - Argo uses ゲキヤバ (geki-yaba) here, a combination of the prefix geki (激 = extremely) and the colloquial word yabai (ヤバい = crazy/unhinged/dangerous).
  • Page c9-17: The phrase 5 vs 5 (五vs五) was accompanied by the phrase group duel (団体デュエル) as furigana.
-Chapter 10
  • Page c10-02: The name "Bro Squad" (アニキ軍団) had "Team Agil" (エギル組) as furigana. The original novel text only had "Team Agil" (エギル組). Note that "Bro Squad" is not actually the official name of their guild.
  • Page c10-02: Argo nicknames Kirito as Kii-bou (キー坊) and Asuna as Aa-chan (アーちゃん). -bou and -chan are cutesy suffixes/honorifics for boys and girls respetively. Of course, since boys don't want to be associated with "cuteness", -bou usually only gets used with very young boys, unlike -chan being used for any relatively young and cute girl.
  • Page c10-02: "keeping tabs" - the original phrase was チェックしてる (be checking, where "check" is in katakana English).
  • Page c10-02: There are a variety of ways to refer to people fighting on the front lines in Sword Art Online. The most common of them is 攻略組 (Kouryaku-gumi, lit. "capture/conquest group". I usually translate this term as "Clearers", based on the fact that the characters use the English verb "clear" when referring to beating the game (for reference, Yen Press seems to go with "advancement group" in Progressive volume 5). On the other hand, Argo invented the name "Front Runner" (フロントランナー) in English for them, but she's probably the only one who actually uses this name. In this case, the original text used 攻略組 with フロントランナー as furigana.
  • Page c10-03: The word "stats" (ステータス) in Kirito's bubble had "numbers"(数字)as furigana text.
  • Page c10-04: 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 c10-05: "throw in the towel" - the original phrase was "raise (our) hands (in surrender)" (お手上げ)
  • Page c10-10: "expenses aren't a concern" - the original word for "expenses" was コスト (kosuto), the katakana spelling of the English word "cost".
  • Page c10-13: Nezha's name is based on a Chinese protection deity named 哪吒. The spelling "Ne zha" is based on the Chinese pronunciation of the characters. The same characters in Japanese are pronounced "Na taku".
  • Page c10-14: There were two different phrases that used different words for "floor": 第五層 (Dai-Go-Sou = 5th Floor), where "floor" is the kanji 層 = layer/stratum, and フロアボス (furoa bosu), which uses the English word "floor" in katakana.
-Chapter 11
  • Page c11-01: "you rock" - the original phrase was パネェ (panee), which a slur of the colloquial phrase 半端ない (hanpanai, literally "not half-assed" = "impressive"). I went for an equivalent English colloquial phrase.
  • Page c11-02: "Blackie" (ブラッキー = burakkii) is a nickname that some people use for Kirito due to his tendency to wear black outfits.
  • Page c11-02: "a very precarious tightrope here" - the original idiom was 危ない橋渡らせる (abunai hashi wataraseru = making [object] cross a dangerous bridge). I chose to go with the English idiom "walking a tightrope" to approximate the intended metaphor.
  • Page c11-02: "he's got nothing to gain" - the original phrase was
  • Page c11-04: "crapmmo - the original phrase was クソゲー (kuso-geh), a slur of 糞ゲーム (kuso gehmu = shit game). It's a common gamer lingo to describe bad or so-bad-that-it's-funny games. The best localisation that I could come up with was crappy + MMO = crapmmo.
  • Page c11-07: "Truth is, my actual goal" - Kirito uses both the phrase 本当のところ (hontou no tokoro = truth is/in truth) and 本命 (honmei = actual goal), hence the redundancy.
  • Page c11-11: While trying to deny that he and Asuna were an item, Kirito suddenly switched to Osaka dialect for some reason. Made his speech sound broken to capture the intended effect of this nuance.
  • Page c11-12: "eighteen hundred hours" - Kirito used 十八時 (juuhachi-ji), which literally means 18 hours, rather than saying 午後六時 (gogo roku-ji = six o'clock in the afternoon) like in the novel. Since o'clock can only be used with 12-hour times, I decided to use military time to get around this weird format choice.
  • Page c11-12: "Aye-aye, roger" - Argo's phrase was entirely in katakanised English (アイアイ ラジャー = ai-ai rajah)
  • Page c11-13: "I've been trying to decide on a formation" - the word "formation" was in katakanised English (フォーメーション = fohmehshon) in this specific case. The characters usually use actual Japanese words for this, but this time Kirito went with Engrish.
  • Page c11-13: Japanese gamers use the abbreviation "DPS" as a synonym for "damage dealer", when it's actually used to describe parameters, rather than party roles. The original text even has an outright note saying that "DPS" stands for "Damage per second" in the same instance where "DPS" is used to refer to damage dealers...
  • Page c11-13: "※Stands for Damage Per Second" is a note present in the original text. "Damange Per Second" is written in English in the original.
  • Page c11-14+: "damage dealer" - the original term was the English word "attacker" (アタッカー), which is the Japanese gamer lingo equivalent of "damage dealer". In the novel, Kirito even outright used the English term "damage dealer" in addition to "attacker", but it was cut out in the manga to save space.
  • Page c11-14: "※Stands for Crowd Controller" is a note present in the original text. "Crowd Controller" is written in English in the original.
  • Page c11-19: 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".
-Chapter 12
  • Page c12-01: "Mr. Tough Guy" - Argo literally said "tough guy" in katakanised English (タフガイさん = tafu gai-san). I changed "-san" to "Mr." as it would be awkward to leave the honorific in and the demeaning implication is better conveyed through "Mr.".
  • Page c12-01: "Front-runners" (フロントランナー = furonto rannnah) is Argo's name for the frontline group. She's the only one who uses this specific name.
  • Page c12-01: Agil speaks in slangy masculine tone. Thus, I made his lines more casual by using more slang and slurred words in his speech.
  • Page c12-04+: The word "beta" is usually written as β in the original text. I decided to keep it that way.
  • Page c12-05: The phrase "guild members" was shortened to "guilmems" (ギルメン) in the original text.
  • Page c12-05: Argo used the katakanised English word for shortcut (ショートカット = shohto katto)
  • Page c12-11: "That sure strays from standard practice" - the original phrase was "セオリーと違うな", which literally means "sure is different from theory", where the word "theory" is in katakanised Engrish. However, Japanese have coopted this English word to mean "what's most likely to work/be a safe call", so a literal translation wouldn't make much sense. So, I localised it to "standard practice" instead.
  • Page c12-12: "POT rotation" - the original phrase was "POTローテ", where "POT" is a shorthand for the English word "potion", while ローテ (rohte) is a shorthand for the English word "rotation".
  • Page c12-12: "※Short for Area of Effect" is a note present in the original text. "Area of Effect" is written in English in the original.
  • Page c12-12: "hate" (ヘイト = heito) - a synonym for aggro
  • Page c12-15: "For a hastily assembled team, both squads" - the word "team" was in katakanised English (チーム = chihmu), while "both squads" (両隊 = ryoutai) was in actual Japanese.
Adaptation notes:
-Chapter 6
  • The manga didn't explicitly explain that the catacomb boss was different from the beta, which is what prompted Argo to camp out in the boss room to collect info on it.
  • The manga skipped in the intricacies of Asuna's plan to lure Argo into a trap.
  • Various dialogue trimming.
-Chapter 7
  • Kirito's reminiscing about his previous New Year at home was skipped. The only part of it that made its way into the manga is a brief panel about Kirito wondering if Suguha was having a hard time cleaning the dojo on her own.
  • The manga didn't cover Kirito's recollections of the events in the catacombs in detail, nor does it mention that Kirito actually presumed that Morte and Joe PKed Asuna when confronting them as he didn't trust Asuna's HP bar was up-to-date, rather than bluffing about it like Asuna had assumed.
  • In the novel, Asuna arrived after Kirito's internal monologue had come to the end. The manga split it up into two separate monologues by having Asuna come early. Because of this, Kirito didn't become flustered when Asuna called out to him in the novel... instead, he was trying to keep himself from touching Asuna's wet hair. The monologue about Asuna was also trimmed in the manga.
  • In the novel, Asuna warned Kirito not to pry into girls' conversations before Kirito made his remarks about girl talks. He also mentioned Argo there.
  • Asuna hadn't mentioned her duel against Argo to Kirito in the novel, where Kirito only heard of it much later on.
  • The manga skipped Kirito's monologue about considering how to tackle the ALS issue.
  • Asuna's jab at Kirito being the antithesis to the ALS is an original scene. Instead, in the novel, there was a long scene where Asuna and Kirito discussed about the ALS, how Asuna believed that she and Kirito were more DKB-leaning and why Kibaou and his guild disliked the DKB. Asuna was instead concerned about how she herself had pretty good gear, while Kibaou was staunchly opposed to monopolisation.
  • The scene where Kirito ends up holding Asuna's knee after trying to reassure her that she should continue keeping herself safe with good equipment, and then getting flustered about it when he realised what he was doing, was skipped.
  • Kirito's concerns that the ALS party planner could possibly be cooperating with the hard-liners of their guild to distract the DKB for them, rather than actually trying to foster friendship between the two guilds, were omitted.
  • Various dialogue trimming.
-Chapter 8
  • In the novel, Kirito's calculations on the amount of ore required for a set of steel armour were done in an internal monologue, but when asking Liten about it, he didn't use the specific number he arrived at with his calculations. Instead he just said 千何百個 (a thousand and several hundreds pieces of ore).
  • "So you mined up over a thousand pieces all on your own." (一人で千個以上掘ったんだ) - Kirito's full remark in the novel was 確かにタンクはSTR高いからストレージ容量にも余裕あるんだろうけど、それでも千個以上もよく掘ったなあ (Tanks do indeed have high storage capacity because of their high STR, though mining over a thousand pieces of ore is still an impressive feat.). The remark in the novel didn't explicitly say that Liten did it on her own. The manga decided to put an emphasis on the whole "on your own" thing in several separate bubbles.
  • Kirito's monologue on page 14 was actually an open and longer conversation with Shivata in the novel.
  • Asuna's dialogue on page 14 was actually Kirito's in the novel.
  • The manga omitted concerns with storage capacity and degradation of items left on the ground over time that would make it harder to transport over a thousand pieces of ore, as well as the fact that a large, stationary furnace was needed to melt ore into ingots. It also skipped concerns that taking large quantities of ore to a blacksmith would alert other players that there was a large stock of ore near town. References to Nezha's scam, which prompted Kirito to internally joke about the south pole melting with how lovey-dovey Shivata and Liten were being with each other, were also omitted. The reference to the scam also brought up the issue of the PK gang, which is why Kirito was wary of disclosing their goal to stop the ALS's efforts to defeat the boss on thei own in case she was an inside agent of the PK gang.
  • For the record, Lisbeth's lines in the novel were actually direct quotes, rather than reported speech, just like in the manga. Yen Press decided to change this for their translation of the novel.
  • Kirito's remark about Liten's friend being a girl came right after Liten mentioned this fact in the novel. The manga moved it to where Liten finishes her story.
  • Asuna's dialogue line prompting Kirito to stop suspecting Liten being involved with the PK gang was just Kirito's internal monologue in the novel.
  • The manga added some more details to how Liten met Shivata by giving them some space for lovey-dovey dialogue. On the other hand, it skipped Kirito's complaints that he'd need some alcohol to make the whole scene bearable to recount.
  • The manga doesn't mention that Liten turned to Lisbeth for advice on the invitation to join the ALS as well.
  • Kirito's narration in the novel only mentioned Liten and Shivata hitting it off, not explicitly mentioning that they had falled in love.
  • In the novel, Kirito took out his bottles of lime water after Liten's story about her armour, rather than after revealing the ALS's plans.
  • "but the centerpiece drop item was a two-handed sword" (目玉アイテムはたしか両手剣だったような) - for the record, Yen Press mistranslated this as "it was a two-handed swordsman who got the centerpiece drop".
  • Various dialogue trimming and restructuring the order of dialogue lines.
-Chapter 9
  • After the flashback to Romolo's rocking chair, Asuna was supposed to rub her left shoulder, rather than her right one, since that's the one that Kirito had touched back then.
  • Asuna did not react so dramatically to Kirito mentioning that she was asleep during the Harassment Prevention Code instance in the novel.
  • The flashback with Shivata wasn't a flashback in the novel. The dialogue was also changed up for this situation. Some of the dialogue from the flashback was meant to be addressed to Argo instead.
  • The novel didn't show the NPC delivering Argo's roll-cake, but on the other hand it did mention her ordering one.
  • Some of Kirito's internal monologues were cut. One got replaced with an Asuna internal monologue.
  • Various dialogue trimming and rewording.
-Chapter 10
  • "Weren't you the one who claimed that it was impossible to take on the boss with just three members in our party even if we brought Kizmel with us!" - this is an original line in the manga. The novel just had Asuna giving Kirito a meaningful glare. Also, the Twitter/Comic Walker version of the chapter had a mistake in this dialogue line, making it sound like Asuna was referring to what had happened on the 4th Floor, when she was actually referencing something that was said in this very manga.
  • Asuna reference to the 4th Floor boss battle with Kizmel and Yofilis was omitted.
  • The manga skips Argo complaining that Kirito forgot she was doing the boss quests as an info broker.
  • The manga greatly trimmed down the backstory for Floor 5 when revealing what she knew about the boss. It also skipped the reveal that the catacombs boss used to be the king of the lands back in the old days.
  • Kirito's mention that the party-planning committee was about to head back to Karluin for the party, which meant that Shivata and Liten could sneak off for the boss battle without being noticed by their guild, was omitted.
  • In the novel, Kirito began writing his message to Nezha after his talk with Asuna, while the manga shows him already receiving a reply just after their conversation.
  • Some of Kirito's dialogue lines with Nezha have been re-arranged.
  • Various dialogue trimming.
-Chapter 11
  • In the novel, Nezha went off to share his greetings with Asuna before Kirito was accosted by Hafner.
  • Hafner directly addressed Okotan and Liten in the novel, rather than Okotan barging into the conversation. But Okotan's line is the same in the manga as in the novel, despite the manga skipping a line where Hafner addressed him.
  • The manga omitted Kirito's monologue about how difficult it would be to explain his status as a Beater to Liten, which is why he offered a more simplistic reason that utterly backfired on him.
  • Various dialogue trimming.
-Chapter 12
  • Page 3 - slightly different phrasing for Kirito that ultimately means the same thing.
  • Pages 8-9 - Kirito's monologues were re-ordered for simplicity's sake. In the novel, Kirito first thought of the PK gang, then about everyone's motivations, then went back to thinking about the PK gang.
  • Kirito's mid-chapter monologue was considerably trimmed down.
  • The manga skipped Kirito's assurances that he'll scout the boss before their battle.
  • Kirito's monologues from the regular golem battles were skipped.
  • Kirito describing what the 10th Floor Labyrinth was like in the beta was skipped.
  • Wolfgang's talk about hating snakes and wanting to open up a stakehouse in the game were omitted.
  • Hafner took over one of Shivata's lines.
  • In the novel, Kirito was the first to volunteer to do the boss room scounting, before Argo came and argued that she'd be better for the job, as she could use her mobility to get out of any traps.
  • Various dialogue trimming.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks you guys. keep the hard work.

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  2. This was an entertaining read

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  3. thank you for translating this manga

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