There is something so compelling to me about pantalone and all the different versions of dottore maybe I’ll find a fic that suits my vision or write it myself someday
But also Frankenstein/body puppet au w inspo from zombie stage… Ivan sacrificed himself for love and Luka puts his body back together to see what’s left
Doesn’t perfectly cover the above scenarios and more, which is why some people might say genki is untranslatable, not because it’s impossible to understand, but if u ask me what it means in English it’s very hard to give a solid answer
Like after I moved and talked w an old friend after awhile, she asked me “genki desu ka??” which she means as “have you been doing well?”
But i can also say “wow that fish is really genki” to mean its active and moving a lot
A common translation of genki is “cheerful” but that
When we talk abt specific words too, there’s also the problem of words drastically changing meaning based on context, in ways that don’t exist in the target language
A good translation preserves meaning, intent, and nuance, all of which are fairly subjective at best so if something is untranslatable, it means that taken out of its native language, it does not retain the exact same meaning, nuance, or intent
There’s always going to be an awkwardness because there just isn’t a universal, culturally normal greeting that (American) English speakers say before eating. Understanding a translator’s note doesn’t equal a word being translatable
My two cents is this seems to conflate “translatable” and “understandable” because yeah I can explain what it means to say “itadakimasu” in English, and there’s work arounds when u need to translate it, but
it irritates me whenever people try to say "this is a SUPER UNIQUE and UNTRANSLATABLE word ONLY found in this language" and like it's literally translatable you just have to use multiple words to translate it
Sometimes all it really takes is a one sided greeting and two heads spaced five feet apart to drag u back into the ivanluka mines….. ivanluka nation were so back
Also some awkward parts in the eng translation are clearer in Japanese imo bc Mizi is saying “pls!! Can you two be a little more decisive!!”
And Ivan’s description is “acts like he’s not that interested in going but he’s def going”