Guyver manga observations - Chapter 3

[Aether]

#3

- VIZ - Risky!

- Chuang Yi - inspector riskers challenge

- Advocacy - Challenge of the inspector

in this chapter Risker goes to challenge Guyver 1 and of course ends up as guyver goop being eaten by the boost organism.

An anomaly i spotted in chapter 3 is that the panels where Risker explains about the unit G is different in the Viz version.

in fact the whole of the chapter in the Viz version seems to be the original and Takaya obviously redesigned Guyver 2's design and redrew the entire chapter for the tankobon....

we see sho strike the metal and G2's reaction, but in the tankobon version we dont...

also i noticed all 3 versions are different in the explanation of the unit G

sorry Advocacy but i find it too literal and Chuang Yi's is too vague, i think Viz gets the point across best.

for no reason heres an amalgamation of them of my own:

''The Bio Booster is a mysterious intellegent parasitic super creature that merges organically with its host to strengthen and enhance their biological functions.

The Control Metal acts as an organiser, restraining the rampaging growth of the creature and forming a 'Boost Armour System' that can be freely activated and removed by the host.

this is the Guyver unit!!''

Edited August 29, 2012 by Aether

[*Jess♥]

yeah, we had a LOT of problem with that part. I remember talking over that part with durendal for quite a while trying to reach a satisfying compromise.

my japanese is better now. let's have another look.

æ•æ®–ã—ãŸï¼ˆã»ã—ょãã—ãŸï¼‰çŸ¥æ€§ä½“ã¨æœ‰æ©Ÿçš„ã«çµåˆã—...

pervading intelligent life and binding organically...

ãã®ç”Ÿä½“機能を強化．増幅ã™ã‚‹æœªçŸ¥ã®â€è¶…â€ç”Ÿå‘½ä½“

this organism's function is to strengthen. an amplifying, strange "super" life-form.

ã“ã‚Œã«å¢—æ®–ã¨æš´èµ°ã‚’抑ãˆã‚‹ã‚³ãƒ³ãƒˆãƒ­ãƒ¼ãƒ«ãƒ¡ã‚¿ãƒ«ãŒçµ„ã¿ã“ã¾ã‚Œã€‚。。

the Control Metal Organises this boost suit, restraining this from rampaging and multiplying...

殖装．分離ã®è‡ªåœ¨ãªâ€å¼·æ®–装甲システムâ€ã‚’å½¢æˆã™ã‚‹ã€‚。。

a freely removable bio-boost armour system is formed...

ã“ã‚ŒãŒãƒ¦ãƒ‹ãƒƒãƒˆï¼Žï¼§ã 

That is the unit-g.

[*Kenji Murakami]

That definitely sounds better, Ryuki.

[*Jess♥]

cheers. but i am still not happy with 'pervading'. you see, the kanji that is used... there is absolutely no english equivalent for it. I'm not just talking about an awkward word. there is no term for it. at least not one that i know or have been able to find.

one of the kanji is used with a different one but pronounced the same to mean 'predation' or 'eating prey'.

but that kanji is switched with the kanji for augmentation. the one used in 'kyoushokusoukou', 'booster armour' .

so the most straight forward way I could say it is that it means "catching prey in order to augment/boost it". it's like predation, but instead of eating, it is augmenting. aggressively catching a creature in order to increase it's abilities. I can't think of any term for that. pervading works in a poetic way... but it's not technically correct. it's frustrating

edit:

it could be a portmanteaux though... if that is the case.. we could creatively come up with something perhaps.

[*Jess♥]

oops, sorry to double post.

been scrutinising the kanji æ®– shoku.

youngguyver, you'll like this if you're reading.

the kanji shoku is often used in biological terms.

so the term bio-boost is actually very suitable for the kanji we are shown in the title of guyver.

so what we have here is a kanji that my main dictionary describes as 'augment' but in actuality, probably means more like organic propagation or breeding, or organically increasing. I believe this does link strongly to the actions of a parasite, so this sentence above could be describing the actions of a parasite latching onto a host and propagating throughout. so in fact pervading would be a good word to use.

[Salkafar]

It's a symbiont... or rather, the Guyver is a parasite that's forced to behave as a symbiont. So... 'symbiosis'? If a symbiont inhabits the body of the host, this is known as 'endosymbiosis'.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiont

I've seen it translated as 'a transcendent life form', but this may refer to 'beyond the norm'.

Fusion, perhaps?

[Aether]

i agree its not a parasite...

a while ago i did some reaserach and came up with it being a 'facultative endosymbiosis' where one thing lives inside another where 'the relationship is beneficial but not essential to survival of the organisms'' and also a 'Mutualistic sybmbiosis' which is ' a biological interaction between individuals of two different species, where both individuals derive a fitness benefit, for example increased survivorship'...

this seems right to me as the Guyver needs a host to be active but obviously doesnt need it to live or it just wouldnt exsist or be alive once it was removed from a host, but the host may increase its 'survivorship'. The host may not gain anything per se until the armour is activated and the Bio Boost takes effect and obviously becoming a Guyver increases 'survivorship'.

[Aether]

no one minds a double post around here do they

really like the work your putting in Ryuki, hope im not being too critical to make you get all your japanese books out!!

so after your revision of that panel here's another slight rearangement for the sake of it, using your translation as a basis apart from the stuff that ive added in Parenthesis...

[The Bio Booster] organism is a strange ''super'' life form, [whose] function is to amplify and strengthen intelligent life by pervading and binding with it organically...

The Control Metal organises this boost suit, by restraining the [''super''] life form from multiplying rampageously...

[thus] a freely removable bio-boost armour system is formed...

That is the unit-g.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Aether

[*Jess♥]

I don't mind, I do these investigations of my own volition and it is a satisfying challenge.

in your rearranged version ,you have used 'super lifeform' twice.

aside from that, I do not personally approve of mixing up the dialogue. I believe that the dialogue from one section should stay in that section.

if this re-translated dialogue were to be put into the guyver advocacy pages, the right phrase needs to go in the right balloon in order to fit with the pictures and have the intended pacing.

but of course you never said that was your intention so no worries

yes guyver does perform as a symbiosis, but it is clear that it is a parasite by nature.

was just thinking about the behaviour of it in book 2.

[Aether]

i understand what you are saying on all points.... so just to explain my thinking....

when i used 'super lifeform' twice (instead of just 'this') i was re enforcing that the boost organism was being talked about rather than the 'intelligent life'... but yeah im not insisiting my version be used or anything its just how i would prefer to read it. And for these important points of the manga i think its good to have a good translation, its so interesting how much of a minefield it can be switching between languages.

as for the balloon thing im not so sure, because doesnt japanese and some other languages sort of talk backwards, if you get what i mean? ive noticed it in a lot of films and anime where something at the beginning of a sentence in the english subtitles is actually said at the end of a sentence or vice versa??

so when its written exactly how its said word for word it makes it quite awkward to read, because its not standard english syntax.

~~~~~

my view (re-enforced by those charming videos ) is that i think harm and control is a big part of a parasite's nature, which the Guyver doesnt seem to do to its host really - unless the control metal fails...

i think the actual organism is a parasite and the control metal is the the factor that makesthe overall guyver a symbiont.

i think that's why the parasitic nature was highlighted in book 2 because the metal was damaged.

i cant remember if it has ever been said that the host would die if the remover was used on a human? if it has been i guess it would have been by Guyot.

i think it makes sense that the parasites were captured by the creators and controlled by their invention of the Control Metal.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Aether

[*Jess♥]

ahhh, right! so here we have a separation of terms. the booster organism is a parasite, but the GUYVER is not a parasite, it is a symbiont. absolutely.

oh yeah, I'm almost certain the remover doesn't result in a dead host. it's never been explicitly stated and I believe there has been an assumption by some people that the host dies due to the guyver zero flashback. but it seems clear to me that it was archanfel that killed that human and not the removal of the unit.

after all, the function of the remover is simply to delete host data. the guyver unit would simply revert to it's dormant state, leaving the host as it was originally found. or not. agito certainly looked human... but let's not assume. it's possible that the host remains in the same state. minus the armour. regressed digestive organs, improved guyver systems. really strong probably. but not likely to live after the residual energy runs out. I dunno. I'm rambling.

I hear you about the syntax and the balloons. yeah you are right, many things can be said in reverse order.

but I can't currently think of anything that is said in 'reverse' that couldn't be said 'forwards'. it's a literary style that exists in japanese and english.

I think we're all familiar with this literary style :-

rolling across the hills, it's dark mantle throwing out sparks of viscous energy, the cloud was angry and ready to reap destruction. sorry, not trying to argue with you, just making a point.

also, grammar can always be looked at and refined. just now I re-examined the following - an amplifying, strange "super" life-form.

and realised the following might be more accurate - An amplifying "super" life-form of the unknown.

[daveblackeye152]

Oh yeah. If there's one thing I miss from the original Guyver II is that shocked panel after getting punched. I thought everything else was better though, especially that big punch.

[Aether]

@ Daveblackeye

yeah i really like the reaction of Guyver 2 in the original panels. i wish it had been kept in the tankobon version but yeah other than that the newer panels are much better. Also the design of Guyver 2 is much more suitable and less of a generic looking guyver 1 clone.

@ Ryuki

no arguments here just discussing our opinions and preferences i would say that the literary style you described doesnt really suit (english) speech though... er...its kind of like saying that Yoda speaks normally because he can be understood, but really he doesnt speak normally at all - speaks strange he does!

i dont want to dwell on it and please dont get me wrong, a lot of the Advocacy's work is fine, its just in some instances its not the syntax i would excpect to see when reading a manga (or any comic etc).

like ive said in the past, and always will do, i'm thankful that you and the others love Guyver so much to even have bothered translating it at all... if it weren't for you i would never even have known Guyver was still going, and after loving it so much back in the 90's im really glad the story continued and was available in english - be it written 'backwards', forwards, upside down, horizontal or vertical!!!

~

on the unit remover i didnt think it would kill the host either, i just wasnt sure if anything had been said... that factor is one of the things to look for if we wanted to define the specific type of symbiotic relationship because some are dependant on eachother for survival after the merger, others arent, and seing as its possible for both unit and host to exsist after seperation that gives us good info( im sure this is what i based my previous thoughts on.)

i suppose the main fear of losing the unit isn't being eaten alive like when the CM fails then, its just the loss of the power of the Guyver to fight against Cronos (well, unless one of the zoanoids or Zoalords is feeling peckish after the unit has been removed ).