What in the world is a "vibebuddy"?

Untranslatable words are probably the bane of every fansubbers' existence, especially when they end up being part of the title of the work. Of course it's always possible to leave it untranslated but when I saw the word "bittomo", I really wanted to make it work.

For the trailer, I pretty much lifted the name translations off Kevin N. from the Tokusatsu Network. The names were taken off the image links of the official website and it reads okay so I don't see why I shouldn't use them. Here's his Twitter thread discussing it:

https://twitter.com/DraikenTalkos/status/1399508316292751362

(And is the link to the article!)

https://tokusatsunetwork.com/2021/05/bittomo-x-heroine-kirameki-powers-announced/

But even Kevin was rather stumped on how to translate "bittomo".

So, what is "bittomo"?

I decided to wait a while to see how they utilized the word. To be honest, while I can see that they were also going for "beep" like the video game beeps, after watching the trailers, the YouTube extras and the first episode, I found that they barely reference it that way. Instead, it's actually short for "ビビッとくる" (Bibittokuru). Here's the dictionary definition from Weblio:

ビビッとくる

大きな衝撃を受けたかのような心理状態を感覚的に述べる言い方。閃き、直感、一目惚れなどを表現する言い方として用いられることが多い。

A way to emotionally convey the mental state of experiencing something incredibly shocking. Often used as a way to convey your feelings of inspiration, intuition, love at first sight, etc.

Japanese Google searches also brought up a lot of threads on "fated encounters", "soulmates". Basically, it's a very emotional word to describe good chemistry with people.

It took me at least a week to figure out if there were any words in English that could translate this phrase. At the very least, I wanted to keep the translation as close to the original as possible. And wouldn't you believe it, there is miraculously one word that has similar emotional connotations: Vibe.

Here's the Oxford definition:

Vibe

(Noun) A person's emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others.

(Verb) Enjoy oneself by listening to or dancing to popular music

(Verb) Transmit or give out (a feeling or atmosphere)

It's not a direct correlation with bibittokuru, but it's close enough (also vibe is an emotionally neutral word so it's actually more correct to say good vibes) and it thematically fits the show! And it can be used as both a verb and a noun so that actually solves a lot of issues with when the show dumps ビビッと all over the place.

1) ビビ〜ときたキラリ

Kirari who is feeling good vibes

2) 心おどるとビビ〜ときちゃうアッツイ小学5年生

An energetic fifth-grade elementary student that starts getting good vibes when she gets excited

3) 友達になりたいとビビ〜っと思った相手と「ビッ友」に！

Will become "vibebuddies" with people she wants to be friends with that she gets good vibes from!

ビビッとセット Vibe and Set

ビビッとショット Vibing Shot

ビビクトリー Vibe-victory

I ended up creating the word "vibebuddy" as it's a decent enough translation of the word "bittomo" with similar syllables. That was my whole thought process behind translating this word~ Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

Vibebuddy x Heroine Kirameki Powers! Web Trailer Released

Torrents:

HD1080

YouTube link here!

I had some time and this season looks pretty dope so I decided to sub the trailer.

As always, you can send in feedback or any translation errors to miracletunessubs@gmail.com!

The State of Affairs - 27 January 2021

Hmm. This will probably be the last State of Affairs I'll do in a long, long while.

It's almost 1am here and I have a whole day of classes tomorrow, but I figured I should write all this down and then take a long, long, long break from fan-subbing. But it's still quite unbelievable thinking about it.

I'm done subbing all 51 episodes of Miracle Tunes.

I've cleaned up most links on this blog, so they should all lead to the latest releases, and the final torrent files should stay up.

I thought it was a very well-done show, honestly! When Miracle Tunes was airing, it aired alongside Ex-Aid and Zyuohger for the most part. Kinda dropped Zyuohger while Ex-Aid was in its sloggish mid-section, so I remember a period of time when the tokusatsu I most looked forward to was Miracle Tunes. Of course, I was also an actual idol fan back then supporting actual idol groups, so I guess that helped to get me hooked.

One thing I did enjoy when watching the final episodes of the show was the fact that Maou was tuned up by the Song of Blessings. Because they had mentioned very early on that "only the Song of Blessings can tune Maou", so I'm very happy they didn't pull some plot twist out of nowhere. Then again, I reckoned that the show's staff worked very hard to ensure a good first season - it was going to lead into the Girls x Heroine series, after all.

While this was mostly a one-man team, I'd like to spend some time thanking @rukakikuchi and @pushmipullu who offered their help for a chunk of the mid-season episodes. Unfortunately I ended up just working on my own again because unfortunately it was just really hard to work together in an online setting, but I did appreciate the work they were able to help me with!

Fan-subbing a project solo has its ups and downs. Working alone meant that I was able to work at my own pace with whatever workflow I wanted, and it really helped. But it also meant that I sometimes burned the midnight oil to get episodes out (especially during periods when I felt like I haven't released an episode in a while, until I finally stopped bothering to keep to a schedule). It feels a little irritating to leave stuff incomplete, so even if I had to take three years, I was determined to finish my subs.

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Three years feels like a long time, but it also felt like it went by in the blink of an eye. When I started, I was working full-time. Now that I am done, I'm a university student in his last year. I'm at a totally different place from when I first started on this project, and while I can't decide it that's a good or bad thing, I don't really regret where I am.

(Also, if you told me in 2018 that COVID would be a thing WHEW I'D HAVE THOUGHT YOU'RE CRAZY)

The results for JLPT N2 released a day or so ago and I'm happy to say that I passed it too. One of the reasons why I started this fan-subbing project was to hone my Japanese, and it definitely did help with me doing well for N3 in 2019 and now passing N2. (It wasn't a great score but it's not like a borderline thing either...it was a decent score.)

One reason I decided that I would finish Mirachuu and leave it at that was because real life is really starting to get in the way of more and more things and I can foresee taking even longer than what I do now to release things. The only reason I was able to concentrate on finishing up during this period was because my last semester is more relaxed compared to others (I'd already hit the required credits so this semester has less workload compared to previous semesters). I don't see myself ever having this sort of time ever again.

But it was fun while it lasted. No more trying to optimize my output by leaving the computer to run to render episodes through the night while I slept. No more panicking when I screw up a release. I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm not sick of the show, actually. I've probably watched most episodes more than 3-4 times by now.

But anyway, I really need to get going. Thanks for sticking with me throughout and let's chat on Twitter sometime! (Still fairly active on there even if the series is complete!)