Danganronpa: Togami v1c4 section 1

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Danganronpa Togami Volume 1: Multiple Counts of Attempted World Domination
Chapter 4: Me and the School and I (The First Half)[1]
1
((Extra Special Translator's Note Here! So it turns out that the author of DRT posted a rough draft of the harmony to this song on twitter. I know nothing about music personally, but the talented musician Ankari volunteered to turn it into something even I could understand! Amazing!! You can listen to a recording of her interpretation right here! I took a fair amount of creative license translating this song, but listening to this track set a mood that I wanted to try and do justice to. I suggest you listen to it too if you're able. You can't sing along to it, but you can sing on top of it!))
"It's Gotta Take Some Skill to Be an Idol"
Lyrics: Souou Uwai
Composition: Junk Garnet
My talent keeps on winning, la la la la, my schedule's unforgiving
The proof that I'm here living is in my alb.u.m sales
It's my responsibility to show you possibility
So sing with unanimity the symphony of hope
I can't just trust what's cut and dried, there's more than black and white
When something fills me up with pride, what makes me feel so right?
It's gotta take some skill to be an idol
Is a sweet face really all I'm selling on?
It's gotta take some skill to be an idol
My love will keep on moving when I'm gone
My heart is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over!
I only hope the reason is all the kindness living in the world
My talent keeps on winning, la la la la, my dreams still keep me spinning
My footsteps are beginning to leave a mark on you
From just one possibility you make it to reality
Encourage some prosperity in the flowering of hope
I can't just blindly follow what I'm told adults should be
I'm dreaming of tomorrow, but is this the world I dream?
It's gotta take some skill to be an idol
To say it's fair would be a fantasy
It's gotta take some skill to be an idol
The power in myself motivates me
When all my tears are over!
I only hope the reason is all the kindness living in the world
Yeaaaaah!
As I listened to the idol song streaming from the last-gen... no, two-generations-ago sound system in the car, I was on the run with the idol who sang the song sitting right next to me.
Aoba sat in the front pa.s.senger seat, a rather lethargic expression on her face. We had a full tank of gas. The car was very well maintained for how old it was. We could go as fast as we wanted. Fast enough to make us sick sounded about right. We could go anywhere in this car.
What was this?
"The first time I got to be center stage, it was for this song. I was given center stage to counter groups like S-nery and Mix Juice, so it still means a whole lot to me."[2] Aoba slid the CD she had brought with her out of the CD player.
"I hate it." I gave her my honest opinion. "Are your fans happy with you flaunting the truth about how everything comes down to talent?"
"They're not my fans, specifically. They're fans of the group."
"I still can't believe you're an idol... Though uh, I did think you were cute."
"We aren't allowed to confirm or deny it when someone calls us cute," said Aoba. "Being cute is only natural for an idol. But, if we just honestly say 'Yep, I sure am cute!' we're going to get backlash. But then, if we deny it and say 'No, I'm not cute!' then of course we're going to get backlash for that too, when we look like this."
"So what do you do?"
"The theory is you either silently bow your head, or be vague in your reply and just say, 'Thank you very much.'" Aoba stuck her head out of the car window and said, "It's a nice breeze."
I thought it was pretty twisted that Aoba had to go to such lengths to be modest about her talent, and yet she released a whole song advocating for talent—but it made more sense when I remembered the phrase "love-hate relationship". I had a love-hate relationship with talent myself. Those kids from the Hope's Peak Academy Affiliated Junior High School Mystery Research Society probably were, too. If they had only love for talent, or only hatred, they probably couldn't cook up a plan like Operation Global Locked Room Transformation. It may just be my pet theory that their strange behavior can all be chalked up to a love-hate relationship, but just because it's unsubstantiated doesn't mean it's necessarily untrue.
"I'm thinking about heading to the airport."
My mouth started moving before I could really think about what I was saying.
We'd been fleeing for about two hours now. We'd found and investigated some hospitals and supermarkets and other places that looked like they should have people there, but we didn't find a single person. It was hard to see it as anything but the end of the world.
"Would the airport actually be up and running?" Aoba seemed skeptical. "Though we could always try hiding somewhere safe in there for a while."
"But if Byakuya Togami is involved in all this, I think we should get real serious about trying to escape. I mean, in zombie..."
"Zombie?"
"Ah, nah, never mind."
"Please don't be afraid of how I might react. Now, go on. Don't hold back."
"...If you think about zombie movies and stuff like that, it's always dangerous to hole yourself up."
"That's very convincing, when you're the one saying it."
"I think, when you absolutely can't take care of the problem, you shouldn't try to hide or hold down the fort, but run as far away as you possibly can. If zombies are gonna pop out, rather than milling around in a shopping mall, it'd be better to escape to a forest or an island."
"Hence the airport?"
"I mean, that's what I'm thinking. You're free to share your own thoughts."
"Ehehehe. Fleeing from an airport—it seems like a TV drama. It's wonderful."
"Come on... It's not that cool of a plot development."
"How the plot develops is dependent on you, mister." It seemed like I'd gotten her expectations up, at least for now. "Where will we fly?"
"Uhh, wherever. Rishiri?"
"Rishiri Island doesn't have anything but sea urchins and kelp. I went there on a location shoot though."
"Idols go on location in Rishiri?"
"I've even been to b.u.mbun k.u.mbang."
"That's hardcore."
"This is the first time I've traveled on my own. I just hopped on a plane because I wanted to." Aoba smoothed down her hair so it would stop flapping in the wind. "The world's pretty funny. I dared to break the rules and step outside, and even when that was all it was, my heart was racing. To think I would get wrapped up in world domination..."
"No course of action could be determined by a rule."
"Who said that?"
"I forgot his name, but it's a quote from some foreign philosopher," I said.[3] "Even with the rules of mathematics, there's apparently no way to logically refute someone who insists that 100+100=6."
"You're very knowledgeable about obscure trivia."
"Reading books is basically all I ever did..."
"You must really like them."
"Huh?"
"Books."
"Uh, well I, I guess you could say that," I said, keeping my poker face on. "I've been reading them ever since I was little."
"Did you have a favorite picture book?"
"Probably Where the Wild Things Are."
"I loved Picky and Pocky Go Swimming in the Ocean.[4] Fuu-chan the mole was really cute."
"The person who wrote that became a novelist, and the ill.u.s.trator went on to become the main ill.u.s.trator for Haruki Murakami."
"You must really like them," Aoba said again.
This time, I answered without panicking. That's right. I—
"I love books."
"What's your dream for the future?"
"Huh?"
"Your dream for the future. You must have one."
"I'm pretty old by now," I said, surprised. "I don't get to use words like 'future' or 'dream' anymore."
"The real problem is that you're not willing. What was that fable, again? With the sour grapes."
"You mean The Fox and the Grapes?"
"Yes, that's the one," Aoba said with a small nod. "The fox finds some grapes that look delicious, and he tries jumping for them again and again, but they're too high for him to reach. In the end, he gives up and says, 'Those grapes were obviously sour anyway'... You didn't even jump, mister."
"I don't have any talent..."
"Have you ever felt seriously jealous when you saw Hollywood actors, or billionaires, or mafia dons, or top models, or presidents, or rock stars?"
Why would I? There's no way I'd ever become the best of the best like that. That's not even about age or talent. There's absolutely no way anybody is actually going to wind up on that level. Right?
The Outside that's been prepared for us is more like, moderate wealth. Managers. University professors. Lawyers. Sushi chefs. Marrying rich. Designers. TV stars. That's the most we can aspire to. And I didn't even have enough talent to do that much. That's all there was to it.
"You really are inexperienced," Aoba said, continuing to pile on the blame once she saw I wasn't arguing with her. "If you don't get seriously jealous when you see Hollywood actors, and billionaires, and mafia dons, and top models, and presidents, and rock stars, and if you don't seriously believe that you can become any of those things, your life screeches to a halt."
"...So why don't you go ahead, right now, and try making yourself more popular," I said, partly out of annoyance, and partly because I wanted to change the subject, but mostly because it was getting awkward ignoring that elephant in the room.
Silence.
Aoba rolled up the window, and showed me the CD jacket. It had a picture of her idol group on it—they were all there, all girls wearing colorful outfits, sparkling with youth and beauty. Aoba pointed to the one on the far right.
Th-This is...
There's a saying in j.a.panese: a crane in a trash heap. It's something of value surrounded by garbage. I'll probably be called out for sounding discriminatory here, but I'm bringing it up because the scene on this CD jacket was the exact inverse of that.
If you have groups like, for example, "12345", or "ABCDE", or "甲乙丙丁戊", and if someone evaluates that grouping and tells you you're in fourth place, you might get down on yourself about it, but you can accept it.
But what if you had groups with one person in the mix who clearly didn't belong there in the first place? Like "1234☆", or "ABCDЙ", or "甲乙丙丁◯". What if someone told you you were fourth place then? Wouldn't fourth place basically be last place?
Aoba was a beautiful young woman, with a stand-out voice and style, but like she said herself, it was only natural for idols to be cute. Truthfully, just from looking at the CD jacket, I couldn't really see a huge difference between Aoba and the top three girls. And yet, Aoba was in fourth place. What did they have that she didn't?
Talent.
That's what it comes down to. In the end, Aoba must not have had enough talent as an idol. It's gotta take some skill to be an idol. So when those girls sang out that opinion loud and clear, they proved it by hurting themselves in the process.
"Ehehehe. I've never once thought of myself as inferior. Not for a second."
But as long as she was still young, as long as she still had pride and a chance, Aoba wasn't going to let herself be crushed. This girl knew very well that there were going to be more opportunities for a dramatic reversal than she would know what to do with, and that her own talent wasn't going anywhere. She believed that she would break through to the Outside.
On the other hand, here I was, holing up like a mole, not doing anything but looking up at the Outside with resentment in my eyes.
I'll be honest. Living like a mole was kinda nice. I was the bottom of the barrel. But I was also in first place. There's a sense of invincibility I got from being with the dregs of society. There's a sense of relief I got from being the sc.u.m of the earth. I just hadn't gotten serious yet.
But.
After the World Domination Proclamation, the world turned upside down. That security blanket had been ripped away from me, I had been driven out without my consent, and I, the mole, began my new life, walking through this lawless world.
"No course of action could be determined by a rule."
"The real problem is that you're not willing."
G.o.ddammit. What's gotten into me all of a sudden?
I pushed down on the accelerator in anger, and the car sped up. I was speeding. Running red lights. Driving under the influence. n.o.body was around to tell that I was breaking traffic laws. n.o.body else was on the road right now. No oncoming traffic, no pedestrians, and no police. I was free to do whatever I wanted.
When I nevertheless slowed down, it wasn't because of any traffic laws. It wasn't because anyone told me to. I, of my own free will, chose to drive more carefully.
Translator's Notes
[1] Me and the School and I - these chapters are t.i.tled using the different p.r.o.nouns for the different narrators we've had so far; the narrator for Chapters 1 and 3 uses watashi, while the narrator for Chapter 2 uses boku. So in a much clunkier translation, these chapters would be 'Watashi and Boku at the School'. I thought of all different kinds of more liberal translations to capture the two narrators in the t.i.tle, but in the end I went with something simple, since "me and X" vs. "X and I" makes a simple contrast between two types of speech patterns in English, and they can be combined pretty conveniently.
[2] S-nery/Mix Juice - these are two different groups of j.a.panese voice actresses that have released alb.u.ms together. As a bit of random Dangan Ronpa trivia, two of the singers in Mix Juice are Chiwa Saitou (Asahina's voice actress) and Mai Nakahara (Yukizome's voice actress).
[3] some foreign philosopher - it was Ludwig Wittgenstein, writing in Philosophical Investigations. The concept is further explored in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.
[4] Picky and Pocky Go Swimming in the Ocean - unlike Where the Wild Things Are, this is a j.a.panese picture book.
Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!
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