We leave you today with the links to the bonus pages and color chapter of the tank release of Volume 3 as well as a link to the complete compiled Volume 3, thus closing one more cycle. A long one that I'm not even 100% sure when it started...
I started working on Veranda long before I knew Japanese, and when things got dire I had to actually learn the language so this little series wouldn't be abandoned in the void. I'm aware there are things that could be translated better, but I know in my heart I tried my best, and I wasn't alone so I'm confident we can say goodbye to the meguca family with some degree of confidence that their story will be told.
And now, some words from our resident cumbia fan:
Hello everyone, buenos días a todos, this is the strange and often obnoxious "other" authorial voice of this blog.Thanks to Candy as well for her help with the coloring pages! And as cumbia fan said, we already have a new project underway so the ride is far from over. It's not from Kirara Magica, but I think you will like it... or probably hate it.
This is the last chapter of Veranda. SGT has been working on Veranda in some capacity since long before I joined, possibly even before I knew Japanese(?) if our dear leader's memory as to the exact year can be trusted. This says more about our abysmally slow pace of translation (at least 8 years for 3 volumes) than the magnitude of the work, but it was nevertheless a long chapter in SGT's history. I was never the biggest fan of Veranda (sorry), but I mainly helped out of a sense of obligation to make sure the chapters didn't go out with any grievous translation errors or poor phrasing. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the state of the translation, but I doubt we'll be back for a round 2 (3 if we count the earlier chapters we already redid once). Complaints aside, it was still a nice thing to have worked on. It's hard not to attached to a series after working on it for so long. But now this chapter is over. I was reading The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl -- Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics by Jongsoo Lee and came across this frankly hilarious passage from Fray Juan de Torquemada's colonial era chronicle of Nahua history (more on this book in our next blog post, and why the picture of Nezahualcoyotl Torquemada paints is not to be taken totally at face value), presented here in the author's English translation for those of our readers who cannot read Castillian, few though they may be:
After having eaten, he [Nezahualcoyotl] ordered his singers to come to celebrate the beginning and ending of the feast; and, as he was a man of good prudence and much and deep consideration and seeing so many kings, nobles, and valiant captains together, he wanted all the attendees to understand that the things of this life end and to be moved by this consideration so that they would use them like the census. And he ordered his singers to sing a song that he himself had composed and began like this: xochitl mamani in huehuetitlan, etc., which means: “among the trees and junipers, there are fresh and fragrant flowers,” and continuing ahead, it says that although for some time they are fresh and bright, they become ripe, they wither, and dry up. He went on to say that all the attendees would die and would not reign again; and that all their grandeur would have an end, and that their treasures would be possessed by others; and that they would not enjoy this again after leaving it. And those who had begun to eat with pleasure finished the feast with tears, hearing the words of the song and seeing that what he said was true.
We all have that one friend who just has to ruin the boys' night out. SGT is by no means dead now that Veranda is over, and we have at least one other big project in the works, but until then, I leave you with another poem from Nezahualcoyotl. Think on it and keep it in mind, dear Veranda reader.
We only rise from sleep,
We come only to dream,
it is not true, it is not true,
that we come on earth to live.
As an herb in springtime,
so is our nature.
Our hearts give birth, make sprout,
the flowers of our flesh.
Some open their corollas,
then they become dry. (Cantares 1985:f.14v, in León-Portilla
1992b:153)
And now, it's time we say goodbye to Veranda. See ya and thanks for the memories!
