Translator’s Column

Hello, everyone! My name is Molly Lee, and I was the translator for Kokoro Connect: Kako Random. This volume had a heavy focus on Yui and her shortcomings, and I enjoyed watching her slowly dismantle her own complacency. (Full disclosure: The hug scene totally made me tear up.)

So, let’s talk about the title.

As a refresher (or for those of you who might have missed my J-Novel Club exclusive Translator’s Column in the previous volumes), “kokoro” means heart, but it can also mean mind or soul. Paired with “connect,” it suggests a linking of hearts. This is the overarching theme for the entire series.

Then there’s the subtitle for volume 3: Kako Random. “Kako” means past or history, followed by the English word “random.” Together, they hint at the small glimpses the author gives us into the backstories of each (well, most) of the characters. If I were to set an official English subtitle, I would have liked to go with “Swapping Scars,” maintaining the “shuffle” imagery implied by “random” while also hinting at old wounds the characters carry with them from, you guessed it, the past.

That said, a title like that wouldn’t quite capture the underlying theme of this volume: time. Going back in time. Running out of time. Timeframe. One minute the gang is racing to arrive in time, and the next they’re just sitting around, waiting for time to run out. As a narrative device, it works well to illustrate just how little control any of the characters have at any given moment. With the Age Regression, they’re basically forced to play it by ear all day, every day—easily making Kako Random far more tense than either of the previous volumes.

Kako Random also marks the first volume in the series where Japanese culture becomes a plot point. Early in the story, Gotou warns the students not to go to any “love hotels”—hotels that exist expressly for the purpose of having sex—on Christmas in particular. This might strike Western readers as a bit strange, because our culture predominantly associates Christmas with family; if anything, New Year’s Eve is the more romantic winter holiday. In Japan, however, this is entirely reversed; Christmas Eve is popularly known as a holiday for couples, whereas Japanese New Year’s tradition often involves a lot of time spent with relatives, particularly grandparents.

But those aren’t the only two winter holidays to feature in Kako Random. This volume sees the gang visiting a Shinto shrine to celebrate hatsumoude (lit. “first visit”), a tradition upheld at the start of January in order to pray for good fortune for the rest of the upcoming year. Rather than struggle to depict this uniquely Japanese holiday in localized English, I chose to leave the name intact so that curious readers might Google it and learn something new. Same thing with takoyaki, which I felt wouldn’t sound quite as tasty rendered as “octopus fritters” or something like that. Just Google it! (And then go get some takoyaki, because it’s delicious.)

At one point during the climax of Yui’s emotional arc, she likens herself to a famous quote attributed to Buddha: tenjou tenge yuiga dokuson (天上天下唯我独尊), popularly translated to “I am my own lord throughout heaven and earth.” In the original Japanese, Yui points out that this phrase contains the kanji for her name (唯). All the more reason for it to resonate with her, right? So, to keep this detail intact, I had the idea to instead take the English phrase and turn it into some sort of anagram using her name… That didn’t end up working out too well, so we ultimately decided against it. But for those of you who might be curious, please enjoy(?) this shortlist of horrible half-finished anagram attempts:

• Mom, Dad, hear that? Yui won't run or leave
• Heal and never harm tough woman Yui
• Hear that, male goon? Move! Yui won't run
• AAH! Yui! Run, male dong-haver who doth torment her!

Ah, what could have been…

Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone at J-Novel Club, particularly my editor, Adam Fogle. (And to the author, Anda Sadanatsu—my headcanon for the shortened title is still #KoCo. You do you, though.)

See you in volume 4: Michi Random!