Translator’s Notes

Prologue

Move the Capital City

Although in the book, Bahairam’s wandering capital is described as a holdover from the nation’s more nomadic days, it also sounds a bit like a very old Japanese practice of relocating the nation’s capital city each time a new emperor acceded to the throne. The imperial center ultimately settled in Kyoto, then known as Heian-kyo, from 794 virtually until 1868; after the Meiji Restoration, the emperor relocated to Tokyo, where the imperial family has remained to this day.

Chapter One

Super-Dimensional Oscillation Weapon

In Japanese, chou-jikuu shindou heiki (the English above is a pretty literal translation). This is probably a reference to the so-called “Space/Time Oscillation Bomb,” a fearsome superweapon from the anime series Super Dimension Century Orguss. If the expression “super dimension” rings some bells for you, but they’re related to Macross, that’s because Super Dimension Fortress Macross was produced by Big West, the same company that created Orguss. Although the company would also later release Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, as well, none of the series had anything to do with each other beyond the presence of the words “super dimension” in their names. Macross and Southern Cross, incidentally, would go on to become two of the three anime series spliced together to create Robotech, the third being Genesis Climber Mospeada.

The Vairocana Buddha of Toudaiji Temple

Toudaiji, in Japan’s old capital of Nara, is technically a complex of temples, but the name is indelibly associated with the Daibutsu-den (“Hall of the Big Buddha”), a massive space housing the world’s largest bronze statue of the Vairocana Buddha. Explaining the exact place Vairocana, known as Dainichi Nyorai in Japanese, occupies in Buddhist mythology is beyond the scope of these notes, but in essence Vairocana is understood to represent the Buddha’s “dharma body” (dharmakaya, the collective positive or virtuous qualities of a buddha) and/or the Buddhist concept of emptiness (shunyata, the understanding that all things exist only because of specific causes and conditions).

Squid Army, Squid Army, No Match For Us

The video Shinichi shows his class plays on two different sources. The scene as described is taken directly from the climax of the 1968 American film Planet of the Apes, with Masato standing in for Charlton Heston and the Daibutsu for the Statue of Liberty. At the same time, the title, Ika no Gundan (Army of the Squids) reference Saru no Gundan (Army of the Apes), a 1974 live-action Japanese TV series that cribbed mercilessly from the 1968 film. (Notably, it was masterminded by Tsuburaya Productions, the studio behind Ultraman.) The line quoted above is a direct play on the theme song of this series (which naturally referred to apes rather than squids).

Settings Where Civilization Has Been Destroyed

The references Shinichi reels off include Nausicäa of the Valley of Wind, Fist of the North Star, Attack on Titan, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and finally, Trigun.

Foundatio* Trilogy

The work in question is Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy (Foundation; Foundation and Empire; and Second Foundation, first published between 1951 and 1953). In Japanese, the first novel was known as Ginga Teikoku no Koubou, or “The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire.” Thus, in the source text, Shinichi actually refers to “The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire and the entire Foundation trilogy,” but rendering this correctly in English would simply make it sound redundant (“Foundation and the entire Foundation trilogy”), so we went with just one of the titles.

Zombie Films As SF

Shinichi remarks that even some zombie films are now considered science fiction. Perhaps he’s thinking of the fact that over the last twenty years or so, zombie films have featured monsters created by viruses and other biological and scientific (as opposed to magical) terrors. (Consider films like 2002’s 28 Days Later, the 2006 book and later movie World War Z, or of course the video game Resident Evil, which may have helped get the ball rolling all the way back in 1996.)

Slightly Flummoxing

Shinichi suggests that “SF” stands for “sukoshi fushigi” (slightly mysterious).

Clarke’s Third Law

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps most remembered for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, is widely credited with three “laws” about science and future technology. These laws are: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This third law, which Shinichi cites in the text, is the best known of the three.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a branch of learning that encompasses, among other things, the attempt to discover a way to transmute (that is, transform) base metals into gold. As Shinichi says, although alchemy is often associated with magical thinking or rituals, early practitioners of alchemy believed there was a real, meaningful way to accomplish this transformation. It might not be entirely appropriate to describe this as a “scientific” quest to achieve this goal, as alchemy was developed before the advent of what the West would come to know as the scientific method. Prior to that shift in perspective, many thinkers followed classical Greek figures like Aristotle, who classified “natural philosophy,” or the contemplation of the workings of the natural world, as a branch of philosophy. Although Aristotle was a keen observer of the world around him, his thinking was based only on these observations and his reasonings from them; he didn’t engage in the process of formulating and testing hypotheses that would come to characterize later Western science.

G**ver, Bura**oo, or Apocalypse Z***

In order, these are references to: (1) Guyver (aka Bio-Booster Armor Guyver), a late-80s manga and later anime about a super-powered exo-suit; (2) Probably, Youjuu Busou Buraio (Mystical Beast Armor Buraio) by a manga-ka named Matsumoto Hisashi; (3) Kakugo no Susume (Kakugo’s Progress), known as Apocalypse Zero in English. This is a post-apocalyptic series from the mid-90s that featured, among other things, exoskeletons powered by the souls of dead warriors.

The Able Hawk Hides Its Claws

A Japanese proverb, “Nou aru taka wa tsume wo kakusu.” It means that if you’re truly skilled at something, you won’t feel compelled to show it off.

MEXT

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. It’s known in Japanese as the Monbu-kagaku-shou, or roughly “the Ministry of Cultural and Scientific Affairs.” Even in English, it’s sometimes referred to by its foreshortened Japanese name, the Monka-shou.

Space Carrier

Perhaps a reference to Space Carrier Blue Noah (Uchuu Kuubo Buruu Noa), an anime TV series that ran from 1979 to 1980.

Mule

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Because of the genetics of breeding two different species (as donkeys and horses are), mules are almost always infertile. Many inter-species hybrids (such as the liger) are infertile or quasi-fertile for the same reason. The exact nature of the biological relationship between, say, a human and an elf is naturally somewhat unclear; the Japanese term shuzoku can mean “people group” or “tribe,” and while it’s often translated as “race” (as in “fantasy races”), it’s at best only an approximation of the Western European concept of race, in which people groups are separated and evaluated primarily according to skin color.

Chikushooooou

Chikushou is a Japanese curse word that can be variously translated according to context, but is probably a little stronger than kuso (crap/damn). In the Japanese, Shinichi exclaims “Gaddeemu!” (Goddamn!), and we figured turnabout was fair play.

It Was Both of Us Who Had Cooled Down

The same joke exists in the Japanese: Shinichi says o-tagai ni atama ga hiete ita, “both our heads were cooler."

Don’t Worry, I’m Not Wearing Any

This is a play on the catchphrase of a particular entertainer. He frequently poses, mostly naked, in positions that make it look like he’s not wearing anything at all, but then delivers the line: “Anshin shite kudasai. Haite’masu yo” (“Don’t worry, I’m wearing [underwear or something]!”).

Chapter Two

A Yellow Bipedal Load Lifter

A reference to the cargo loader, a massive yellow exoskeleton, that appears in the climax of the movie Aliens.

The Land of Fire

In Japanese, hi no kuni. (Kuni often means “country,” but originally referred to provinces or even simply regions.) This expression sometimes refers to a part of northern Kyushu. Although the exact etymology is debated, most explanations trace the roots of the expression back to the mythical Emperor Keiko, who was supposedly guided to Kyushu by ghost lights known as shiranui (“unknown fire”). This phenomenon then lent its name to the area, which became called “the land of fire.” Japan also lies directly in a geological zone sometimes referred to as the “ring of fire” for its extensive volcanic activity.

Thunde*birds

That is, Thunderbirds, a 1960s British TV show about a team that uses technologically advanced vehicles to rescue people in trouble. The show was given a distinctive appearance by its use of marionette puppets and miniatures effects. It’s not entirely clear what Shinichi means by “the new series,” as there were several Thunderbirds sequels and spinoffs, not least the 1982 anime series Kagaku Kyuujotai Tekuno-boijaa (Scientific Rescue Team Techno Voyager), which was localized in the West as Thunderbirds 2086. There have been new Thunderbirds properties as recently as 2015’s Thunderbirds Are Go, and it’s just possible this is the “new series” Shinichi is referring to, as this volume of Outbreak Company was published in 2016.

Umi****

A reference to Umizaru (literally “Sea Monkeys”), a series about the Japan Coast Guard rescuing shipwreck victims and the like. It started as a manga in the late 90s, and later had two live-action films and a TV drama.

Tomika Her**s

Between 2008 and 2010, a couple of tokusatsu series based on Takara Tomy’s line of toy cars aired in Japan. The series were collectively called Tomika Heroes.

Occupation Troops

When the US armed forces occupied Japan after its defeat in World War II, the American GIs were frequently cajoled into giving out candy and other small treats to Japanese youngsters.

The Feather Decoration on a Captain’s Unit

In the Gundam franchise, the mobile suits of captains and other leaders on the Zeon side frequently have a feather-shaped protuberance on the head.

A Cemetery

Unlike the stout, rounded tombstones that often populate cemeteries in the West, Japanese grave markers tend to be taller and thinner, and therefore closer to the “pillars” of fire Shinichi is witnessing.

Chapter Three

Mushin

As Minori says in the text, this expression means “no mind” or “empty mind.” (The character mu means none, empty, or otherwise signifies nonexistence; shin, perhaps better known to some readers as kokoro, often means “heart,” but here is closer to “mind,” the heart being the apparatus of both thought and emotion in the traditional Japanese conception.) Mushin is a common concept in martial arts, where it represents the idea that a practitioner acts without having to think—that is, not thoughtlessly, but prior to thought.

Non-Self

The Japanese expression is muga no kyouchi, roughly, “a state of mind in which there is no self.” One of the central aims of much Buddhist practice is to help the practitioner realize that there is no discrete “self” that exists in isolation from other things and people, but rather, all things and people can exist only in relation to all others.

Family Register… Residence Certificate

Every Japanese citizen is listed in a koseki or family register that records all the members of a family and details about them, including dates of birth and death, and any marriage. Non-Japanese citizens are generally not entered in koseki even if, for example, they marry a Japanese citizen. (Although sometimes such people can be entered as what amount to marginal notes in the spouse’s koseki.) The juumin-hyou, or residence certificate, by contrast, is a card that every resident of Japan possesses, including non-Japanese citizens.

Your ’Zines

In Japanese, Petralka uses the phrase usui hon, “thin book,” rendered in katakana to make it look especially awkward. This is a slang term for 18+ doujinshi. “Zines” isn’t exactly the same thing, but sounds equally strange coming from her

Rape Laws

(Trigger warning: rape)

Shinichi’s remark was basically true up until 2017. (Volume 15 of Outbreak Company was published in 2016.) According to an article from Human Rights Watch dated July 2018: “Until last year’s [2017] legal reforms, Japanese law defined rape solely as involving violent penetration of a woman's vagina by a man's penis. This prevented many female rape victims and all men and boys who had been raped from seeking justice.”

(Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/07/29/japans-not-so-secret-shame)

My Dohatsuten

It’s just possible this is a reference to a rock band active between the mid-80s and 1996. It’s not completely clear whether this is actually an intentional reference to the band, or just something that doesn’t make much sense—but as Shinichi apparently doesn’t really know either, perhaps it’s best not to sweat it.

The Heroine is a Red-Haired Fire User...

A reference to the light now and later anime Shakugan no Shana.

Chapter Four

Did They Cost Six Million Dollars Each?

The Six Million Dollar Man was an American television series that ran from 1973 to 1978. The main character was an astronaut who’s nearly killed in an accident, but is saved with the use of expensive bionic components; he then goes on to put his new abilities to use as a secret agent. The title referred to the amount of money it cost to rebuild the main character.

Tokyo Dome

The Tokyo Dome is an iconic structure in downtown Tokyo, a massive stadium perhaps most famous as the current home of the Yomiuri Giants, Tokyo’s baseball team. The Dome is often used for other games and events as well, though, and has hosted everything from music concerts to pro-wrestling engagements.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem by the English poet John Milton, first published in 1667. In blank verse, it recounts not only the biblical creation story, but also the fall of Lucifer from Heaven to become the devil and, later, the fall of humankind when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. While the fall of Lucifer as a complete story within the Judeo-Christian tradition is largely a post-biblical development based on a handful of Bible verses (notably Isaiah 14:12), most of the details Shinichi mentions in his description in the book can be found not only in Paradise Lost, but in the account of the fall of humankind in Genesis 3.

Legend of the Galact** Heroes

Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, referred to in the Japanese text here by the nickname Gin’ei-den) was a series of sci-fi novels written by Tanaka Yoshiki. The novels were first published in the early 1980s, and an influential anime ran for almost a decade from the late 80s until the late 90s. The subsequent dialogue between Petralka and Garius in this scene contains references to two characters from the series, Mittermeyer and a character referred to as majutsu-shi (“the Wizard”), possibly the “immortal wizard” (fuhai no majutsu-shi) or possibly Jan the Magician (majutsu-shi Yan, in Japanese).

Astro Boy

Called Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty Atom) in Japanese, but known as Astro Boy in English, this was one of the earliest and still one of the most famous masterworks of the “god of manga,” Tezuka Osamu. The titular main character was a robot created by a scientist in the image of the scientist’s dead son. Astro Boy, though, had a wide range of useful adaptations, from the ability to fly to a machine gun in his butt. The manga ran from the early 1950s until 1968, and was the basis for an anime, one of the first produced in Japan after World War II and a seminal work in the genre.

ASIMO

In 2000, Honda debuted a robot it dubbed ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility), a humanoid machine that was part of the company’s efforts to create a walking robot. As of 2018, active development on ASIMO was discontinued, though the robot still sometimes makes public appearances.

Mandrakes

The mandrake is a plant with a root that grows into twisted shapes sometimes thought to resemble human infants. This gave rise to the belief that the plant was a living creature; it was said that pulling up a mandrake plant by the roots would cause it to scream, and anyone who heard the sound would die.

Cho**bos. Pika**us. Koma**ns.

Here, Shinichi lists a series of cute mascots. Chocobos are from the Final Fantasy series, Pikachu is a Pokémon, and Komasan is a character from the Yo-Kai Watch franchise.

Self-Reference

In the final illustration in the book, Shinichi can be seen to be pointing at his own face. This is typical in Japan when making a “Who, me?” gesture, where people in the West might be more likely to point at their own chest.