Bonus Translator’s Notes

Blasts from the Past

The very first volume of Outbreak Company is visible both in Shinichi’s hand on the title page and sitting beside the teacup on the Table of Contents. All of the golden text on the color foldout of Myusel is taken from their first conversation together in that volume.

Chapter One: Uninvited Guests

A Date

Shinichi describes this as (according to his dad) “That word which, if appended to the title of a light novel, can prevent it from being sold in China.” This seems to be a reference to Date A Live, which was banned in China. It’s unlikely that this was specifically because of the word “date” in the title; thirty-seven other series were banned at the same time, all for allegedly containing material contrary to good public morals.

Am I Still a Cinderella?

These lines constitute a protracted reference to the song “Omoide ga Ippai” (Full of Memories) by H20.

Remember When I Said I Would Kill You Last?

This line, and the description of dropping someone off a building, are a reference to a line spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Commando.

It’s Been a Long Five Years

This is what Eren says in Attack on Titan when the Colossal Titan returns five years after its first attack.

Freedom with Wings

Following the reference above, the entire paragraph is an Attack on Titan shtick; these last couple of lines are references to the theme songs from the anime.

Akihabara Ga**rs

That is, Gamers, a well-known chain that sells anime, manga, and related goods. Although they have locations all over Japan, the Akihabara flagship store is naturally among the most recognizable.

NO MORE EIGA DOROBOU!

Meaning “no more movie piracy,” this was the slogan of a series of ad spots that ran on Japanese television and in theaters before a movie started. They featured a truly strange mascot—a man in a suit with a camcorder for a head—doing a hypnotic dance. It’s not hard to find clips of the various iterations of this spot on YouTube by searching for “no more eiga dorobou.” We invite you to do so; this is one of those things that must be seen to be quite believed. Note from the editor: I’m dropping in to tell you that this changed my life for the better. Go watch. You can thank us later.

Chapter Two: The Captive Empress

“...Or Did Your Face Grow a Spare Butt?”

The Japanese for this line is “Damare, ketsuago-yarou!”, or “Shut up, ketsuago guy!” Ketsuago literally means “ass-chin,” and is (gotta love this) a slang term for a cleft chin.

I Can’t Let This One Go, That I Can’t

In the Japanese, Reito ends this sentence with -de gozaru, which comes from (or at least is seen in the popular imagination as) samurai-era Japanese. In anime, though, it’s most prominently associated with Rurouni Kenshin, where it was the main character’s defining speech trait. For that reason, we took our cue for how to translate it from the official subtitles for that series. (Credit to Rika Takahashi, the translator for RK.)

Chapter Three: The Rescue

A Rescue Machine

This line is a reference to the appearance of the Thunderbird 2, a vehicle from Thunderbirds (natch).

Juuuust Leave It To Me

Maaaakasete! (“Leave it to me!”) is the catchphrase of Tosaka-sempai, a character in Kyuukyoku Choujin R. It’s usually accompanied by him flipping the bird. After he graduates, Tosaka joins the Tokyo government, hence the reference to a “civil servant.”

Some Captain Somewhere

The character in question is Char Aznable, who speaks Shinichi’s line to one of his subordinates who’s afraid of the Gundam’s powerful beam rifle. Incidentally, the exact translation of Char’s rank is a bit of an open question; military ranks in Gundam are consistent in Japanese, but the English translations draw from multiple branches of service and don’t always seem consistent across series.

Inro Seal Case

An inro is a small case in which one can keep one’s personal seal (hanko or inkan). This is a reference to the jidai-geki (period-drama) series Mito Koumon, in which an important and canny Edo-era official travels around Japan solving mysteries. The episodes always culminate with some disaster about to unfold, but forestalled when Mito holds up his inro and everyone discovers who he is.

One of Those Fr*m Games

That is, From Software, producers of the notoriously difficult Dark Souls games, among others.

The Monsieur In Distress

There’s some visual wordplay in the Japanese here. In Shinichi’s line, toraware no o-hime-sama (“[the] captured princess”) is glossed as Petralka. In Minori-san’s line, toraware no o-muko-sama (“[the] captured hot dude”) is glossed as Garius.

Seven Days of Rottenness

Both a Nasuiscäa reference and a callback to a story in Volume 7, the first Outbreak Company short-story collection.

A Robot Cat from the Future... A Muscle-Bound Robot Dad

The first part of this reference is to Doraemon, who’s a robot cat from the future. The second part appears to be a Terminator reference, possibly to the 2015 movie Terminator: Genisys, which featured a variant of the M82.

Chapter Four: That Side and This Are Severed

Burger Ki*g or Jack-in-the-Bo*

That is, Burger King and Jack-in-the-Box, American burger chains.

Alien*

The reference is to James Cameron’s movie Aliens. The power loader is a powered exoskeleton that appears at the climax of the film.

Global Hawk... Predator

Both kinds of unmanned drones.

The Flying Japanese

This is a play on the Flying Dutchman, the famous ghost ship. Legend holds that the ship sails the oceans forever, unable to make port.

Shinjuku Gyoen Garden

A national garden in Tokyo, the Shinjuku Gyoen originated in the Edo Era as a noble’s residence, was later taken over by the Imperial Household Agency as an imperial garden, and finally became a national park under the authority of the Ministry of the Environment.

Speak Up, Speak Forth, Shinichi...

This entire paragraph is an extended reference to “Kaze Yo Hikari Yo,” the opening theme from the tokusatsu series Kaiketsu Lion-Maru, which aired in 1972 and 1973.

Epilogue: The Power of Moe

The Time in Ancient China When...

The Japanese uses the simple expression funsho kouju (“burning books and burying scholars”), a proverbial reference to a time about 200 years BCE when the first Emperor of Qin in China was said to have burned many books of philosophical schools with which he disagreed and buried their scholars alive. It’s not clear if this happened as such (the expression originates more than a century after the alleged events), but the first Emperor of Qin did traditionally have an image of being vicious, authoritarian, and willing to take extreme measures against those who questioned him. (Our rendering of the expression in the English version is a lot more than four words, as this story hasn’t become proverbial in English the way it has in Chinese and Japanese.)

Harder Than Getting a Gun or Drugs

Although it’s impossible to tell exactly how far into the future the epilogue is supposed to be set, or what cultural and legal standards might prevail at that time, it’s worth noting that guns and drugs are both things that are very difficult to get a hold of in Japan today. Only police officers and a small handful of specially licensed hunters are legally allowed to carry guns, which might also explain why, earlier, the narrator specifically considers it remarkable that “the Culture Police began openly carrying guns.” Meanwhile, Japan is extremely strict about the importation, possession, and distribution of controlled substances; this includes both drugs that are illegal in most places (cocaine, say), as well as drugs that are used as medication (like pseudoephedrine).

The Khmer Rouge

A communist group (particularly associated with the leader Pol Pot) that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. They were notorious for totalitarian policies as well as the murder of political opponents; the Khmer Rouge may have killed as many as two million people during their time in power.

Zero of the Rebellion

A reference to Code Geass, of which the subtitle was Lelouch of the Rebellion and one of the characters was known as Zero.

The Yamato Nadeshiko

Yamato was the ancient name for Japan, and still occurs in some expressions that hark back to the country’s ancient past. Here, the phrase is Yamato nadeshiko, which refers to a woman who is delicate and demure, as was considered ideal in the days of the Heian Court. (The nadeshiko, which CLAMP aficionados may remember as the name of Sakura’s mother from Cardcaptor Sakura, refers to a flower known in English as “the little pink.”)

The Earth Is Being Targeted

This line is from the opening narration to the first episode of the Ultraman series Ultra Seven.

Invaders

It’s probably not coincidence that the episode of Ultra Seven mentioned above is titled “The Formless Invader” (Sugata Naki Shinryakusha). However, this is also presumably a reference to the Outbreak Company series subtitle, Moeru Shinryakusha, a complicated pun that means in part “The Moe Invader.”

Afterword

Fumisato Araki

Fumisato-san is an author in her own right these days—in fact, just before we were finalizing this volume of Outbreak Company, one of her books (Wake Ari Ryuukishi-dan de Kosodate Hajimemashita, or “For Certain Reasons, I Started Raising a Kid in a Dragon-Knight Unit”) was picked up for publication in Japan.

S*itch

Refers to Stitch!, an anime spin-off of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch franchise. The show appeared in a dubbed and edited form on Disney-affiliated channels outside Japan.