‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 312a

And this is when I discover if I have any readers who can read Chinese...

(the Chinese will make more sense once you see the rest of the page)

35 Comments

I’m guessing that’s one of those beds? Maybe the type her mom liked, with the massagers?
…Nope, no clue what any of that means. I would assume that the majority of the people still alive would be Asian, Chinese even, because that’s where the majority of people alive today live… You know, the image of the world map with a circle drawn around Asia and the label informing us that there’s more people inside that little circle than out? I could be remembering that wrong… I’m too tired to go look it up.
Thank you for the update!

That doesn’t follow. China’s extremely high population is due to extremely dense cities, the rural population density isn’t that much higher than anywhere else. And extremely dense cities are not somewhere you want to be during a global disaster. If it’s deliberate attacks, the cities are going to be targets, and natural disasters hit built-up areas harder than rural areas. And if you survive the initial events, a ruined city is a less hospitable environment than a small ruined town. There will be far more bodies to bury, to the extent that most of them will probably rot in the streets, there’ll be no clean water, and cities import their food so there won’t be any of that either.

1:we’re opening it
2:help
1:wait a little, success!
2:thanks
1:Are you still okay?

Hope that helps :3

Yes, it helps! Thank you!

Thank you!

That helped a lot indeed, especially since I can’t C&P any of the Chinese into Google translator. Thank you!

In panel 1 I’m pretty sure it’s: “We almost got it open!“
? (kuài) means “quick” among other things, but in that context it usually signals that an action is nearly completed. Like ????? -> “I’m almost there!”
Sorry if I’m nitpicking, just happy that I can finally put that to use. 😉

Okay, so hanzi characters aren’t displayed. Nuts. 🙁

I was about to say the same thing! Here’s a full translation:

We almost have it open!
Help!
Wait a moment!
Success!
(or, we did it, eh not a direct translation)
Thanks!
Are you okay?
(the words there directly translate to -“still good?”, but in chinese that means are you okay)

Wish I knew Chinese or any other language that would be incredibly useful and really cool
Nice to see NAV is back, though I did enjoy the little story breaks you had

I don’t read Chinese, but I know some radicals from Japanese. Here’s my guess:

Open it quickly!
Help!
One minute!
Success!
Thanks!
Are you okay, [name]?

“Are you okay, [name]?”

Oh sure, taunt us with name as a placeholder but not mentioning the name itself. :p

Now I’m even more itching to find out if that’s Dude or Bandit. My bet’s on Dude, because panicking in that situation seems like the very thing he’d do in that case.

Either the person’s just trolling or there may be a slight mistranslation going on. There is NO name.

But yeah. Japanese’s kanji is pretty much exactly the same as Chinese… so very good translation…

Kobra’s was a more accurate translation, but that’s a lot better than I usually do with Japanese.

And I am one such Chinese reader. 😀

Is this Dude and Bandit? ‘Cause otherwise I have no other guesses.

If I remember correctly, Jake(Bandit) lives in Tenka city, while Brandon(the Dude) lives in some other city.

I read enough of both Chinese and Japanese to be surprised that someone is speaking Chinese in TENka City… But there was a separate Japan City, wasn’t there? And that last question seems oddly worded to me, but I assume it was written by someone with better Chinese skills than mine. 🙂

You can rest assured that the last question (?????) is not oddly worded and is, in fact, a common phrase construction.

If anything, you should find the second to last sentence (???!) awkward. Reading the entire thing in the situational context makes it seem out of place. I guess the closest parallel I can make is if someone crowed, “Primary objectives have been achieved!” in a serious, non-sarcastic way after they refilled the gas on their car… I mean, yeah, it works… but ohhhhhkkkkaaayyyyy?

Please go back to full pages.

Did you happen to see Aneeka’s recent blog post explaining the half-pages? With that in mind, I’m curious if you mean you’d prefer less-frequent updates with full pages over these more-frequent partials.

Personally, I’m okay with the partials, provided we eventually get to see the full format of each page as the partials accumulate, though I wouldn’t mind if Aneeka chose to update less frequently in order to post full pages either.

I prefer 2x/wk updates (for a myriad of reasons), so my choices were between:
1) Split pages
2) Full page one day, filler next
3) Full pages for 2 wks, hiatus filler for 2 wks

Since I didn’t really want to come up with more filler ideas, I decided to stick with split pages. Good news, though. The next three pages (after this one) don’t split well so they’ll be full pages. Then it’s back to split pages again.

Thanks for everyone’s patience!

just make sure that you dont let people like that stress ya out. you know that we are perfectly content with getting content 😀

Are you having Kleya problems? Are the blobs bugging you?

…and suddenly my interest in learning Mandarin peaks once again.

Now I want to know why it looks like someone’s locked inside a car trunk…

I read it more as if it’s like a tanning booth – which means it’s probably a Kido unit.

We’ve almost got it open!/We’ll be opening it soon!
Help!
Hang on a sec!/Wait a sec!
Success!
Thanks!
You okay?

The [name] thing is because that last character(ma3. The one that’s the radical for mouth beside the radical for horse. The horse is just there for pronunciation) is more of a sentence modifier, rather than a word in and of itself. It turns the statement into a question. I think the equivalent in Japanese would be like if you just say “Daijoubu” it can mean “I’m alright.”, but if you add “desu ka?” it immediately turns it into “Are you okay?”, a question. Hope that explains it.

Interesting to see that the person inside speaks English instead of Chinese though.
Does s/he understand?

It’s possibly The Dude, as he was in Beijing at one point (so would possibly speak Chinese). He’s also somewhat important, so it’d make sense for some “we” in Tenka City to be aware of his being in L.i.F.e./The Game and helping.

The determined/helpless/impatient qualities of the “whump!”-ing make me suspect The Dude.

It could also be various other important characters -/perhaps Chinese and English are both quite common in Tenka City? Or, there is some sort of translator device?

It’s interesting that they’re conversing in different languages and appear to understand each other.

I’m curious, Aneeka; how did you manage to write the Chinese bits so accurately?

Do you speak the language, or did you have a native speaker proofread the dialogue for naturalness?

“I’m curious, Aneeka; how did you manage to write the Chinese bits so accurately? Do you speak the language, or did you have a native speaker proofread the dialogue for naturalness?”
I wish I spoke Chinese. Instead, I have a friend who has Chinese friends who all graciously helped me.

With the way that technology was progressed, language may not even be a barrier. They could have a technology that auto translates for the wearer. Also, you have to assume that if they are speaking Chinese, the person most likely knows it also.

Re: update rate…you’re still better than Megatokyo 🙂

… And even Megatokyo is better than Dresden Codak…

I jusr finished reading this and I would like to point something out. There are other methods to being a hero… for instance… samurai learned how to fight without killing and without drawing their sword entirely. And then there’s always Self-defense.

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 312a