Fumbling through Google Translation with Bookwalker Titles: "Attacking Dungeons With A Beautiful Boss Is Overtime Work?"

[Terrence]

"美人上司とダンジョンに潜るのは残業ですか?"



https://bookwalker.jp/dee89bf226-f2da...

Decided to at least try a Japanese only book with this light novel. I don't know much / any Japanese, so I'm using translation software for now.

What I got through 17 pages of stumbling / bumbling:

Makino - Our main character. He works in an office under a beautiful woman named...

Kuroki - A black haired (hence the "Kuro" in her name?; That means black / dark?), good looking boss. It seems business partners get distracted by her beauty, but her employees fear her reprisals? The book starts with our main character basically messing up numbers from an Excel spreadsheet, and her taking him to task, slamming her hand on his desk (audible Bang in the text). I think the fault actually rests with...

Kishimoto - Another male(?) employee. I believe Makino ended up doing his work for him, and then made mistakes because he stayed up all night? Either way, this guy is snickering in the background and then trying to say "pay it no mind" after he gets scolded.

(Update: Finished! Here's a short YouTube video preview / overview of the book).

https://youtu.be/hkIddFVIwqI

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Also of note, there's a lot of free manga available on Bookwalker's Japanese site until 12/21, like the first few manga volumes of Attack on Titan, Flying Witch, Abyss, that one with the girlfriend that becomes a Zombies (Saekano?), and Shin Sekai No Yori.

[Quantum]

ooh, nice tip!

[Terrence]

Alex wrote: "ooh, nice tip!"

Yeah, don't miss those free manga volumes. I should probably repost that in the Bookwalker thread. =]

There's also some good sales on novels / Light Novels (this one was like 390? I saw Amazon has it for 300 though, so if you can get it there, probably preferable).

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Up to page 21/440. This is interesting. It's kind of like GATE (the one with the JSDF), except the occurrence of the dungeon / blue light Isekai appearance is 30 years old (again, trusting these Google Translations). These dungeons now pop up where they want to; private houses or ancient ruins. Hmm..

Edit2:
Up to page 41/321. So the boss and her subordinate Makino go on a hunt. Unfortunately, his boss runs in with her big great sword and swings in a crescent arc wildly in a dark area of a cavern, but unbeknownst to her, there's a bunch of other swarming slimes, so they have to jetison out of there with magic. Lots of comedy about prep work for this hunt and Makino's Spreadsheet preparedness ensues. =P

This one does seem like harmless fun so far, so I don't expect anything too grand. There is a bit about technology from the real world not working in the dungeon, but some organization is, I think, creating items on the sly that do work in dungeons, like video recording equipment. Also, dungeons are randomized, so they're never the same per day even if you enter in the same location.

Edit 3: Almost done with the section on the slime battles. It's basically just showing our male main character using knowledge to take out enemies, while his boss fails spectacularly while trying to weild a new, expensive big sword. It ends with one of those cringeworthy anime moments after a defeated water slime explodes in the poor girl's face and the water soaks her shirt to make it see through. ={

Story synopsis stuff will be spoiler tagged, thoughts untagged.

Edit 4: Page 110/321

So the next section focuses on our heroes hunting a blood wolf. This section, especially early, definitely been a bit tougher with machine translation, though mainly the real world scenes.

Once again, more of that low brow Rom-Com comedy, with

(view spoiler)[ our hero having to lend his shirt to the boss after she bloodied her original cloth with her injuries, and then him noticing that despite her being generally small in the upper body (though tall overall factoring in leg length), her chest is stretching out the shirt in the middle. xC (hide spoiler)]

So yeah, some comedy comes through, some doesn't. Also, best to break things up translation wise by sentence than by telling Google to translate everything at once. It gets too confused.

Edit 5: So the resolution to the blood wolf incident ends with

(view spoiler)[ the chief finally being useful with her giant blade.

Unfortunately, she wasn't prepared for it's after-death attack, this blood miasma that you can't kill with normal attacks, you just have to evade it. T.T (hide spoiler)]

Edit 6: After the Blood Wolf section, we get a section that is super spoiled by the title. Unfortunately for the boss, she doesn't get to read the titles of the book, so she's caught unawares when

(view spoiler)[ what she thought was a Sunday date was just an excursion to get a set of armor from a shop. All her red cheek flushing in embarrassment for nothing! Makino deserves to be smacked on the head with her purse. (hide spoiler)]

Edit 7: Chapter 3 was definitely the most challenging since it was mostly dialogue based and real world. Our protagonist is the butt of jokes from the store owner who knew him from his highschool adventuring days, though again, tough to parse these jokes (he had a beard, acted Chuuni by calling out his attacks and claiming enemies were his chess pieces, and he had two names? Machine translation has failed me!).

Chapter 4 opens with the boss, who joined the company 6 months ago (?), learning about a cook off competition. She doesn't feel like participating (bad at cooking?), but learns the penalty is a decrease of 20% in their bonus if no participation / involvement. Everyone has to bring in an ingredient, and it has to be a good ingredient, no hot dogs or anything. 🌭

The boss has a great idea for what to bring as an ingredient...

(view spoiler)[A dungeon monster carcass! 🤦

They decide to hunt a boar on the third floor. Unfortunately, the boss doesn't understand the significance that this boar is a "rare monster" that has "reappeared" in the dungeon, so Makino is quick to chastise her for not reading a beginner manual yet on dungeon hunting. The basics of the basics.

Things get a bit testy when a third wheel (Miyuki Kawashima, the dungeon owner's daughter) decides to go on the hunt and cling to Makino. The conversation comes around to office romance I think, and Makino hints that office romance is frowned upon because when those relationships go bad, it could affect performance?

Just kiss already (I hope they're a pair by the end of the second volume)!

Ending of 4 was a bit confusing with the talk with the executive at the cook out. I think he just forgot the old guy's face as the head of the main office, so he was embarrassed. (hide spoiler)]

Edit: Chapter 5 (final?)

I think this one will deal with Makino's tragic backstory, why a pro like him gave up hunting in a party until meeting the chief.

Continuing on, some of the issues from the previous dungeon hunt have led to the dungeon being semi-permanently closed. Our heroes fortunately get to go looking into the issues with Miyuki again.

Lots of discussion about unique skills here...

(view spoiler)[The boss thinks she's useless compared to what Makino can do with his magic sphere ability that helps him map the dungeon / discover monsters on the floor, but we the reader and Makino both know she's the interesting one with her unique skill she isn't aware of that took down a level 20-30 poison frog (she's, like, level 5 when taking it down). 🐸 (hide spoiler)]

So the boss monster for this section...

(view spoiler)[Kagewatari? Something like that. Everything before this has had an animal's name, so I'm a bit cautious to think this translation is right. It's sort of like the Sickle Weasel in that it has a sharp edged tail, but it also has a blade on the forehead, it can charge at you, but its main attack is manipulating shadows and turning them into blades (I think). The boss once again displays her prowess with her ability to block its attack with her crescent long sword.

Kage means shadow. I don't know what the watari part would be. Google says "Over", so Overshadow? IDK. (hide spoiler)]

Edit: Chapter 6 (Gotta be final).

So the set up for the finale is complete.

(Major spoiler territory)

(view spoiler)[ After demonstrating her activation ability last chapter, a red-eyed determined stance that let's her copy the monster's level, the boss is now capable of taking on any monster, no matter her level. So the deal that she made with Makino is off, since he was only hunting with her out of a sense of duty to protect her.

The ability is talked about in the open by Makino unfortunately in front of Miyuki and the boss. This is unfortunate, because apparently people with this skill are banned from dungeon hunting. The reason is it's not only a blessing, but a curse... The skill makes you the same level as your enemy, you can't outpace your enemy level wise I think.

Some crazy stuff happens, and... Oh my God, the rock surface the chief took a nap on started moving... It's the dragon, noo! 🐉

I'm hoping they wrap this up with them actually addressing their feelings towards each other, but my guess is instead he'll just help her again out of a sense of realizing she's still a rookie, even with her ability, that something can and will go wrong. (hide spoiler)]

[Terrence]

On to ZoaHunter!



This is a futuristic novel. Looks like it could get dark (it was in the recommendations next to the Blassereiter novelization).

Opens with a bloody motorcycle race on single wheeled motorcycles called monocyles. Our hero's name is Takeshi, the star rookie who manages

(view spoiler)[to take out all the competitors in the most dangerous fashion, attacks from behind (that was like taboo because most of the time it led to injuries / death for both racers, the racer in front spinning out of control and rolling back into the attacker). (hide spoiler)]

So after a bit of an awkward romance scene...

(view spoiler)[Our hero wakes up in a hospital (it's actually a Biological Research facility, but you could have fooled me) wheelchair bound, his limbs all entering entropy. Something disastrous happened to put him in this state. That disaster that befell him was a creature named ZOON (pronounced Zone? It's apparently a Greek word) attacked while he was in bed. (hide spoiler)]

The opening really reminds me of Mardock Scramble a lot. I wonder if this is a common motif

(view spoiler)[(romance scene, followed by a tragedy that leads to a metamorphosis physically?). (hide spoiler)]

More foreign words... The Azrael plan, so named after the Biblical Angel that received power from God, was a plan to create the new species of human being (to elongate the lifespan of humanity or something or other). Apparently the mutation of humans would allow them to live in all sorts of poor climate environments (the Earth's resources are really depleted, and overpopulation is a big problem, so humans need to go to new places). Unfortunately, the DNA mutation plan was a failure as it just created carnivorous creatures from mutated chimps, and because of their makeup consuming so many calories, they all became predatory creatures to make up for it. Those chimps were all killed, but the virus leaked out... Of course.

Let's get this Zombies movie on the road!

Edit: Oh god... The main character's...

(view spoiler)[limbs are now Zoons / Zones. Ew. Apparently they removed the sections of his body that were infected, and they live on as another organism. (hide spoiler)]

Edit: I've made some decent progress in this. The open was really good, easy to understand. But the story does get some layers later, like possibly government conspiracy and some such.

One thing that's kinda neat is that our Zoa Hunter collects Action Figures of super heroes. I guess they help him find something to sympathize with in a world where he's the only non-human doing inhumane things like killing former humans that were turned into chimeras. He even has Spider-Man and does the whole "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility" thing, ha ha.

I'd love for this to come stateside. The only thing holding it back is that there is some sexual language in two short scenes in the book, though again, I'm using Translate, so what they're translating stuff to could be wrong (but I doubt it).

(I'm about halfway through now).

I'm guessing something bad will happen to...

(view spoiler)[
The nursemaid, Misaki. Unfortunately, she's dipped her toes too deep into governmental conspiracies, and she established a romantic relationship with the main character. Nothing good can come from this!

Of course, I'd love to be surprised. She's kind of mousey too, so that doesn't go well with acting like a lead heroine / love interest unfortunately. =[ (hide spoiler)]

[Quantum]

I liked the blassreiter anime. Monocycles? Cool. I used to ride a motorcycle back in college.

[Terrence]

Alex wrote: "I liked the blassreiter anime. Monocycles? Cool. I used to ride a motorcycle back in college."

I'd be terrified getting on one. I'll live vicariously through my Motorhead novel characters. x)

Blassereiter was definitely an interesting one. That starred a motorcycle champion too, right?

This book says about 90% of human DNA is "junk" / unused. Is that true? Are there at least certain sections that are almost 100% junk? 🤔

I just googled. Apparently, up to 75% of your DNA is junk according to studies as late as 2017. =/

[Quantum]

Yes, it did. I watched it a long time ago. "Gerd Frentzen. After a tragic accident at the circuit, Gerd is rendered a paraplegic, until offered a cure..." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blassre...)

(Although girls liked it, ^_^ you're probably better off living vicariously.)

[Terrence]

Alex wrote: "Yes, it did. I watched it a long time ago. "Gerd Frentzen. After a tragic accident at the circuit, Gerd is rendered a paraplegic, until offered a cure..."

Oh, yeah, wow, this story (Zoa Hunter) also involves a paraplegic. Definitely can see why it was recommended for Blassereiter fans.

[Terrence]

"Reading" this now. "We Are All Gone" is the title I believe.

Definitely would not recommend this novel if you don't have Japanese skills. The biggest problem is that the names of characters are being mistaken by the translation software as inanimate objects, like "Moonlight" for Tsukuyomi, or "Water Chicken" for Mizugahara (or whatever the heck her name is).

If anyone versed in Japanese takes a gander at this, just give me a cast list of all the characters in the opening chapters (obviously no spoiler character names if there are any).



Edit: Through the first section (Chapter 1? There's parts in the chapters; this is basically 1/5 or 1/6 through the book). What I've gotten out of it:

A former Otaku named Tsukuyomi ends up meeting a girl named Mizugahara (water chicken?) who goes to the library and researches about Shinto shrines. They find one of three "false idol" shrines set up in triangular patterns across the city, and discuss the possibility that... Dun dun dun... These could be a part of a curse being laid over their city.

In fact, we know there's a lady out there (Miffi is her social media account?) who wants to end her life and have it serve as the catalyst for a cataclysm. I don't know if this will manifest itself in some supernatural curse, or what.

A young woman named Kitsune (or Nakagusa or something) whose father is a cop, is also on the case. She's accompanied by another cop named Murase.

There's a boy named Konoshima whose friends were all caught doing illegal acts (smoking + drinking) in social media photos that were spread / hacked into. All of the friends have to leave school. He blames the dude above, Tsukuyomi.

And last of all (?) There's a guy named Hideya who may sounds a bit crazed. I think he's the one that leaked the social media stuff. He wants to manipulate people.

There's also a woman named Toma(?) who dresses like a Western Cowgirl. I think she's a manga writer or editor?? IDK. Her name keeps getting translated as Hemp instead of Toma. xC

Edit: I'm about a third through. Definitely wouldn't recommend this for machine translation because it's got some stuff that just doesn't translate well (Character names Google confused for animal names, religious terminology, smells and sounds that are exclusive to the Japanese language, etc).

This novel references some real world American tragedies to try and explain the inexplicable evil seeming stuff going on in the background, including one that feels recent (though I guess it's been almost 5 years now since that one they reference). I feel like they're going somewhere with all this, but we'll see.