October 11, 2026 · 1 min read
How to read a note
A walk through the parts of a translation note and what each label means.
Every note follows the same shape. Here is an example:
Honorifics
minor
JA〇〇君、こっちこっち
ENHey, over here.
Lit.〇〇-kun, over here, over here.
The parts
- JA is the original Japanese line, with its page in the Japanese edition.
- EN is the line as printed in the English edition.
- Lit. is a literal gloss, so you can see the Japanese structure without reading Japanese.
- The commentary underneath explains the difference.
Categories
| Category | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Mistranslation | The English says something the Japanese doesn't. |
| Omission | Something in the Japanese is missing from the English. |
| Addition | The English adds something that isn't in the Japanese. |
| Tone & register | Same meaning, different voice: politeness, roughness, formality. |
| Honorifics | Suffixes and forms of address that were dropped or changed. |
| Wordplay | Puns and jokes that depend on Japanese. |
| Names & terms | How names and recurring terms are rendered. |
| Localization | Deliberate adaptations for English readers. |
Severity
- Minor: a nuance that's nice to know.
- Notable: changes how a line or character comes across.
- Major: changes what's happening or what a character means.
The commentary explains what changed and why it matters for the scene.