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Translation for an interview... help appreciated

Bekkichan

Transloter!
14 Jul 2004
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I'm translating a quite long (5 pages in Word) magazine interview by a visual kei band I've been doing translations for since mid-2004, and after a few days I've managed to smooth out most of my trouble spots... but there's one block of text I just can't make sense of.

The context: the interviewer asks what the noteworthy qualities of the band's new costumes are (for reference, the new costumes are extremely... involved, and elaborate). The guy answering here is referring to another band member, who happens to be the... well, girly one out of the bunch. I'm bolding the parts that are confusing me the most.

この当時の人がどういう動きをしてたのかって言うのを、彼は今、身をもって知ってる筈なんですよ。だから、ちょっとずつ動くとか、段々昔の人が動いてたような動きしか出来なくなってきて、衣装に合わせて彼の動きも変わってきてますね。

I'm guessing he's talking about the poor guy's initial difficulty in moving since acquiring his new costume, which is a huge, poofy, heavy dress with lots of accessories... but that's as far as I can get. Even on that I'm not sure - it seems like 動き is used in some weird ways here. Maybe it's just me. x.x Again, I'm especially lost on the bolded parts, and what they have to do with the rest and such... so I'd especially appreciate input on those... :x

Many thanks in advance!
 
Well, you've got the idea. People tend to go on and on in these interviews (I've done a few myself).
It's kind of hard to jump in the middle and give a proper 'translation', but I'll give it a shot.

この当時の人がどういう動きをしてたのかって言うのを、彼は今、身をもって知ってる筈なんですよ

The first part of the sentences makes reference to the newer costumes I'm assuming, as he says この当時. Without more context it's a bit confusing, but it's something along the lines of "He should now know himself what type of movements the other person (same person before?) was doing."

だから、ちょっとずつ動くとか、段々昔の人が動いてたような動 きしか出来なくなってきて、衣装に合わせて彼の動きも変 わってきてますね。

The last part kinda says that "the person wearing the costume could only move a bit at a time, and could eventually only move like the person before. His movements are changing b/c of the costume."

Not perfect, but should get you on the right track.
HTH
 
Aah... that does help a lot. I was thinking there was some random nameless third person who had been asking "How the heck do you move in that thing?" or some such. :joyful:

Thanks a ton for the help!
 
Any chance that you could post a little more context?

Even without it though, I have a suspicion that この当時の人 is referring to the same thing as 昔の人, i.e. the people of way back when, when people actually wore the sort of clothes that this band is dressing up in (I assume it's a gothic-type look like most visual kei bands are).

So this guy is basically saying that the person in question (the other member of the band to whom he's referring to) must really know how people back then (women in particular, if he's wearing dresses) felt wearing such constraining clothes. Since the clothes don't allow him to make large movements, his movements have gradually come to change to be more like how people actually moved back then.

Without context, I can't be 100% confident, but this interpretation makes the most sense to me.
 
when people actually wore the sort of clothes that this band is dressing up in (I assume it's a gothic-type look like most visual kei bands are).

Indeed. I didn't even think that the costumes could've beem modeled after some time. As everyone says all the time... Japanese is all about context. I guess everything is though.
 
They are indeed a goth band... but I don't think the new costumes were intended to be from any particular time period. I mean, I know the gothic style originated in a given historical time frame (don't ask me which one :p), but other than that they've just been basing their costumes on a concept they recently adapted, which is a sort of vampire story. But in the many months I've worked for them, and after all the interviews and comments I've translated pertaining to their concept costumes (they get really excited about them, so they talk about them a lot >>), they've never once associated their image with any particular time period.

But I suppose there's a first time for everything, so maybe that WAS what he meant in an obscure sort of way... I wish I could've asked him to make sure, but he was out of town all weekend and I had to send the translation by 11 pm Sunday... so maybe I sent it with a mistake... 😌

Oh well, live and learn... Thanks again for the tips!
 
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