Welcome to Ranka

Click on the sprites in the riboku tree to navigate.

 

March 21, 2009

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter Two [3] is now up.

The Yellow Sea now has an atlas page.

Various small updates to The Bestiary, The Society, The Glossary, and The Atlas.

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To my amusement, WWWJDIC now has a direct translation for 図南 tonan: "a large undertaking attempted in a far-off land."

The title of Tonan no Tsubasa is synonymous with the phrase 図南鵬翼 tonan houyoku (lit. "draw" + "south" + "phoenix" + "wings"), which refers the instance of a phoenix spreading its wings to soar 90,000 ri to the sea at the southernmost end of the world.

On an closely related note, in Chinese mythology, Zhū Què (known as Suzaku in Japanese) is the guardian bird of the south, and is depicted as a red (due to its association with the element of fire) phoenix.

As far as my interpretation of the title goes, Shushou is the phoenix who is spreading her wings to make the passage through the Yellow Sea in order to ascend Mt. Hou, meet Kyouki, and be chosen as empress of Kyou.

I am fully aware that the common translation of Tonan no Tsubasa is "The Wings of Dreams," but I don't think that dreams is a fitting translation of tonan and early on I decided to use aspiration instead. I liked the word because it retained the "in the process of/potential" quality of the word dream while at the same time retaining a sense of "intent to fulfill/ambition" that dream does not have, and Shushou is nothing if not ambitious.

 

 

December 16, 2008

*gasp* An update!?

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter Two [2] is now up.

Plus, you don't need to understand Japanese to enjoy this comic about Gyousou and Taiki.

 

 

May 19, 2008

Minor updates to various pages. Links section cleaned up. Thanks to Bryon for pointing out a few things for The Society section.

Taken shamefully from the Knights' gallery. Awkward translation, yes, I know, but nevertheless enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 10, 2008

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter Two [1] is now up.

Unedited, as usual. Someday I'll go back and proof my translations, but today is not that day.

 

 

March 6, 2008

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [8] is now up.

This concludes Chapter One.     ヽ(´ー｀)ノ

 

 

March 3, 2008

Long time no update.    u・ェ・u

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [7] is now up.

 

 

July 7, 2007

Moved to new server, and bettered the site. All sections of The Encyclopedia have been improved in some way.

 

 

May 5, 2007

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [6] is now up.

A new section called The Atlas has been added to the encyclopedia.

 

 

March 21, 2007

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [5] is now up.

 

 

September 27, 2006

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [4] is now up.

 

 

August 18, 2006

Added a section with info on the opening and ending themes.

 

 

July 26, 2006

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [3] is now up.

 

 

July 04, 2006

Tonan no Tsubasa Chapter One [2] is now up.