Spelling of "Tellsis" and "Diethard"

After years of using "Telsis" for the continent on which Violet Evergarden series is set, and "Dietfried" for Gilbert Bougainvillea's elder brother, I found official sources that provide the actual spelling.

"Tellsis" for the continent, and "Diethard" for Gilbert's brother.

I have made the spelling changes in my blog. I was going to change the spelling change of "Telsis" to "Tellsis" in the Python and Flutter code, but decided not to, since it could end up introducing a breaking change that results in the software not functioning properly. So the repos and their code, plus the releases of the Flutter app, will continue to use "Telsis" instead of "Tellsis".

Here's the official source. The spelling "Diethard" also appears in the booklet that came with volume 4 of the anime series Blu-ray, the official design works for the anime series, and the booklet for Violet Evergarden The Movie.

My overall thoughts on Violet Evergarden The Movie.

Events:

First cast greeting event for Violet Evergarden the Movie

Violet Evergarden the Movie: Cast greeting event to thank fans

Production staff event at screening of Violet Evergarden the Movie

Letter of appreciation from Violet Evergarden's author Akatsuki Kana

Post on Violet Evergarden Orchestra Concert 2021

 

Translations of short stories:

Gilbert Bougainvillea and the Fleeting Dream (unofficial translation of "ギルベルト・ブーゲンビリアと儚い夢")

Violet Evergarden short stories: "Logbook entry" and "Diary entry" (unofficial translation)

The Starry Night and the Lonely Two (unofficial translation of 星降りの夜とさみしいふたり)

Diethard Bougainvillea's If (unofficial translation of ディートフリート・ブーゲンビリアIf) 

The Tailor and the Auto-Memories Doll (unofficial translation of 仕立て屋と自動手記人形)

 

Tellsis (Nunkish) translation:

Decoding the Violet Evergarden postcard

Translating the message card from Violet Evergarden Orchestra Concert 2021

Last line of Violet's final letter to Gilbert

My Tellsis language translator in Flutter that runs on Windows, Linux, and Android

My (old) Python script for translating to and from Tellsis language (Nunkish)

 

Insights on the movie:

Was Ekarte Island based on Folegandros?

Touching scenes in Violet Evergarden the Movie

Violet Evergarden the Movie is a story about guilt

Article about story consistency/inconsistency in Violet Evergarden the Movie

 

Audio commentary notes:

Production staff

Voice actors

Music staff

Violet Evergarden TV anime series

 

All posts related to Violet Evergarden.

Results of calligraphy grading (I passed!)

After months of preparing and finally submitting the requirements for calligraphy grading, the results are out.

I passed!

I am so grateful to my calligraphy teacher for her guidance over the many years, and her patience (I am not the exemplary student). It had been a long journey, one that started in 1999 (although I did try to pick up some Chinese calligraphy from my Chinese tutor back in secondary school). 24 years later, I have finally achieved the status of 師範, which allows me to teach. There are many others who have achieved this qualification in a much shorter time, but still, I take pride in finally passing the grading and keeping my promise to my teacher.

Of course, this is just another milestone along a lifelong journey. Back to practice!

Update 26 December 2023: The certificate arrived today. And the signboard, which I didn't expect...

The signboard is actually not small... 😅 It is a proper signboard that can be hung up by the door.

Chushu 處暑

After Liqiu, or 立秋, comes Chushu, or 處暑, another of the 二十四節気 24 solar terms. It signifies the end of hot days. But the weather lately doesn't seem like the heat will be ending soon, and autumn is still nowhere in sight.

Again, I wrote in two styles.

Qixi 七夕

Today is the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, and is also know as Qixi 七夕, a day when the weaver (Vega) gets to meet her lover, the cowherd (Altair).

For National Day 2023

Today is Singapore's 58th birthday.

And so, I got inspired to write this.

Home is where the heart belongs.

Liqiu 立秋

After Dashu, or 大暑, comes Liqiu, or 立秋, another of the 二十四節気 24 solar terms. It signifies the start of autumn. Although it is still very hot and feels more like mid-summer than autumn.

I tried a more prim and proper look. Always good to have a strong, firm, proper start.

And something more cursive.

Mounting rice paper

Calligraphy pieces are written on rice paper, which can be really flimsy and prone to tearing. Therefore, completed works are usually mounted by pasting a thicker piece of paper behind them. This process of mounting makes the calligraphy piece sturdier, and it can then be put into a frame or affixed onto a scroll.

The traditional way of mounting uses starch glue to paste the backing paper. This actually allows the backing paper to be removed, if necessary, by wetting the calligraphy piece (although it can be a delicate operation). The process usually involves spraying water onto the calligraphy piece to even out any creases, after which starch glue is applied using a brush (usually on the backing paper, although it can be also applied directly to the back of the calligraphy piece). The backing paper is then placed onto the back of the calligraphy piece, and the mounted piece is left to dry.

This process can take some time. You need to make the starch glue, apply it evenly using a brush, and it also requires time to dry. And skill. Applying the starch glue takes some skill. But with modern science, mounting can be easily done today using ready-made mounting paper. Such paper comes with a thermal adhesive on one side. First, you place the calligraphy piece facing down, then spray water onto the back of the piece to even out the creases. Then, you place the ready-made mounting paper, with the adhesive side against the calligraphy piece, and align it. Using an iron, you apply heat to the non-adhesive side of the mounting paper. The heat from the iron causes the thermal adhesive to stick to the back side of the calligraphy piece, bonding them together. As a bonus, the heat also helps to dry the calligraphy piece. The entire process takes less than 5 minutes for small pieces of works, and even bigger pieces may not take more than 10 minutes.

Here is an example of ready-made mounting paper. The one on the left is for smaller pieces, while the roll on the right is for larger works (you need to cut the mounting paper to the size you need).

The disadvantage, though, is that the backing paper cannot be removed, since it is being adhered using a chemical adhesive. So you cannot remount the work.

I gave both methods a try. On the left are works mounted using the ready-made mounting paper, while those on the right were mounted using starch glue. For the brush, I used a paintbrush bought from the 100-yen store. Similarly, the starch glue was actually starch glue sold at the 100-yen store, watered down (roughly 1 part glue to 1 part water). I used both methods on different types of rice paper.

As you can see, the ready-made mounting paper gave a very nice finish to the pieces. The starch glue method has a bit of unevenness, because of my poor skills at applying glue. One of them (端午) even had dark spots, which came about because the glue picked up pieces of paper (with ink) which got deposited on another part of the paper.

I guess I will stick with the ready-made mounting paper for now, but also use the starch glue method with practice pieces so that I can improve my glue application skills.

 

Update 12 Aug 2023: I tried mounting a larger work, written on 半切 or paper that is about 35cm by 136cm. The result was... bad. So bad that I don't even want to put any photos here. It was very difficult to work with such a large piece of paper and I will probably need a lot more practice to get it right (eventually).

Update 13 Aug 2023: I made another attempt at mounting a bigger piece.

This time, I cut the ready-made mounting paper to be slightly smaller in size that the actual work. This made it easier to iron as the work would not stick to the ironing board. However, there are still some creases, and I even tore the work itself a bit (left end of the work) because I was trying to iron it while it was slightly wet. I guess the trick is to find an ironing surface big enough that I don't need to shift the work when ironing.

78 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Today marks 78 years since the first atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

With each passing day, there are fewer and fewer people alive who have lived through that fateful day. Will we continue to remember their stories, or will they fade away with the passage of time?

Watched Sound! Euphonium: Ensemble Contest 特別編 響け！ユーフォニアム〜アンサンブルコンテスト〜

Sound! Euphonium: Ensemble Contest (特別編 響け！ユーフォニアム〜アンサンブルコンテスト〜), a theatrical OVA, started airing in Japan today, and I managed to get a ticket for the first show at the nearest theatre that is screening it. (Note: This post contains spoilers.)

The story continues from where Kumiko has taken over as the club president, with her first job being to select the school's representative for the upcoming ensemble contest. This OVA is only about 57 minutes, and I feel that there are some missed opportunities for making it into a longer film with more content. 

The OVA focuses on the ensemble contest, or rather, the selection process for the school's representatives. The idea is to have a mini concert, where the school band's members form small teams of 3 to 10. The teams will play at the concert, and votes will be cast to select the best team, who will then go on to be the school's representatives at the prefectural round of the contest.

The mini concert serves as the audition, but the OVA never actually showed the concert. I mean, for a show titled "Ensemble Contest", there was no ensemble contest. Viewers were just given shots of each team, with the name of the team, the song being played, and the names of the members. Then, the results of the votes were shown, and we were all told which team would go on to represent the school. It was kind of an anticlimax, since the OVA had been building up to the "audition" for like 50 minutes. If Kyoani had taken the effort to produce the concert, with each team performing their own piece, it would have been a musical treat and a fitting conclusion to the OVA. Instead, we had a slideshow.

I think the voting system was also quite poorly thought out. As a middle ground between voting only by the school band's members and a more open voting system that allows spectators (including the third-year students of the band) to vote, Kumiko suggested that everyone be allowed to cast votes. If the band members' results are different from the spectators', then the members' votes will have priority. Wait. What stupidity is this? Isn't this just the same voting by members only? I mean, what it all says is that the spectators' votes are redundant, they don't mean anything. Then, why even bother?

 

Side note: The third-year students (Yuko, Natsuki, Nozomi) must be really really clever, because they already passed their examinations for university entrance in November. Which means all three of them went through the "recommendation by school" route instead of the "commoners'" way of taking entrance exams in late January and early February.

For the OVA, Ogawa Taichi serves as the assistant director. I think he is being groomed to be a director. I mean, Kyoani lost Yamada Naoko (she left the company after the fire), so they need to groom someone for the future generation. So instead of just legs (director Ishihara Tatsuya likes to use the movement of the legs to express feelings), this time, we had eyes. More than enough close-up shots of the eyes. I hope upcoming director Ogawa is not going to make this like a signature of his works...

Overall, the animation is Kyoani quality and the music is performed nicely by the same orchestra. It serves to continue the story of the series and shows more of Kumiko's character, which we will probably see more development in the upcoming season 3, scheduled for spring 2024. But at 1,500 yen (no discounts for students), it is a bit pricey for a 57-minute show that ended with a slideshow when I was hoping to see a concert. They could have made it a bit longer, with a proper concert (this series is about a school band, after all) and maybe even develop some of the plot lines properly (like Kumiko's conversation about opening windows with Yoroizuka Mizore). For an anime about music, there wasn't even a proper performance of a single piece this time, just bits and pieces. Well, I guess it makes for good viewing at home when it comes out on streaming services.

 

Oh, I really appreciate that they continued to credit Ikeda Shoko with the character design for the series. It is one way for her to continue living in our memories. 

Update 5 Aug 2023: I finally realised the weird feeling I had about this OVA. I kept feeling something was off while watching now. I now know why: director Yamada Naoko was not involved in this OVA. I think it goes to say a lot about the impact of her stage direction for the series so far (minus this OVA). I guess the upcoming season 3 in April 2024 will give me a similar strange feeling again as director Yamada Naoko has left Kyoani already and is unlikely to ever return to be involved with this series. 😭

Using the names of RSN's frigates for calligraphy practice

The Republic of Singapore Navy has six stealth frigates: RSS Formidable, RSS Intrepid, RSS Steadfast, RSS Tenacious, RSS Stalwart, and RSS Supreme. They also have corresponding names in Chinese, used for reporting by the local Chinese newspapers. They are, in order, 威武号, 刚毅号, 坚信号, 强力号,忠诚号, and 精湛号. Given my ties to these names, I decided to use them for calligraphy practice.

 

威武 (Formidable)

刚毅 (Intrepid)

坚信 (Steadfast)

强力 (Tenacious)

忠诚 (Stalwart)

精湛 (Supreme)

And a final piece combining all six names.

I actually quite like this piece. 😄

Note: The Chinese names are not literal translations of the English names.