Conversations with a Translator: High School 4

Kate: In several manga series, at least one volume tackles the "school trip"! It appears to carry as much significance as…

Actually, it is hard to say: prom, a high school musical, and homecoming all rolled into one. 

 

Eugene: I would compare the school trip to the prom and homecoming and graduation rolled into one. High school graduation ceremonies in Japan are not nearly as high-falutin as their American counterparts. The school trip ranks up there with the culture festival and sports day in terms of teenage rites of passage.

These festivals and activities belong in the "fish don't know they're wet" category. They are part of the cultural zeitgeist. The same way that American teenagers don't question the whole cap and gown business in a serious anthropological way. I'm always amused by the prom episodes in shows like Bones and CSI because I didn't care then and I don't now but some people sure do.

Kate: Location location location. In one series--His Favorite--high schooler, Sato, has never been on a school trip. In response, Yoshida states, "This may not be my first field trip, and I may have thought 'Aw, Man. Kyota and Nara, again...??'"

Are Kyota and Nara typical school trip spots?

Eugene: The whole point of a school trip is that it is supposed to be educational. Well, the rationalization. So historically important places like Nara and Kyoto are favored. In Studio Ghibli's Ocean Waves, the school trip is to Hawaii. That kind of extravagance is rarer these days.

In Super Cub, the school trip is to Kamakura, which isn't very far from Kofu, so Koguma can ride her Super Cub there when she misses the bus. That is realistically treated as a big deal. Assassination Classroom turns these expectations into a running joke by interrupting the school trips with major crises, after Koro Sensei has gone to his usual meticulous lengths to make them as normal as possible.

Which itself is a running joke because Koro Sensei is the least normal person in the universe.

Yoshida--the voice of balance

Kate: Hey, an ongoing joke in His Favorite is that Sato is a very atypical guy but he wants a "typical field trip." Sato and Yoshida's friends keep up a running commentary during the trip about what is typical versus what isn't. (They even get into an argument about whether meeting and flirting and fighting with students from other schools is typical.) Eating dumplings--typical (enjoying food in general is considered typical: even the obsessive art students do it!). Pillow fights--typical. Having the strongest girl in the school act as a protector so Sato can have a good time--less typical.

Eugene: Like sports day and the culture festival, the school trip is a rite of passage that is embraced as much for the ritual as for the experience. I believe the social stability of Japanese culture arises out of not just respecting but defending these well-established baselines. Chesterton's Fence, again. As I like to say, Japan's official religion is being Japanese. Getting the ritual right is often the whole point.

Kate: Granted, in any series with an arc, the unexpected must occur. In Hana-Kimi, the hero encounters his estranged brother on a school trip, which leads to all kinds of complications. I assume this is a common trope.

Eugene: Precisely because the school trip is so ordinary makes it fodder for dramatic excess. Everybody knows what the baseline is so it's easy to mess with those expectations. That's why Assassination Classroom is so effective as both a comedy and a drama. Everyone, including Koro Sensei, keeps returning to that baseline no matter what utterly bizarre events might take place in the meantime.

Kate: A “baseline” makes sense. Unlike with American prom, I have encountered very few negative references to school trips in manga with older characters. In fact, one of the unnerving aspects of school trips in manga is that they carry such a charged expectation of togetherness. In Caste Heaven, the tone of the series suddenly shifts from near-cynicism (with a thread of romance) to one of gentle, sweet bonding during the school trip. In His Favorite, the bullying girls suddenly back off en masse to give Sato his desired "typical" school trip.

So, in a way, the school trip could be compared to getting one's driver's license--in terms of a rite of passage and others' collective goodwill (very little snarkiness; endless stories to share).

Eugene: A good analogy. Given that most Japanese won't get a driver's license until their late twenties, if at all, the school trip could also be compared to the archetypal American "road trip," the first time a kid piles into a car with a couple of friends and drives someplace far away.

From high school to gender wars! Stay “tuned.”