Shiki Infomaps

[sinnesspiel]

Characters names are color coded to their domicile region.
Characters whose names are in a	light grey box	live outside of Sotoba
Characters whose names are in an	uncolored box	's domicile region are unknown.
Characters whose names are in a	dark grey box	are deceased before the start of the novel

Colors are based off of their place of residence/status at the beginning of the story, or their first home in Sotoba if they were outside of Sotoba at the start; if anyone moves within or out of Sotoba, this is not noted in the chart. If someone's residency or status is a potential spoiler, it will be left blank. However, characters whose existences may be spoilers will still be included.
Characters whose family structures are completely unknown will be put alone. Families in which no pictures are available for anybody will not include dummy space holders. If somebody's family tree cannot be made, but they work at one of the locations specified in family business trees (Temple, Hospital, Contractor's firm, etc.), they will be put there and only there.

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江畑 Ebata

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後藤田 Gotouda
Gotouda Kumi
Gotouda Kyouko

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行田 Gyouda
Gyouda Bungo		Gyouda Etsuko

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長谷川 Hasegawa
Hasegawa		Hasegawa Chiyomi
	(Son)

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支倉 Hasekura Itoko

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広沢 Hirosawa
Hirosawa
	(Daughter)

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広沢 Hirosawa
Hirosawa Toyoko
Hirosawa Takatoshi

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広沢 Hirosawa (Ko-Hiro or Small-Hiros)
?
?
?		Hirosawa Mayumi (nee: Ohkawa)

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広沢 Hirosawa
Hirosawa Takafumi		?

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猪田 Inoda Motosaburou

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石田 Ishida
Ishida		Ishida Chie

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伊藤 Itou
Itou		Itou Ikumi
(Son)	(Son)	Itou Tamae

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加藤 Katou
Katou Yoshihide		Katou Sumie

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加藤 Katou
Katou Yukie
Katou Minoru		?
	Katou Yuusuke

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桐敷 Kirishiki
Kirishiki		Kirishiki ?
		兼正　At Kanemasa
	Kirishiki Seishirou		Kirishiki Chizuru
		Kirishiki Sunako
	Family Physician	Staff
	Ebuchi	Tatsumi	Kurahashi Yoshie

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Funeral Home

Hayami

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小池 Koike
		Koike Masaharu
?		Koike Yasuo
Koike Touko		Koike Ikuo

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国広 Kunihiro
		Kunihiro Yasue
	Kunihiro Ritsuko		Kunihiro Midori

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楠 Kusunoki
			Kusunoki Masaya		Kusunoki
	?		Son		Kusunoki Shouji

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前原 Maebara Setsu

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Rika's Parent(s)	前田 Maeda
Unknown			Maeda Iwao		Maeda Tomiko
Maeda Rika		Maeda Tokio		Maeda Isami		Maeda Motoko
	Child(ren)			Maeda Shigeki		Maeda Shiori

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松村 Matsumura
Matsumura Yasuzou
Matsumura Yasuyo

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松尾 Matsuo
	Matsuo Yasushi
	Matsuo Takashi
Matsuo Shizuka		Matsuo Jun

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松尾 Matsuo
Matsuo Seiji		Matsuo Yukako

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本橋 Motohashi Tsuruko

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村迫 Murasako
		Murasako Munehide		Murasako Ryouko
Murasako Chizuko		Murasako Munetaka	Murasako Hideki	Murasako Masao
Murasako Hiromi		Murasako Chika

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村迫 (後藤田) Murasako (Gotouda)
	Murasako Mieko		Murasako Hidemasa			Gotouda Fuki (nee Murasako)
		(Daughter)			(Son)	Gotouda Shuuji

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三上 Mikami

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三村 Mimura Yasumi

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Pharmacy

森 Mori

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	室井 Muroi
	Muroi Shinmei		Muroi Miwako (nee Yamamura)
		Muroi Seishin
Temple
Head Monk	Acting Head Monk	Apprentice of Head Monk		Part-time Visiting Monk
Muroi Shinmei	Muroi Seishin	Tsurumi	Ikebe	Sumi
Parish Representative Committee		Female Volunteer	Odd	Volunteer
President		Coordinator	Jobs	Step Sweeping
Tamo Sadaichi	Yasumori Tokujirou	Yasumori Setsuko	Tadokoro Katsue	Chiyo
			Tadokoro Mitsuo
Mourning Crew Regional Managers
Monzen		Kami-Sotoba	Sotoba	Shimo-Sotoba
Yamairi		Naka-Sotoba
Yasumori Tokujirou	Takemura Gouhei	Koike Masaharu	Murasako Munehide

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Mizobe Temple Family
	Head Monk
Asst. Head Monk		Sumi

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田丸 Muta Sumie

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武藤 Mutou
Mutou		Mutou Shizuko
Mutou Tohru	Mutou Aoi	Mutou Tamotsu

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中埜 Nakano

Nakano

Nakano Wataru

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徳 Nori Yoshino

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永田 Nagata

Nagata Kiyomi

(Daughter)

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西田 Nishida

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大川 Ohkawa
Ohkawa Gigorou		Ohkawa Namie (nee ?)
		Ohkawa Tomio		Ohkawa Kazuko		Ohkawa Choutarou		Ohkawa Norie
		Ohkawa Atsushi	Ohkawa Yutaka	Ohkawa Mizue			Ohkawa Shigeru

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太田 Ohta
Ohta Gouzou
Ohta Kenji

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太田 Ohta Michiyo

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大塚 Ohtsuka
Ohtsuka Kichigorou
Ohtsuka Takayuki		Ohtsuka Hiroko
	Ohtsuka Yasuyuki

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尾崎 Ozaki
	Ozaki ?		Ozaki Takae
		Ozaki Toshio		Ozaki Kyouko
Ozaki Hospital
Medical Director	Office Staff		X-Ray Technician
Ozaki Toshio	Mutou	Towada	Shimoyama
Nurses
Hashiguchi Yasuyo	Isaki Satoko	Kunihiro Ritsuko	Nagata Kiyomi	Shomi Yuki
Part-timers
Sekiguchi Miki	Takano Fujou

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佐伯 Saeki Akira

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佐川 Sagawa

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清水 Shimizu
Shimizu Masaji
Shimizu Ryuuji		Shimizu Yumi
	Shimizu Yuu

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清水 Shimizu
Shimizu Tokurou
Shimizu Takeo		Shimizu Hirokoi
	Shimizu Megumi

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篠田 Shimoda

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下山 Shimoyama
Shimoyama		?

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鈴木 Suzuki

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高見 Takami
Takami		Takami Hideko
?		?

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高嶋 Takashima

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武田 Takeda

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竹村 Takemura
Takemura ?		Takemura Tatsu		Takemura ? (Mother)
				Takemura Genichi
Takemura Stationary
	Owner			Regular Loiterers
	Takemura Tatsu			Hirosawa Takeko	Ohtsuka Yaeko	Satou Oitarou
				Itou Ikumi	Ohkawa Namie

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滝 Taki Juuzou

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田茂 Tamo
	Tamo Kiyo		Tamo Sadaichi		Tamo Sadaji		Tamo Satomi
Tamo ?		Tamo Sadafumi				Tamo Yuuko		?
	Tamo Hiroya
JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives)
Board of Directors	Staff
Tamo Sadaichi	Maeda Isami	Nara	Shimizu Takeo
Shrine		Ward Headmans Association
Head Priest	Shrine Parish Representative	President
Tamo Sadaichi

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田茂 Tamo
Tamo Yukiko	(Mother)		(Father)
Tamo ? (Son)		Tamo ?
	Tamo ? (Son)

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田村 Tamura Hirotake

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田中 Tanaka
Tanaka Yoshikazu		Tanaka Sachiko
Tanaka Kaori		Tanaka Akira

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田代 Tashiro
Tashiro Masaki		Tashiro Rumi
	Tashiro Takashi

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Tsuhara

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鶴見 Tsurumi
Tsurumi		?

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山崎 Yamazaki
Yamazaki		Yamazaki Waka
?		?

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矢野 Yano
Yano Tae
Yano Kanami		?
	?

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安森 Yasumori
Head Family (Maruyasu Sawmill)					Branch Family (Yasumori Contractors)
			Yasumori Giichi		Yasumori Setsuko		Yasumori Tokujirou		(First wife)
	Yasumori Atsuko		Yasumori Kazunari		(Son of Setsuko)			Yasumori Mikiyasu		Yasumori Nao
Yasumori Junko		Yasumori Kazuya							Yasumori Susumu

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安森 Yasumori (SanYasu/Yasu Three)
Yasumori Seiichirou		Yasumori Maiko
	Yasumori Kouji		Yasumori Hinako

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安森 Yasumori (UeYasu/Upper Yasu)
?		Yasumori Misuzu

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結城（小出） Yuuki (Koide)
Yuuki		Koide Azusa
	Koide (Yuuki) Natsuno

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Public Facilities
Community Center		Post Office		Police Substation
Library	Kindergarten	Post Master	Post Master Representative	Resident Officer
Yuzuki	Sumie	Osawa	Nagata	Takami	Sakaki
Town Hall				Fire Brigade
Assistant Director	Health Official	Village Census Forms	Fill-in Work	Chief	Member
Ogawa	Ishida	Tanaka Yoshikazu	Hirosawa Takafumi	Yasumori Tokujirou	Ohkawa Tomio

Comments

[airlynx]

Like my bara loving English teacher would say, "You have technology at your disposal! Use it and don't waste my time!" (she said this today) But yeah, even in English books, going back to look for something can be next to impossible. Doing it in Japanese would be even harder, even if you know it as well as you do. Aren't you glad I commented? :D Another thing a digital version would help with is if you ever don't know a Japanese character, you can copy and paste it to look it up (do you ever come across characters that you don't know how they're read?)

Categorizing every event is a heavy task! However that could help with major events, like the festival at the end when Ozaki exposes the Shiki, where the heck was that? Also, I could use getting to know where the Ohkawa store is, and Takemura stationery.

Oh yes I remember 'yasui' means 'cheap'! Seee, my Japanese isn't totally hopeless after all! Then what does 'Mori' translate to? As is, wouldn't it be 'The cheap Mori'? Which is still bad. Nobody would pay a lot of money for poor Mikiyasu.

[sinnesspiel]

Fortunately Japanese names tend to jump out at me as most of the names are kanji I only know/associate with names. For example, I don't think 'zaki' in Ozaki is used even once in the book outside of the name (O meaning ridge might be, but only because the book talks about mountains a lot--in most contexts, never, and so far a different word has been used for ridge). That makes eye-combing a little easier since unfamiliar kanji or name specific kanji jump out from what's otherwise a lot of scribbles until I focus on it. I know English too well so it's harder to filter out anything as white noise. It's like if you put "don't read the sentence below this" even if you try, you'll end up reading it just by it entering your eyes. I could follow the instructions not to read the sentence below, in Japanese, even though I could probably read the hypothetical sentence below without a dictionary if it were simple. But it still doesn't compete with using technology for the exact combo, no misses--especially since some names DO use super simple kanji. Like Yasumori. Mori meaning forest. Cheap forest. Or relaxing/easy forest. Ohkawa is also made of two very, very common Kanji, but the name Ohkawa has significance to me (Ozaki's seiyuu is 'Ohkawa Tohru', my favorite seiyuu) so fortunately it jumps out at me, too.

As for how many kanji I have to look up, I'm probably looking up at least 10 per sub-chapter. I might have just shattered your idea of how fluent I am with that. If one sub-chapter's easy, it'll make up for it by making me look up 50 in another chapter. But I look it up by stroke layout, which makes me more likely to actually learn it than copy-pasting into a dictionary or hover-texting would. I may know what some mean, but not the pronunciation, too. A lot of words I know because I know the two kanji, but I'm not sure on which pronunciation is being used for each kanji on the word in question.

For example, when Ozaki talks about a compromised host (in the chapter I'm going to post in about an hour - 2.1.4), the kanji is "prediction/easy/prone/ready" + "contagion." I know by the kanji meanings that he's talking about someone prone to being infected and thus a host of the infection/disease/whatever. I don't know for certain whether the first kanji is pronounced 'eki' or 'i'. Or didn't. I mean I looked it up now because I felt silly for not bothering to when I was translating it and should be less lazy and more into learning. (It's i by the way; my guess was eki as the more common reading, which goes to show I need to look things up more often than I think I do.)


Ozaki exposed the Shiki at the festival at the shrine (marked on the map), which we know is in Kami-Sotoba, just across the bridge from the Katou electronics shop where Yuusuke lives. She's staked on the Kagura Hall, the open platform common to Shinto shrines and mentioned in passing waaaaay back in Yuusuke's first chapter.

Notice in the anime he's leading her across a bridge (Ichi no hashi in the map) towards there when he runs into Masao's dad who helps escort her; there's quite a bit of love put into the anime setting design and Sotoba's layout.

[airlynx]

I see what you mean with words jumping out at you, even in English writing I can usually pick out long, complicated, unfamiliar words. I sort of did the same when I was studying for the SAT, which is so vocab based; other than just studying lists, I also grabbed the oldest, most complicated book I had at home along with a dictionary and then searched for words that were unfamiliar to me and expanded my vocab that way. Maybe not the go-to method for most students, but I learned 'anathema' and then later I came across it on the test, so who's the real winner here?
But I imagine that in Japanese writing, it's even easier to pick up unfamiliar words because the simpler kanji and hiragana would fade into 'background noise', whereas in English, the alphabet is more uniform and unfamiliar words can be short too.
Going back to what you said about 'not reading the sentence below', that's so true and I even tried it a few times. It's cool how when you see an English sentence, you don't even necessarily *read* it, you just see it as a snapshot and the meaning enters your head right away. I couldn't imagine coming even close to doing that in Japanese, so just being able to translate a sentence even with a dictionary is wow-worthy. I wonder how long it would take to be able to do the snapshot reading with a new language you didn't grow up speaking. Even with Russian, I can't always do that.

Looking up words via dictionary is better than copy and pasting in my opinion because somehow actually searching for the word helps it stick in my mind, but if I just copy and paste, it's like, oh okay, then ten seconds later I forget all about it because it didn't take effort.

So here's another question: when you write or speak Japanese, do you run what you're going to say through English first and then translate it, or do you construct the phrase in Japanese from the beginning? Also when you read, do you translate everything into English in your mind and get the meaning that way, or does it just come to you like with reading English?
Because in my Spanish textbook, it says that you should try to construct your sentences in Spanish from the get-go, and I could never get used to that although it's my third year now. Maybe someday!

Then also if you're not sure about the pronunciation of some kanji, then when you read Japanese do you not kind of get that voice inside your head that says the words as you read them? For example with English if I read 'I like men with stubble' I'm kind of reading that out loud except in my head because I know what it sounds like. But if you don't know how to pronounce a word...


Ohh thanks, the description corrected my Sotoba orientation. Ever since seeing the map, I thought that the river was really huge, but the bridge in the anime didn't seem that big. Or maybe it was...sigh, maybe I should watch episodes that correspond to the chapters as I go.

[sinnesspiel]

I snapshot read some Japanese but it's by no means constant. Unfortunately I do almost always "snapshot" hear Japanese. I say unfortunately because misheard foreign lyrics are one of the greatest joys of life, giving us such phrases as: "You Taco Nazi, look around and count on Lassie!" and "I'm a nookie bar!" On Japanese songs, I'm largely useless at coming up with "English" lyrics out of them. I also don't get quite the same kick out of parody subs that I used to... in fact, if you watch a show with subtitles or closed captions that you don't need, you're liable to get so displeased over poor translations that you won't even be able to enjoy the viewing at all until you manage to ignore them, which takes us back to that snapshot reading problem. Or maybe that's just me, since I'm fussy as hell about translations.

When communicating in Japanese I usually think it in Japanese unless it's unfamiliar grammar. If I don't know a word, I still probably think it out grammatically in Japanese with the English word I want slapped in. "Stenographer ni naru no ha nanka taihen sou da na." ("Becoming a stenographer kinda sounds like a lotta work.")

Sometimes I just think in Japanese because most of my exposure to the given topic is in Japanese. When I roleplay, a good amount of the time the character dialogue I'm going to inevitably write in English (I don't RP in Japanese) is in my head in Japanese first since the character voice for them in my head, which I'm trying to replicate, is Japanese. If I start thinking of their dialogue in English first (short of it being a more complicated scene/line) it's probably a sign I need to go back and watch or read something again to make sure I'm sticking to the source. Unfortunately this can lead to a lot of lines that sound more translated than natural; I'll smooth them out more than I would if I were actually translating something writ by somebody else, but I have gotten some flack over keeping some Japanese-isms in place.

[airlynx]

One hasn't experienced humor until they've experienced gratuitous English. Songs are a great example, also clothing with English words on them. It's like the opposite of white people getting Chinese characters tattooed, they wear it because the clothes look cool and not for the translation. Me, I'd probably at least make an effort to make sure that cool new shirt I got with Italian printed all over it isn't 100% swear words. One time I saw this old Russian granny wearing a white flowery shirt that said 'BAD BITCH' on it in cursive. I almost felt personally responsible for not going up and telling her discreetly. But then again, old people can get snippy.

Ohh, so you actually have to reverse-translate sometimes? Well, good on you; according to everyone ever, the way to truly master a language is to think in it as much as possible.
Translations must also be really hard sometimes because every language's *style* is different, if that makes sense? Like, sometimes I see something written in English and I can just tell it was directly translated from Japanese because the style is different and the wording is a little...off, not something we usually use in English. So translating is hard work, also because you have to make the translation fit the target language too without losing the direct meaning in the process.

[sinnesspiel]

Somehow if I think that the old Russian granny knew exactly what she's wearing and does it intentionally, it's better. Let's pretend it's that. She's just that badass.

I kind of like that "off" feeling sometimes if they better capture the feel/meaning/style of its source. Of course sometimes it's just sloppy translation, but other times it's just an expression that doesn't work naturally in the target language. For example, take the lyric "Yasashii kimi no koe." I'm going to bet for the sake of fluency, most people will translate that as "Your gentle voice." However, the placement of yasashii (gentle) before kimi (you) means it's moditfying 'you' not 'voice' (koe). So the more accurate translation would be "The gentle you's voice.' That's ripe with that "off English scent." But I think the difference is important enough to be worth it. Many disagree the difference is significant, and thus why I suspect *most* people prefer fluency over accuracy. But in fact we don't have a way to express that different sentiment "naturally" in English, so why don't we just hijack it and make it our own after all? Translated works have the potential to influence the culture they're being translated for as much as any work in that culture's native language(s), given any living language is going to be changing. We adapt foreign-isms all the time. Is it that bad to sometimes realize something you're reading/watching is foreign? Particularly if you're a fan of and specifically seeking out anime/manga which, in English, is a term specifically referring to foreign mediums (or, to those who consider western works that adopt common features of them to also count as anime/manga, a distinctly foreign-influenced style, if nothing else).

[airlynx]

Maybe our seamstress Toshio made it for her! Clothes are meant to reflect who you are inside. And there is no age limit on being a 'BAD BITCH'.

Ohh, I get it like with the sentence you used as an example, it's saying that it's the voice of a gentle person (you). Whereas if it's translated the fluent way, it's just a gentle voice, and doesn't reveal as much about the person to whom the voice belongs to. So it makes a pretty big difference right there. I'm kind of in between with accuracy vs fluency though; I would mostly always prefer accuracy because they're accurate (surprise, surprise) and those "off" translations are charming in their own way, plus there's just some phrases that don't translate well. However, if it's a long passage or something like that, I would prefer it to be smoothed down a little bit just for the ease of reading. It's nicer to read it long passages if they flow better, and a choppy, "off" structure would be uncomfortable after a while. I think all languages if directly translated would sound "off" to some degree, but it depends on how close it is to the target language. Japanese is really far from English so it sounds different, but if it were, let's say, German that was being translated, it would probably sound more natural while being just as accurate.

[chaoticenby]

I was just reading this conversation because I find this topic interesting, thinking about my own experiences as a native german speaker who speaks (or rather reads and writes and thinks, I'm kind of ashamed of my pronunciation) english very fluently and how I sometimes forget the german words for something but know the english ones, and how I sometimes think in a mix of german and english, and then I realized that this conversation took place when I was just 13 and I had only just started getting better in english beyond what was expected of me in class by spending all my free time on the internet at that point lol
this feels kind of weird, a bit like finding a time capsule.