Lobuttomize said:
I can't be sure if they are confident in how they interpreted part of the Japanese. Without knowing any Japanese myself, I (or any others who would proofread) can only assume that the interpretation of the Japanese is completely correct. post #4542028 for example: Chen's bubble is translated to "Far and up" which could either be completely correct, correct in meaning but sounds odd in English, or completely wrong, and I have no way of knowing which.
blindVigil said:
That honestly looks to me like that's supposed to be the "flying away" slang for sexual climax, or at least related to it.
The preceding page uses iku (conjugated into the 'polite' form ikimasu), "to go", but also used there in the euphemistic sense for "to achieve sexual climax" (usually translated into English as the equivalent "to come"). This euphemism is also the source of most of the lewd jokes involving characters named Iku, including Nagae Iku from Touhou and I-19 from Kancolle.
On post #4542028, Chen extends the metaphor further by attaching "harukanaru takami e", "towards distant heights". Harukanaru itself is a semi-archaic way of saying "far", and the overall construction "harukanaru takami e" has a certain poetic, profound quality about it, so it's also used often in meaningful-sounding 'quotes'.
Now, this phrase does make sense given the context, but at the same time it also sound... jarring, because one doesn't usually attach this kind of profound phrase to a ribald situation like what is happening in post #4542028. Imagine, for a moment, someone screaming "to the stars!"/"ad astra!", "toward ever-distant heights!", or a more modern popculture equivalent "to infinity and beyond!"... all while having sex. Again, it... makes sense given the context, but it sounds awkward and jarring and may kill the mood.
So, this is why Ran responded with "Nanka chotto chigakunai?", "Aren't you a little bit off there?". So, yes, the jarring effect is intentional, and also pointed out by one of the characters within the comic.
However there is a complication with the equivalent English euphemism "to come" as it doesn't blend as well with the extended metaphor Chen is using (said metaphor also happens to form the bulk of the title of this comic short), since "come" indicates a direction of motion opposite that of "go". So "come towards" sounds more like a command (issued in the second person) instead of describing what the speaker is undergoing, and trying to preserve the original metaphor might make it sound even more jarring in English to the point that the readers will likely go "Hunh?" instead of the original "Ha, right, funny, but you're kinda misusing the word there".
The translator likely tried to avoid this somewhat by dropping the preposition, but as you noted, "come... far and up!" might still sound odd and confusing to English readers. We may be able 'improve' this by either using another euphemism instead of "come", or to use another different metaphor (preferably another profound quote/popculture phrase) that fits well with the 'inward' direction indicated by "come". Right now I'm drawing a blank though.
