As I am currently translating a long segment from DoHna DoHna chapter 1 with nothing new to share with you all for a small while, I decided it would be suitable to release my English translation of the game’s main theme song, seeing as no one else appears to have yet made one. As the theme song is part of the first chapter, it is only natural that I was bound to provide a translation for it as well. Having said that, you can finally enjoy DoHna DoHna intro song with English subtitles to learn what the lyrics are about! [ドーナドーナの歌].
Do note that this is not the finished version of my translation of the song. Words and even entire sentences can be subject to change. There is much I wish to do in terms of editing when it comes to text appearing on the screen and font styles & size, but as an early build, my only focus right now is to work through the entire first chapter before getting fancy.
While it is quite obvious to many, for legal reasons, I need to stress the fact that this is not an official translation. In no way am I associated with Alicesoft. For those new here, I am simply on a quest to provide fanmade English translations of the game’s first chapter and then some — to allow people to understand more about the game and learn how to play it while waiting for a hopeful day of seeing DoHna DoHna being officially translated by Alicesoft.
To support my translation work of DoHna DoHna, consider becoming a patron.
Translating DoHna DoHna song
While I have translated Japanese ero visual novels before, never have I actually translated songs until now. It is a completely different kind of beast to deal with, and as such, my lack of experience can show but I hope you can still enjoy the translation of the song.
Translating DoHna DoHna’s theme song was what I can only describe as a breath of fresh air, for it provided me a fine chance to try something new with the potential to learn a thing or two of how to translate visual novels using a different perspective.
When translating visual novels, it is important to convey not only the message of a character but their personality as well. In songs, it is a bit more complicated, I noticed. Rather than trying to convey a personality, emotion plays a higher role in songs in which an audience is no longer seeking to follow a story but to feel something.
Songs often translated from different languages do not always sound as good as the original so thus the challenge is to find a way to make a song sound natural without breaking its core message of what the song is about. This may sound simple enough but finding the right words for sentences that speak in riddles can be anything but easy. The fact that Japanese happens to be spoken backward does not make things any easier either…
Overall, I did enjoy translating DoHna DoHna song and look forward to improving from here. Just as I began my journey to translate visual novels with Zenaku and Monsters Survive, so I have taken my first step in translating songs through DoHna DoHna. Not that many eroges have their own songs, but knowing how to translate them when needed is a skill I hope to improve upon in order to deliver high-quality translations all around.
Something that I completely forgot to mention in July’s Monthly news post, my family is visiting me all the way from Spain, so for a few days, I will be taking a brief pause from working on DoHna DoHna and adult video games news.
While I am working on the long segment of DoHna DoHna visual novel cutscene from chapter 1, you will still get at least one more small update within just a couple of weeks, something to look forward to.
As we draw closer to the end of this year, I will be more confident to announce when the translation of DoHna DoHna’s first chapter will be ready. With everything said and done, thank you all for your interest in my DoHna DoHna English translation project, and especially big thanks to all of you supporting me at Patreon!
