Hey there ev'r'n'. So here's what I'm gon' do now. I'm gonna translate Over Heaven. There's a couple reasons for this. For one, some of the ideas within it are mentioned in Jorge Joestar. So you could consider it to come earlier in the series. Though really, it's not like you need to read it in order to understand what's going on in that. The second thing is this book's really easy to translate. It's 309 pages long and made up of 80 really short chapters which usually comprise of 2-5 pages. And the language is much more straightforward and easy to understand compared to The Book because it's written in the form of diary entries. On top of that, the text is in a much bigger font and the margins are much bigger. Similar to what I'm doing with The Book, I'm just gonna work on this when I have time or I feel like it. But I've already read this book and it's not too complicated and there are scans of it online so I didn't have to scan it myself, so I can do a lot more with much less effort.

I talked about some of the other books in my post for translating The Book, which I'm still working on as of now. You can read that here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5260

Now, with regards to the book itself. For those that don't know, it's written by NisiOisin, the terrible writer that brought us the monstrosity that is Medaka Box. This book came out in December of 2011. The book is made up of short diary entries all written from the perspective of Dio. It's written (in the story) during the course of the events of Part 3. Dio slowly recants his personal history including the events of part 1, and what was going through his mind during it. And he also comments on the events of part 3 chronologically as they occur. So he discusses the various characters and takes a sort of philosophical tone analyzing it all. He picks apart people's motives and potential and his own perspective on them, like how they relate to him. The book's theme is "going to heaven" which is touched upon a bit in Part 6 as a will Pucci succeeded from Dio, and eventually fulfilled (according to him) when he got Made in Heaven. Dio constantly goes back to this idea of "going to heaven" and understanding what it means. That's his primary goal he's trying to achieve during Part 3.

So, largely this book is just a chronicling of the events of Parts 1 and 3. It mentions a few things from part 6 regarding Pucci and maybe one or two events we hear about in parts 2 and 5 that relate to Dio. As a result, the book doesn't have much originality to it. The vast majority comes off as stuff anyone could have figured out just from reading the manga, I feel. There's very little it goes through that we haven't already seen. However Nisio Ishin does do a good job of writing Dio's character through all of it, and definitely seemed dedicated to making sure everything relating to Dio was covered. There are a few places where unique perspectives Dio has are mentioned, like what he thinks of various Stands, or things he wishes he could do but wasn't able to. The problem is very little of the book is about that. There are no detailed explanations of the goings-on on Dio's side during Part 3 or anything like that. Not beyond what's involved with Dio directly. Anyhow, I think it's still worth reading if you're a fan of Jojo (So that's anyone reading this). I'd certainly be interested to hear anyone's opinions on it. Though at least we can all agree it's better than Medaka Box. He could've written 無駄無駄無駄 for 300 pages and it'd be better than fucking Medaka Box. Way better.

http://qpax.me/hiwamatanoboru/Over%20Heaven/
I'll be updating the .txt file in that file as I go.
http://qpax.me/hiwamatanoboru/Over%20He ... Heaven.txt
I also stuck all the illustrations pages in a folder. Though you can probably find a download of the whole book somewhere, too. Once I finish I'll make a PDF of it with all of the illustrations in-line.

Since this is my first post, I guess I'll mention what I thought about the first part I translated. The forward is actually pretty interesting, and it's written in a much more formal and flowery way than is the rest of the book. That's because it's written by the guy who decoded Dio's notebook. Kinda interesting, as it's one of the parts of the book that's original. But it's only a few pages long and it's never touched on again. It basically just works as an introduction to this book, that it's the secret book written by Dio, the evil scary guy, and it's where he wrote down his thoughts.

Much more interesting, I think, is chapter 1. Which is the longest chapter I think. That chapter's really got the bulk of the original content of this book in it. It talks about Dio's childhood before the events of Part 1. And it sets in the idea of "going to heaven" which is the theme of this book. If you want some kind of explanation of why Dio is the way he is and thinks the way he does in JJBA, it's in this section. It describes the shitty environment he was in as a child and his mental process during it. Though Dio also contemplates a bit later on if, as Speedwagon said, he's just naturally evil. Really, this chapter's probably the best chapter in the book because it's actually very insightful. Much more so than most of the book. He comes back to some of the ideas in this chapter a lot. So I wanted to make sure for the first post here I had that much done. Let me know what you think every/anyone.


For my own personal use, or if anyone cares, I'm going to write out a table of contents here so you can keep track of where I'm up to more easily. The last page of the book with text in it is 309.

Contents:
Forward....004
1...............008
2...............019
3...............026
4...............031
5...............037
6...............039
7...............044
8...............048
9...............052
10.............056
11.............060
12.............064
13.............067
14.............070
15.............073
16.............078
17.............082
18.............084
19.............086
20.............089
21.............092
22.............095
23.............101
24.............107
25.............110
26.............114
27.............116
28.............119
29.............121
30.............124
31.............128
32.............130
33.............136
34.............140
35.............144
36.............148
37.............153
38.............156
39.............160
40.............164
41.............166
42.............169
43.............172
44.............173
45.............176
46.............181
47.............184
48.............185
49.............190
50.............193
51.............196
52.............204
53.............207
54.............212
55.............216
56.............219
57.............222
58.............225
59.............227
60.............232
61.............235
62.............238
63.............243
64.............244
65.............247
66.............252
67.............255
68.............258
69.............260
70.............263
71.............267
72.............269
73.............272
74.............278
75.............280
76.............287
77.............291
78.............294
79.............299
80.............306
Afterward..308

Updates:
(2/16/13) Started. I did the forward and chapter 1.
(2/19/13) Did chapter 2.
(2/21/13) Did chapter 3.
(2/24/13) Did chapter 4.
(2/26/13) Did chapters 5 and 6.
(3/20/13) Did chapter 7.
(4/5/13) Did chapter 8.
(4/27/13) Did chapter 9.

Awesome. It's great that the short chapter lengths are enabling this.

Nice! Good luck with the rest of the translation!
And don't say nothing bad of my Medaka Box! >.<

Looking forward to this

Awesome kewl! I really appreciate your dedication.

I don't like any of Nisio Isin works, but if Over Heaven is good, I can make an exception.
.
And being shorter than The Book, I'll probably read from the very start of the translation I'm still waiting some more time until I start The Book.

First off, big thanks to Kewl210 for the translation job. Really appreciate the work you've pun in for this. Now for the nitty gritty -- not exactly liking NisiOisin's retcon of how Dio looked at his father. He couldn't even stand that they were related, let alone think that his dad was ever 'cool'. Hopefully, later monologues will clear this up.

Can't wait for the 2nd part. Thanks again, Kewl210!

He decides he hates his father by later. He means when he was VERY young he liked his father more than his mother. I forgot, he does discuss more of his home life in chapter 2.

Appreciate the work you're putting into this Kewl. I'm loving this book so far as it touches upon certain characters that we essentially had no information on. I was actually interested in learning more about Dio's Mother; she had like, what, 3 panels in the manga? For someone to have given birth to the ultimate villain, you'd think we'd know something about her. I haven't read Medaka Box, so I'm not familiar with the author, but I'm going to hope the rest turns out just as good.

I'm expecting for Nisio Isin to explain more about Dio's parents, because Dio showed he truly respected his mother and he hated his father in the very first chapter of PB. Seeing Dio talking "good" things about his father was strange at first, but he might change this idea in the next chapters.