i. Introduction

Osananajimi is a noun which is usually translated as ‘childhood friend’, although there is more cultural nuance attached than just merely a friend from one’s childhood. Osananajimi are those who have known each other well since they were very young, and share such a breadth and depth of common and foundational experiences that their intimate connection transcends other friendships. In Japanese popular media, childhood friends or osananajimi are a common trope in romantic or erotic tales.

Why choose this as a theme for the next volume of Confessions? Being a tragic idealistic romantic myself (which will be evident to anyone who has read my original works), there is some appeal to the thought of a couple realising their feelings are deeper than mere friendship. There is also no shortage of material from which to draw, although I looked at close to a hundred confession posts on different forums and aggregators before choosing the five that make up this volume.

All of these stories are true.

Allegedly.

Japanese message boards are different to those you might be experienced with. Posting is almost always anonymous, with the OP (original poster) being identified only by the serial number of their post. If you’ve ever spent any time on a ‘chan’ type website, you’ll understand the dynamic; all of those imageboards run servers based off the software that ran the original Japanese 2-Channel (known generally as ‘2-Chan’).

The anonymity means that people feel free to be their worst selves. Or to confess their darkest secrets. I was trawling around on some Japanese message boards looking for information about some Japanese adult video actresses when I found the ’aiken or ‘experience’ section of a particular message board. This led me to produce the first volume of Japanese Internet Sex Confessions. The positive reception to that prompted me to do a follow-up, although this time with a more focussed theme; childhood friends.

I have professionally engaged with Japanese language and culture for almost twenty years as a translator, interpreter, teacher, and cultural liaison. The authors of these original forum posts were literally sharing their experiences (or fantasies) and probably one-handed typing. They are not professional (or even amateur) writers by any means. They certainly weren’t going back to edit their stories for clarity or consistency.

For those interested, on average, the final edited English translation is about 30% longer than the original Japanese literal translation. My process for this volume has been to do a complete basic translation pass of the Japanese into English, then go back and heavily edit the initial English translation so that more characterisation comes through, incorporating implied or inferred information that would be known to a Japanese audience in order to make the final version work for English speakers.

Consider this literally translated source from one of the tales in this volume:

And the translated result:

In translating and editing these stories, I have taken the source material as the basis for producing short stories, preserving the sense of the original story but elaborating where necessary to fill in the gaps for the non-Japanese reader to avoid constant reference to footnotes or translation notes. I’ve tried to maintain the ‘Japanese-ness’ of the source text wherever possible, but balanced this with the need to ensure it works in English. The aim was to create an English translation that immerses the reader and brings them along with the protagonist in a sensual tale.

I hope I have succeeded.

Please enjoy.

Kim Little
Osaka, July 2023