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oooh! Threat detection! *steals*

Shi, you mean. Japanese doesn't have a "she". I think Amy meant "shi" but was typing phonetically.

They don't have a "si".

I went on
http://review.kakaku.com/review/J0000010505/

to see if I could catch them typing "JVC" because that's the "si" sound you're looking for. Unfortunately, whenever they couldn't render the sound into Japanese, they simply wrote the English letters

Example:
ヘッドホンアンプ・DAC

I trolled that entire page but not once do they write JVC in Japanese.  I've heard a native Japanese speaker say JVC, therefore the sound exists to them, but they appear to have no way to write it. Having no way to write it, basically means it won't appear in a family name.

Horrible news, I know.

I suppose you could just make up that the name exists. I bet few readers could catch it.

-K

As for the name... you're a little bit stuck because you have sounds a Japanese speaker would stumble over.

I can't even suggest "cha-ru-zu" (Charles) because
a) Spoken by a germanic or latin influence, it sound nothing like the original
b) it's an impossible family name in Japanese and it makes me want to grab a broom

I bent my head around this one for the last half an hour. Here's what the issue is...
a) Japanese doesn't have a "si" (they can approximate with a "ti" but it's just not the same.
b) there is no "br". The approximation is "bura"
c) ending in an "s" is possible via "su" which sounds 99% the same... however germanic and latin based languages will make this rhyme with "hue".

One short name has 3 impossible letter combinations. Herein lies the fundamental problem. All possible approaches involve phonetic gymnastics.

I can see no other solution than to punt the name onto a different character. For example, you could assign him to Lady Kay's role. "Kei Kobayashi" works much better than any variant of Seabrass.

correct. Nippon uses "small-tsu" so it doesn't really have two p's any more than "Taipei" has an 'e' and an 'i' in Mandarin.

That is... Nippon is "Ni-tsu-pon" in Japanese

Preface: Don't ever accuse me of going easy on you.

Okay... all the proper nouns in chapter 1:

Tommy Travers
Amelia
Ben
Mephitis
Kaleb
Breached
the Warehouse
the Master
the Gifted
the World of Books
A Remembrance
Karina
Porter
Atria
the Tow
Original Intent
Virgo
Yashur
Genria <--- "cap"
Jostlin
Esthra

This averages a scant 200 words per noun... an average of 2.03 paragraphs per name.

I listed Genria as my name-cap. Once I hit this point in a story, I must reverse and jot them down (which I did) or else they become a carousel of name-index-cards.

Q1: Do you absolutely need all these characters right here right now? I mean Ben isn't even in the story yet. Why is he named? Are both Karin & Porter essential to attracting me to give you $10? That's the big question your chapter 1 must answer. If you stand back and eye it critically, you could get by with just one for now, and bring the other in when you have a chance.

Q2: I would suggest not starting with a sci-fi story (I know! I was the one asking for one in the previous two books). The problem is it's too late to the party and opens all sorts of questions (such as why doesn't Tommy bring a laser out of the book with him. If you lose an eye in one story, can you hop into this story and have it regrown? Why don't the villains use a sci-fi book to invent a weapon that can't be stopped with our technology?). Furthermore, you're eventually going to have to reassign Porter, Karin, Amelia, & M/C into new roles once they leave the book. Due to the size of the cast, that's going to be a jolt.

Wait a second. Star Trek tng started their episode 1 in a holodeck and forced us to reassign roles too. True... but they did it with 2 characters.

Q3: Special Note: I like the sci-fi scene and its presentation. Just knowing what I know about the series, I realize I'm in for a culture shock.

Q4: Can you make it more about Tommy than about what everyone thinks about Tommy. This is a little difficult to explain, but I will refer you to book 1 with his mother + brother dynamic. That was "living" Tommy or "pure" Tommy. What you have here is Tommy playing a role. A character playing a character. He's not being his true self. He's not being honest with himself or the reader.

Shi"bra"ssu is not possible in Japanese because it contains two consonants welded together B & r

Don't underestimate the corrective abilities of a laser pointer.
Anyway, Luke's adoptive parents managed to die somehow, so I imagine even ep4-6 had Stormtrooper who could hit the broad side of a barn

Actually I found not seeing it the most troublesome. Also, I suspect Star Wars didn't show it because of technical limitations. I would hand Lucas the same criticism:
Show me who I'm supposed to care about.

Hmm *thinks about Dune.*
Giant worms with teeth sharp enough to re-purpose into a razor without being honed.
Giant worms eating people (Oh my!)
Gom jabbar (poisons injected into children to test them for psychic ability and a box that makes you think your hand's burnt off)
Shigawire (Handcuffs that snip limbs off)
I think I've covered chapters 1-10. Don't even get me started about the latter books

I suggest minimizing these. To understand, go rewatch Red Wedding, and picture all the places violence could have been implied rather than shown.
Try to grasp the visceral reaction you have to the episode. Note the pacing of the deaths, how they form a swing or a tide.

This sanitizing and bleaching... I don't think I'm getting what you're trying to convey.

I suppose I equally have trouble understanding why they would (bother to) edit the guns out of ET

Marsha-1 dies at the hand of her own invention. I suppose I could have sanitized it by having them simply find her dead the next morning.
Is anything gained by showing it?
Yes, absolutely - in that case, it was the villain's chance to show it means business.

The toppling elevator in RocketBaby might get sanitized... but only because I want the camera pointed more at my mains. In this case the reduction would serve a purpose.
I wouldn't remove Einhart's gun-happy musical band: No self-respecting villain shows up to a fight outnumbered by protags

I guess my question is... are you trying to get into PG to widen the potential market?

^--- good memory

*Expanded into a Haiku

Online E-Commerce
Black Friday Cyber Monday
Kill me now, Thx BAI

They're suggesting a "Let the story flow" approach where the stor never stops for (seemingly unrelated) other stories. It's a newer approach... a now-approach... an immediate approach. The classic approach is one where the writer may freely dabble in outside factors. Frankenstein, Princess Bride, Fraggle Rock... they all use classic techniques of overlay stories.

What I'm saying by calling the technique classic is pick the technique that works for your story and try to be consistent. Evidently, that requires a giant epigraph. If that means a 15-minute deadzone where the story halts and the narrator winks at the reader... if that means a dancing Bombadill that everyone complains about... you might have to just let that be and let the market catch up with you later.

Why not go ahead and number the chapters backwards?