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Other things I had to look up: ツタヤ (a chain of video rental shops), イトーヨーカドー (a chain of department stores) and of course 娘道成寺.
The dialect in the dialogue gave me some pause at first, but I think I’m getting used to it and not missing too much. There are many resources on Kansai-ben out there, but here are some main points I found relevant (from here):
If a female, look for the use of uchi instead of atashi.
Replacement of desu or da with ya
Contraction of certain words, like chau instead of chigau.
The use of the -hen ending, instead of -nai or -arimasen, as in wakarahen versus wakaranai (lit. “don’t know”).
Using the word aho instead of baka (“idiot”; “silly”). The stereotype is that baka is a much more serious insult to a Kansai native
If I’m reading the digital version and I want to add words to the vocabulary sheet, what should I do about the page number? Can I just leave them blank? Most of my book clubs are for manga, where the digital versions still have page numbers.
I had to look up some of おばちゃん’s non-standard Japanese as well. Hope this helps anyone
で ➝ よ (so: やで ➝ だよ)
ねん ➝ んだ
のん ➝ の
せえへん ➝ しない
ほんじゃ ➝ それでは
かて ➝ more or less でも, ~ても
もた ➝ more or less しまう
There were more, but I couldn’t be bothered to deep dive every single one of them Like @omk3 said, I think I’m getting the general gist of it and not missing too much.
Though when Main Character switched to Kansaiben as well I was like:
Anyway, I wonder if I’m on the right track in terms of what is going on so far. It’s kind of absurd, so one can never be sure
おばちゃん committed suicide and her own son found her? She was once someone’s affair partner and he even got her an apartment and a snack bar (false friend alert!) and supported her, but after 30 years he dumped her? And now she has come back to haunt Main Character and chastise her for having her hair removed, enjoying pink interior design and not being over her ex?
I wonder what the significance of that kabuki drama is Wouldn’t make sense to mention it if there weren’t (or wouldn’t turn out to be) some significance…
Alrighty, finished this section! The Kansai-ben is really throwing me for a loop; this really takes me back to when I first started reading, and the long strings of kana just made absolutely no sense to me. Thank you @omk3 and @Phryne for your notes here; they helped a lot, and I’m going to see if I can make flashcards using them as a base.
I also really appreciated your summary of the おばさん’s situation for that reason as well, Phryne. I was under the mistaken impression that おばさん’s husband was cheating on her, not that she was the partner, so the clarification really helps.
For anyone who uses Bunpro, they have a basic Kansai-ben grammar/vocab deck that, checking it out, seems to cover the common stuff. Here’s a link, though I don’t know what you’ll see if you don’t have an account.
Oh my goodness! I remember them mentioning they might do something like that in future, but I never realised they’d actually finished it! How very exciting!
It’s not like I didn’t notice because I am scared of opening Bunpro in fear of how many reviews I might have waiting for me, no sir-ee!
Agreed. @omk3 and @Phryne, you are the MVPs! And thanks for summary, I missed a lot too. I was starting to latch onto what was going on towards the end. As an American, whenever I watch something British I know I’m just not going to understand anything for the first 20 minutes or so. It felt a lot like that.
Like 
Wouldn’t make sense to mention it if there weren’t (or wouldn’t turn out to be) some significance…