キノの旅 Week 9 Discussion

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Chapter 4 (4/4)

Start Date: May 4
Previous Chapter: Week 8
Next Chapter: Week 10

Week 9 Reading: Chapter 4 (4/4)
Until p.165 (end of the chapter)

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  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
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0 voters
1 Like

TALKING DOG

4 Likes

I really found this chapter hard going, I was very pleased to finish it! This last part of the chapter was probably the easiest especially once all the fighting was over! No more gun vocabulary!! (I guessed who Shizu might be while I was reading too, and also what Kino what Kino was aiming to achieve

I really loved the next chapter - finally we get to understand a bit more about Kino’s past

4 Likes

Oookay, now I understand why this chapter was removed from the kid version.

16 Likes

This is like a week-long tease. :smile:

3 Likes

This chapter keeps using 斜め in a way that I don’t understand. Here’s the latest one I found, which hopefully someone can explain.

End of page 144

6th line from the end:
弾丸はシズの刀身に当たり、跳ねて斜め後ろに飛び去った。

2nd line from the end:
その弾丸全てを刀身に斜めに当ててはじいた。

The second one I can kind of make sense of as an adverb. The first one I don’t really understand the usage at all.

1 Like

I don’t think there’s anything special about that 斜め, though? It’s just following a diagonal. So it does not go straight past him, but is instead deflected a bit to the side.

Ex:

2 Likes

I guess I just don’t use the word “diagonal” like that in English. :sweat_smile:

Now that I think about it, I wonder how often I use the word “diagonal” at all, outside of talking about geometry. I think in the non-geometry usages, I might only use it adverbially (e.g. “diagonally to the right”). :thinking:

1 Like

Well, there’s a に, so it would be translated as an adverb in both case anyway :thinking:
I guess I would also not use “diagonally” anyway in that situation either. That being said, I don’t really know what I would actually say. “To the side” maybe? But it doesn’t really carry the sense that the bullet is still moving in a straight line.
*overthinks*

4 Likes

Now I’m actually interested in seeing what happens.

1 Like

I still have a few pages left but I see what you mean…

That description didn’t help much either and was pretty detailed. I half expected something like that to happen from the beginning although not so suddenly or so graphically.

Did they mention a pane of glass or any other barrier earlier in the chapter and did it only protect the king’s section or everyone? They must have mentioned it but this whole time I was wondering how none of these bullets were hitting any of the spectators. I do recall a line from one of the guards about no one minding if the spectators got hurt though which I thought was foreshadowing something like this.

Edit: Oops. Didn’t realize spoilers don’t work across paragraphs. :man_facepalming: Hope no one ended up seeing that during the few seconds it wasn’t tagged properly. Also found the preview button on mobile. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

斜め is definitely one of those words that has a broader meaning in Japanese than how someone would translate it to English.

2 Likes

Can you think of other English words/phrases that might sometimes be used as translations? I’m not sure if this is even something explainable, as opposed to just having a feel for it.

It shot off at an angle (diagonally) behind him… is how I read it.

If anyone wants to see the fight scene from the new anime, you can see it here with subtitles in language I don’t know:

https://youtu.be/G0cKxoQljz4

7 Likes

I might watch the whole episode once I’m done the chapter.

4 Likes

Yes, they mentioned the glass at the beginning of the first fight. It’s only for the VIP booth.

About this week’s reading, I was also shocked by the rule Kino comes up with, since it will obviously create a bloodshed. What’s the point of not killing anyone so far? Or is Kino’s sense of ethics not affected by second-hand killing?

6 Likes

Agreed.

I obviously expected her to come up with something to completely change the country but that’s not what I had in mind at all. Doesn’t seem to fit with her character as I imagined it so far. I’m even a little surprised by her killing the king but that at least makes more sense given the circumstances. I’ll have to finish the chapter tonight/tomorrow to see if she explains any of the reasoning behind coming up with a rule like that as opposed to one that would somehow end the fighting peacefully.

7 Likes

My interpretation is that the crowd is clearly bloodthirsty, which makes sense since the way to become a citizen is my killing several people in the games. Pitting these people against one another seems like an efficient way to have them destroy themselves. End result is another kingdom of one, in keeping with other chapters.

8 Likes

I also wondered about the morality/ immorality/ amorality of Kino. So far Kino appears to visit and observe each country without openly passing judgment on their rules and customs and seems happy to leave the citizens to the consequences of the rules of the society in which they live.

5 Likes

I think I am now overthinking this, but if given that at least one of the sentences refers to a deflected bullet, maybe the meaning could be something like:

Askew, awry or akilter?

2 Likes