いきな = dialectic 行きなさい (as per the thread you linked)
I think you’ve almost got it
Summary
どれくらい is “how much”. “to what extent” is a pretty good translation here.
the second bold bit is just the first clause but reversed:
［ぬいぐるみ］は［どれくらい］［“友達”］-> to what extent plushies are friends
［友達］は［どれくらい］［“ぬいぐるみ”］なんだろう → to what extent friends are plushies
I think なんだろう is a contraction of なのだろうか which is something like
I wonder"
when you put it all together, you get something like
According to Majime, to what extent plushies were friends, to what extent friends were plushies, I wonder
or more naturally
I wonder to what extent Majime thought of her plushies, and what extent she thought of her friends as plushies
Thank you! Regarding that last sentence, literal meaning aside, what do you guys think Shimeji was bothered about? At first I thought she was jealous of Majime’s “friends”, but after understanding the whole sentence maybe she is worried about Majime seeing her as a plushy? And that’s why she suddenly remembers the time she visited a girl who told her she was like a doll?
it’s not really polysemantic, just difficult to translate neatly. it just describes stuff that you can’t stop thinking about for whatever reason. could be because you like it, because it’s strange, because it bothers you, etc
even “can’t stop thinking about” feels too loaded now that I think about it. I usually come across it in the sense of “I’m curious about this” or occasionally “I’m interested”
There’s also the bit earlier in the chapter where the mother had her hands all over Shimeji, admiring her hair etc then Majime tells her to get off, “it’s my Shimeji-chan!”
When 上田 got a face during roll call, I expected him to somehow feature into しめじ’s day. In hindsight the fact that his head is very normal should have clued me in.
That awkward situation when her chair was taken during lunch… I feel for her.
Wow that was hard work! For anyone who doesn’t fancy translating 10th centure Japanese literature on page 51 here is a translation copied from the internet…
In autumn, the evening – the blazing the sun has sunk very close to the mountain rim, and now even the crows, in threes and fours or twos and threes, hurrying to their roost, are a moving sight. Still more enchanting is the sight of a string of wild geese in the distant sky, very tiny. And oh how inexpressible, when the sun has sunk, to hear in the growing darkness the wind, and the song of autumn insects.
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, circa 990-1002, translated by Meredith Mckinney
Page 56
Connecting Understanding the link between the Bible, “No Longer Human”, and “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” took a little bit of time reading on Wikipedia!
Page 60 handwritten kanji - is that 自称 美少女（成人）? - self-proclaimed beautiful girl (coming of age)
Care to share some links or explain a bit? During sections like this sometimes I don’t know to what extent my confusion is from lack of understanding Japanese and to what extent it’s my lack of understanding the content.
No Longer Human is a 1948 Japanese novel. It is considered Dazai’s masterpiece and ranks as the second-best selling novel ever in Japan. The themes include suicide, social alienation, and depression.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It looks pretty complicated but one of its themes is criticism of Christianity including the famous dictum “God is dead”.
So:
The Bible is a book about God,
No Longer Human is a book about pessimism,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a book concerning pessimism about God!
Wasn’t there something in volume 1 about how the club changes its theme from hole digging to hole filling every few years? I kept wondering if the teacher or one of the former club members put all this random stuff into the hole while filling it, so the next digging generation would find it
Also, I’m glad we got another Ayaka scene in this chapter, definitely my favourite character
Lots to like in this week’s chapter. But for me the best thing was: the fried egg! Right from the first page I was puzzled by how it was sitting on the top of her hat. Then on page 77 we see her putting her hat on, again I was puzzled by what was happening with the egg. The explanation on page 79 was rather unexpected though!
36% - I think that comes from the rule of nines used for estimating body surface area in burns victims:
Same here! Now I’m wondering how far it can be pulled away…can she use it like Captain America’s shield? Or for playing frisbee by herself? So many possibilities!
On page 80, did I understand it correctly that they’re talking about how weirdly normal this town seems?
