This is a 4-koma manga, which means you read column by column, from top to bottom.
(‘Normally’ you read manga from right to left then down the page.)
Additional resources:
You might want to watch the ‘voice comic’ of the first two chapters - either before or after reading (or both!) - to give you a sense of the flow, help with the readings, reinforce your work, and/or help your listening.
Don’t forget to make use of the vocab spreadsheet linked in the OP - it should really help to make up for the lack of furigana. Normally we discourage including words multiple times in one chapter, but because of the lack of furigana it’s fine to duplicate a kanji word if you didn’t recognise it.
Finally:
This is a weird story in a weird setting. It’s about a girl with mushrooms growing on her head, so you knew what you were getting in for
I can’t emphasise enough how welcome all questions are - they are what keeps the discussion alive, and are immensely helpful to everybody. The two main rules you need to follow are:
Include the page number
Blur spoilers - i.e. any key information or moments from this chapter (or beyond)
Please search the page number before posting to check your question hasn’t already been answered, and remember that lots of people will keep up with this thread before they’ve finished or even started the week’s reading, and they don’t want to be spoiled.
@Radish8 It was a great pleasure to read your introduction as well as vocab docs! I am very new to the concept of book clubs on Wani Kani but that was really great! Looks like I need to learn from you how to treat books with proper care and respect. I never in my life had such an attitude to books. Hmmm, maybe it is even possible to love books … quite a new idea for me
This is always a tricky one. There is definitely an advantage of learning a word in context. But making flashcards and reviewing them is a lot of effort and potentially turns the fun of reading the book into a bit of a chore.
So my advice would be just to take the occasional word for your flashcard deck when it looks particularly interesting, or particularly useful, and otherwise just enjoying reading.
Well as expected that was a weird first chapter! I like the older sister character and hope we’re going to learn more about her as the manga progresses. Would love to know what she was hoping to achieve on page 6 that was such a failure…
I enjoyed on page 8 when the main character wondered if she could get away with passing off the mushrooms growing out of her head as a hair decoration. That seemed like it was going to be a stretch but then in the next panel one of the other schoolgirls had a ridiculous crab hair decoration in her hair!
I assumed at first it was a mushroom growing on the blonde girl’s head as well - if it’s actually a fried egg then this manga is even weirder!
In that case, welcome! Really great to have you reading along with us have you managed to read any / all of this week’s chapter yet?
I believe it is… foreshadowing no idea.
I think the real question is what the hell a fried egg on the head means.
I reckon that if you’re concerned about burned out, don’t go down that route. It’s surprisingly easy to hit that point before you realise, so if it’s already a concern… Agree with Micki
Glad it’s helpful!
So, what I want to know: is the crab girl actually just passing off a crab that suddenly appeared over the summer holiday as a hair decoration?!
Page 11
When fried-egg-girl tries to get in with that group talking about… something…
あのファーストを超えてくるのマジ神なんだよね
I realise this is supposed to be completely out of context and therefore incomprehensible, but do we have any ideas how you would translate this? I wasn’t sure whether ファースト might have some sensible meaning in this context, and I was confused by 神 - initially I thought it was slang (meaning 2), but given that they go on to ramble about divinity in the next bubble I thought maybe it literally did mean god / diety?
Also… does anyone have an idea whether ポタポタミヤ文明 is supposed to be completely made up, or whether it’s making any kind of reference…?
I didn’t really know what to expect going in, and I am still not sure what the hell I just read lol. It’s very intriguing and I’m looking forward to seeing where this will go.
Just checking if I’ve interpreted things correctly. On page 6, it’s her older sister giving her general life advice (if you want a quiet sort of life, don’t expect too much cause you’ll only get hurt) and then offering the more concrete suggestion of just reading a book and telling people to leave her alone at school?
Then on page 12, でもそんな契約みたいになりましょうってなるものじゃなさそう, how does the grammar work here…?
This bit I personally interpreted… (could very well be wrong!)…
Core bit: なりましょうって - saying “let’s become [friends]”
The って is the informal quotation marker.
This is described with 契約みたいに - like a contract → saying X like it’s a contract
Then at the end we have ものじゃなさそう.
The なさそう is the ~そう form of ない - i.e. you’re taking an adjective and turning it into “seems like [adjective]”. Similar to おいしい → おいしそう = “seems / looks tasty”. Both ない and いい conjugate in funky ways for this.
In this case ない gives you “doesn’t seem like” or “seems unlikely”.
So ものじゃなさそう is basically “doesn’t seem like a thing” (where the [thing] is described by all the preceding sentence).
The そんな right near the beginning adds a “like that” vibe - as in, how fried-egg girl is approaching things - it’s not “like that”.
So we have: but, it doesn’t seem like a thing where you go “let’s be friends” as if it’s a contract like that
The bit I’m really unsure about is the なる verb modifying もの - “to play a role”?? “To cry out”?? Just a fancy “to do”?? “To consist of”?? (It’s not a thing that consists of saying…) Honestly, I don’t know.
I also don’t know what to think yet. I guess I like the theme, but I would prefer a little more deeper approach? I hope the story develops somehow, and it won’t be just a collection of weird metaphors.
Yeah, mushrooms are easy in comparison. And what about the crab?
This was my only question for this chapter, so I’m bumping it.
(Well, that and ポタポタミヤ文明 conversation, but I’m not holding my hopes here. )
I did understand it the same as @Phryne, but I’m not sure about it.
As others have pointed out already, I have the feeling the difficult part in this manga is going to be to figure out if something is just there for quirkiness sake or if there’s supposed to be some deeper hidden meaning…
Hi everyone, I’m joining in for at least the first two chapters! And possibly the whole thing if I like it enough. I have to say, this manga seems 100% my jam. A mixture of vague science fiction, background world-building, slice of life, and confusion. This weekend, I read pages 5-7 which sounds a lot smaller now that I’m typing it out, haha.
I was also confused by the conversation on page 6, so I’m bumping that discussion as well!
Additional Page 6 confusion
I’m still getting used to the lack of explicit pronouns and subjects in Japanese. @Phryne and @Aislin, how could you tell the older sister was addressing the younger sister? I thought she was talking to herself because she is facing her machine and seems kind of stressed. Like she is trying to reassure herself somehow and dreams of reading books all day. “Wouldn’t it be nice if I read books all the time?” My interpretation doesn’t make a lot of sense though… It definitely breaks down in the third panel.
While there were several new words on these few pages, there were a handful of Wanikani words that I haven’t seen in context yet.
Yes, that messes with me as well! In this case I just happened to notice a few pages later that the main character was reading a book at school and ignoring egg-girl, so when I went back through this chapter for the second time it clicked. I went through three times in total trying to wring every last drop of meaning from those compact sentences lol. I do wonder sometimes how I am ever going to get better at this… it seems not so much to be about Japanese skills as much as general ‘creativity’ or ‘empathy’ or something…?
It’s been slow going for me so far. Not having furigana really makes things more time consuming. I am also getting ready for a move now but hopefully I will have more time to read next week. I read the first page the other day and that was no problem but some of the language on the second page(page 6) was confusing. I think I will try to get back to it tonight and hopefully read 2-3 more pages.
Yep, I was also considering both options and actually hoping that whoever confirms @Phryne’s interpretation also confirms this
My cues were younger sister answering “はい” during conservation, repetition of the phrase “静かに過ごす” on the 8th page, and yep, the:
thing which meant it wasn’t about reading books at home after all.
And I’m in the same place right now, too. I’m kinda hoping that someone comes and tells us there were more decisive cues there that we’ve just missed
My plan to get better at this is just read a lot and count on this creativity/empathy thing developing itself.