ドラゴンボールSD (Dragon Ball SD) · Volume 5 Discussion 🐉

What an ending! I need to spend some time this week reading the original to compare what happens here with the original! And next week we jump forward to Dragon Ball Z skipping over quite a bit of story.

From this reference it looks like we skip from chapter 134 to 195, skipping over the King Piccolo saga and the Piccolo Jr saga.

Page 80
あるていどの気はのこしておかねばな…
I think the end is a shorted version of ねばならない meaning “have to do, must” JLPT sensei link. And おか is presumably the negative verb stem of 置く.

Page 86
もし今後敵の能力を奪うような強敵が現れて天津飯が吸収されたらめちゃくちゃピンチになりますね?
そうじゃな。吸収しておれば勝てたかもしれんな。
I didn’t really follow what they were trying to say here if anyone can share their understanding please?

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I mean… I guess that only makes sense, given his apparent untimely demise? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

That’s what I made of it after a bit of head scratching as well.

もし今後
If, in the future,

敵の能力を奪うような強敵が現れて
a strong opponent who steals his opponent’s powers appears

天津飯が吸収されたら
and Tien is absorbed,

めちゃくちゃピンチになりますね?
we would be in a lot of trouble, right?

そうじゃな。吸収しておれば勝てたかもしれんな。
That’s right. If they had absorbed him, they might have won.

This must refer to a future DBZ storyline, I imagine. You’re the connoisseur, does this make sense within the DBZ canon? :grin:

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Thanks, I think I read it the same but struggled to make sense of it.

The previous panel highlighted Tien’s ability, it doesn’t matter if it’s a big or a small Kamehameha, it’s ineffective against Tien.

The pictures show future enemies Cell and Buu, both of which do have the ability to absorb people and gain strength in the process if I remember right. So I guess they are simply saying how strong those enemies would have become if they absorbed Tien. I guess!

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Week 6

Start date: 2 Oct
Pages: 95-112

How is the reading going?
  • I am reading along :dragon:
  • I am catching up :muscle:t2:
  • I am dropping this book :person_gesturing_no:t3:

0 voters

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Good chapter this week. I found the dark text with a white shadow on a dark background quite tricky to read (page 99). Also some very small text at times in the physical version!

Page 103
みかけによらずいいヤツなんだな…ナメくジのフンみてえな顔色してけど
I got - Despite outward appearances, you’re a good guy. Although you have the complexion of slug faeces…

Image search for ナメくジのフン brought up pictures of another Goku scene from Dragon Ball. So perhaps a Goku phrase rather than a common Japanese expression!

Page 104
いっちょくいとめてみっか!!
This one was tricky! I got to this Hi Native reference:
いっちょやってみっか
= いっちょう、やってみるか
= 一丁、やってみるか

大変そうな作業を前に「さて、やってみるか」と自分を元気づけつつ言ってる状況と思います。

So - something you say to yourself to pep yourself up before a difficult situation.

Assuming our sentence is a variation but with 食い止める rather than やる.

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Man, they sure condense the original DB a lot, don’t they? It’s funny to see how they paper over the cracks:

I’ve noticed I get a lot more out of DBSD if I read the original first instead of after. Makes reading the Japanese a bit easier though (which is why I did it the other way round at first).

Yeah, it seems to be a reference to how he insulted OG Piccolo in the original Dragon Ball.

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I read the other way round precisely for this reason. Some panels are exactly the same as the original so I’d feel like I was cheating the other way round. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Week 7

Start date: 9 Oct
Pages: 113-130

How is the reading going?
  • I am reading along :dragon:
  • I am catching up :muscle:t2:
  • I am dropping this book :person_gesturing_no:t3:

0 voters

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I didn’t fully get the future reference on page 123 but I enjoyed looking at these Piccolo & Gohan memes: Dragon Ball: 10 Hilarious Piccolo & Gohan Memes Only True Fans Will Understand

Page 128 - Kuririn and Yajirobe were voiced by the same actor in the anime:

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Screenshot 2021-10-14 at 13.35.34

What’s that と doing there? Neither the conditional nor quotation usage seems right to me.

It’s from chapter 405 :grin:

Thanks for pointing that out, wouldn’t have got the joke otherwise :grin:

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Good question. I read it as conditional. I found the だろう a bit puzzling in this sentence too, even though the overall meaning was clear from context.

Thanks, I hope you didn’t read ahead 200 chapters to figure that out!

Week 8

Start date: 16 Oct
Pages: 131-148

How is the reading going?
  • I am reading along :dragon:
  • I am catching up :muscle:t2:
  • I am dropping this book :person_gesturing_no:t3:

0 voters

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Week 9

Start date: 23 Oct
Pages: 149-166

How is the reading going?
  • I am reading along :dragon:
  • I am catching up :muscle:t2:
  • I am dropping this book :person_gesturing_no:t3:

0 voters

Still catching up on last week’s chapter. I can’t tell if Goku’s joke is so good that King Kai thinks he is genuinely funny, or whether he is funny because he is so bad! The joke seems to translate as - My futon got blown away - I think it’s ふっと “with a whiff, with a puff” which seems related to ふっとぶ “to be blown off”.

EDIT - having read the English translation of the original DB I think it is both that Goku is poor at telling jokes AND King Kai has a questionable sense of humour!

I’d never heard of the R-1 Grand Prix (Wikipedia link) which is a televised competition for solo comedians. Apparently the R comes from らくご - a type of Japanese solo comedy.

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この選択が後に地球の命運をわけることになるとは誰も知るよしがなかったのであった…

Just been looking at this sentence on page 133, in particular よし which was questioned in the vocab sheet.

この選択が後に地球の命運をわけることになるとは
(Regarding that) this choice would later determine the fate of Earth

誰も知る - no one knowing
よし - significance/piece of information
がなかった - there didn’t exist
のであった - was (explanatory)

The second half is a bit weird. I think it means “no one knew the significance”. It looks like 誰も知る modifies よし to give “significance that no one knows”. But then it should be あった rather than なかった - there existed a significance that no one knew? Maybe there’s just double negatives in there that cancel each other out!

Found this!

誰も ➝ even as for 誰
よしがなかった ➝ there was no way of knowing
のであった ➝ you see (explanatory)

I can’t really do justice to it through translation, but it makes some amount of sense in my head :grin:

“No one could’ve known, you see”.

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Good find! Love it when Weblio throws up a set phrase like that!

In Jisho too once you know to look for it…

Chapter 47 was a much easier read than the previous chapter, really enjoyed reading this one. This must be one of the best moments in the story. I enjoyed the build up of everyone training towards the big battle.

Also enjoyed the build up towards the famous scene of Yamcha’s death. Loved the broken strap and the black cats!

Page 154: 午後0時20分
Interesting to see the time written like this!

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I didn’t know about the geta superstition! I always enjoy when I learn something about Japanese culture serendipitously through my reading.

Page 157

What did you make of 一匹やそこらじゃ?

Page 158

I fail to understand this joke. What is the point of mentioning the souls floating around on earth and Piccolo’s name?

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Not 100% sure. Something like “whether it’s one Namekian or Namekians everywhere it doesn’t matter, they are like flies to us”

Here’s the translation from the original:

image

I think there was a concept that those killed by demons do not go to the afterlife, their souls just float for eternity. He’s questioning this fact in the light of the revelation that he’s an alien, not a demon.

I guess it’s not that serendipitous as we are reading manga written in Japanese for a Japanese audience, so we are going to find Japanese cultural references? But I know what you mean, it’s very different to reading a manga set in a Japanese high school or workplace!

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