しろくまカフェ: Week 9 Discussion (Chapters 17 and 18)

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Chapters 17 and 18

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Start date: May 8th
Previous Chapter: Chapters 15 and 16
Next chapter: Chapters 19 and 20

Page numbers

b174615ec62c30e5548289f3be860f5e4a748deb

Vocabulary list

You can also check the page numbers for new and old versions here. If you have an old version, chapters 24-28 are in the second volume!

Translations/Grammar Breakdown

Expand for a nested list of links covering each panel

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
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4 Likes

One day, I’ll catch up to you guys… one day…

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I can’t believe the bis version ruined the fragile continuity of しろくまカフェ by having a chapter with グリズリーさん before the chapter where パンダさん actually meets him for the first time!!

Was chapter 17 really hard for anyone else, or was it just me? I feel like I just had my false sense of confidence (from previous chapters and from other reading I’ve been doing lately) completely destroyed :wink: I’m going to do a re-read of it, and I’ll probably be posting some questions when I do, since I didn’t take notes on all the stuff I couldn’t figure out when I read through it a bit earlier.

On the other hand, chapter 18 was pretty easy, more like the previous handful of chapters.

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Panda-san’s ワルな人 outfit kinda reminds me of the Underminer from Incredibles. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’m a little behind (chapter 14) but I’ll catch up sooner or later!

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My first guess would have been Darth Vader, haha.

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I also had trouble with Ch 17. I think I get the meaning of this, but it’s a little tricky:
あとね ボクに足りないのは ワイルドさだと思うんだ
My best guess: “The rest of it, I thought wildness was not enough for me”
I realize this is probably wrong but I am especially confused by the ボクに足りないの. What is the “it” that isn’t enough? How is に supposed to be interpreted here?

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Some random questions I have:
Are tanning salons a thing for more rough people? Why is plum wine considered healthy?! (Or is it too cutesy to order at a bar, haha)

I read it as something like “I suppose this isn’t enough for me to be wild,” but I’m not really sure of that, either. The “this” being him dressing up like a bad guy.

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Page 107, bis version

愛車のハーレーで北米横断した時のヤツさ

I’m read that as something like “That’s when I rode across North America on my beloved Harley,” but I’m not sure what to make of のヤツ in that case, so maybe I’m completely misunderstanding?

edit: Now thinking about it more, does ヤツ refer to the photo? So it would rather be something like “That’s of when I rode…” (Minor difference, where ‘that’ means the photo rather than something like ‘that time’, which is where the ‘that’ in my original interpretation came from.)

…And I thought I was going to have a ton of questions, but the chapter honestly seemed a lot easier to understand this second time through (though I still think it was more difficult than recent chapters.) I was able to find answers to most everything I didn’t understand before. Maybe I was just tired when I read it the first time.

A few questions to check my understanding:

Page 100
Does ワルな = 悪い ?

ワイルドさ
Is this さ turning an na-adjective into a noun?

Page 101
How’s my translation here? I’m not sure I could break it down, but I think that:
お店やってるから行ってみる?
means something like:

Do you want to try going after I’m done at the shop?

Page 102

I think what Grizzly is saying is that if Polar Bear isn’t spending time outside getting a natural tan, he should at least (も) go to a tanning salon.

Page 103
ヘルシーなもんはおいてないんだ
Is the verb here 置く? And is it being used to mean “to serve”?

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That’s what I figured. A cross between 悪い and Panda-san getting ワイルド wrong.

It’s turning a な-adjective into a -ness noun. Wildness.

Sounds good to me.

English would use “to serve” in this context, but I’m not completely sure if the verb has that precise meaning in Japanese…

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My guess is that it’s like when you say in English, “That’s me when I [did something]”. Since やつ is usually like “guy” or “dude”.

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The progressive tense is confusing me here. I think I can break up everything else. お店-shop, やってる I presume is 遣って, which means “to do”, but can also mean “to do… completely,” which I’m guessing is the meaning used here. から can mean “when,” and 行ってみる with a question mark at the end, I assume, can mean “wanna try going?” There’s no pronoun, but it’s implied, and we get what you said.

I love seeing explanatory furigana (is there an actual word for this?) in manga. On the third page of chapter 17, the furigana for 灰色グマ is written as グリズリー which was helpful because I always thought all grizzly bears were brown so “grey bear” would have thrown me off. Though a quick google search revealed that grizzly actually means grey, so I guess Shirokuma Cafe is teaching me English now :no_mouth:

2 Likes

I’m reading this series sans-dictionary to force some vocab recall (it’s not cause looking up words in a physical book is a total bother or anything) so I might not be right, but heres my take:

[彼が]お店やってるから行ってみる?
“[He] runs a store, wanna go see it?”

In the previous chapter (the one with a panda cafe, it might be in a different order in the Bis version), Panda said something along the lines of 僕もカフェをやってみたい、so I figured establishment+やる means to run an establishment

and then から=so/because, and 行ってみる=wanna [try to] go see it?

4 Likes

I’m totally caught up on my own threads, toooootally :eyes: I will read the chapters soon, I swear :eyes::yellow_heart:

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I think you’re right about this (just looked it up and that apparently is one of the 15+ meanings of やる)

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Finally caught back up after my parents’ visit and a couple of (English) library books a had on hold. I think I’m laughing a lot more at the book- either my sense of humour is adjusting, or I’m starting to understand enough stuff that I don’t need the jokes explained anymore.
I have to agree with @jaearess - why was the BBQ chapter moved to before the Grizzly Bar? I can see why they pulled the chapter it replaced in the old version - pretty much an advertisement for Adventure World, although Panda’s reaction to the panda skeleton was worth the read.

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Page 107

Did anybody else decipher the kanji in Grizzly’s speech bubble in the bottom panel? To me it looks like 獲り放題 (えりほうだい), but I don’t want to put something wrong into the vocab sheet.

Here’s a note from 得る(える)の意味 - goo国語辞書 about the difference between 得る and 獲る.


Page 108

I’m having quite a bit of trouble with the second part of Grizzly’s speech bubble in the first panel. I wonder if his やがんだろ is this? Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary

2 Likes