One of the subjects on the list of exams I struggled to read - it’s 現代文 (modern Japanese).
The exam scene was all a bit silly.
Learning the word 千羽鶴 lead me to read about Sadako and her thousand paper cranes, and the Children’s Peace Memorial in Hiroshima. Probably something everyone else knows about but was new to me. Helped give context to her comment asking if someone was ill.
There’s an interesting parallel between Lion-san with his lion head, and Fuchuuya in his rabbit costume, also with a giant animal head on. Especially the way they are both watching over and looking out for Asumi.
I must have known this a year ago, as you told us in week 1, but I’d obviously forgotten. Left me puzzled when I looked up the relationship between the station and the beach this chapter, and realised the real Yuigahama is spelt differently.
For the real-world answer to Chibi-Fuchuya’s question in the third panel of page 76: No, you can’t have green stars, because the shape of the black body emission curve is so broad - a star with its emission peak in the green area of the spectrum would include so much blue and red as well that it’d look white or yellow. No idea what it is they think they saw in this chapter. Lion-san playing a prank, perhaps.
Small warning: There’s another two examples of Yaginuma-sensei’s favourite corporal punishment method in this chapter.
Page 109, this has come up before, but Chibi-Suzuki is listing the moons of Saturn here. Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Titan, Janus, Mimas, Pandora, finishing with possibly (He)lene on page 110.
Page 115, N-gauge is a standard size of model train set, at a scale of 1:160 of full size. It’s the most popular gauge for model trains in Japan, and is generally considered the second-most popular gauge worldwide, after HO-gauge, which is 1:87 scale. The advantage of N-gauge over HO-gauge is that the smaller scale allows enthusiasts to build much more intricate layouts in the same physical space.
Mission 45: Got to feel sorry for the girls in this chapter. Kei was so excited about the possibility of applying to be an astronaut, but doesn’t know the school have already made their decision and approached Shuu as being their candidate. And poor Asumi is taken out of the running before they’ve finished reading the advertisement due to her small stature. I love the idea that you might be old enough to go into space, but still young enough that you need daddy to sign a permission slip…
Page 139, you’re not supposed to open the omamori, Suzuki. It lets the magic smoke out.
Page 141, grade scales in universities in Japan go 秀 (S), 優 (A), 良 (B), 可 (C), 認 (D), 不可 (F) - each bracket besides the lowest represents a 10% range of scores (i.e. S = 90-100%, A = 80-90% et cetera). Apparently we’re using the scale here too even though it’s a high school. I admit I’m not at all sure whether 特優 is meant to be equivalent to 秀 or if it’s just a high-range 優. (可 is read as か, remember, hence Kei’s bubble in the fifth panel.)
Do we think this school is a high school? I.e. our main characters are now 17 years old as they complete the second year? It’s confusing as many of them are living independently which would be unusual for 15-17 year olds where I live.
I wonder at times if I have that wrong and they are at a university equivalent institution. Which would make them 20 at the end of second year.
My understanding is that senior high is three years in Japan so would be unusual to have a fourth year (at this school admittedly this is just for the top students).
Also seems odd that Shuu might be a an astronaut candidate as young as 17.
I feel like it was specifically identified as a high school early on in the series, but I couldn’t really pinpoint where without re-reading the whole thing. That said, school students in Japan do have the option of various different kinds of institutions in lieu of high school once they’ve completed their compulsory education (i.e. graduated middle school) - varieties can include vocational colleges, technical colleges and other kinds of specialised training colleges - so perhaps that’s what we’re looking at here.
Based on the timeline they should be somewhere around seventeen, yeah. Asumi was born in 2009, before the Lion accident in 2010, and takes the entrance exam for the space school in 2024, at which point she’s 15. (Or maybe it’s the exam for the 2024 school year, I dunno. Either way, she’s still 15-ish at the start of the series.)
That’s helpful, I hadn’t clicked that we had enough background info to calculate Asumi’s age at school entry.
Being some kind of specialist senior high school would make sense with their broad academic curriculum (including Classical Japanese - not a key skill for budding astronauts).
The whole set up is a little fantastical I guess. That you would have a specialist high school for budding astronauts from 15 years old, complete with donning space suits and doing mission training etc. But that’s part of the magic of the story.
