Final week of the volume, oh noes! I’ll post some polls about off-shooting in the home thread at some point soon.
Most of this chapter revolves around the Sanzu River - it’s essentially the Japanese Buddhist equivalent of the Styx in Greek mythology. Papa Kamogawa attempts to explain it to Asumi, though he doesn’t finish. The name literally means “three crossings”, as depending on the karmic weight of your sins in life, you may either cross via walking over a bridge, wading through a ford, or else swimming the deepest part (there may or may not be snakes too). No traditions I’ve come across mention a boat, though.
Curiously, despite Papa Kamogawa suggesting that Mama would be reaching the Sanzu on the 49th day after her death, most Google results I’ve found say this happens on the 7th day - the 49th is the day of final judgement, which is why it’s traditional to have another memorial service on this day. Perhaps it differs by what flavour of Buddhism we’re talking about.
This week’s reading also includes the もうひとつのスピカ mini-chapter, essentially the author’s afterword. How much of it is true is up to interpretation.
I hadn’t realised the last chapter was a mini chapter and that we finished this week. Looking forward to getting back to the main storyline, although I’ve kind of got into this world of young Asumi now!
This week’s chapter was enjoyable as a one shot, but I think more enjoyable having read the first few chapters of the main manga storyline.
I liked that she met Lion-san in his human form in the afterworld. I’m not sure if it was clear whether this took place before or after events in the previous chapter, but I wonder if this meeting is why she is able to see Lion-san in his lion form in the real world. And also kind of explains why he is a ghost - he seems to be in a place where it is still possible for him to return to the human world, but he doesn’t have a body to go back to (presumably destroyed in the crash).
Each of these two back stories started with the phrase 五年前の話である. This confused me a bit - it felt like this was saying that this is a story from 5 years before the crash, but it clearly can only make sense that these are stories from 5 years after the crash. I guess it must mean “five years ahead”, but I still found it a bit confusing.
The mini-story was nice also. When he is looking at the 着ぐるみ and saying different character names - I got プー (Winnie the Pooh) and ドナウド (Donald Duck), but did anyone know what he meant by ウィッキー? Wicky? Vicky? I couldn’t connect it with a Disney character.
I figured this takes place after we saw him “ascending” at the end of the previous chapter. Asumi thinks she recongnises him here, but she’s not sure.
It’s saying the rocket crash was five years before the story currently being told - the first chapter established that the crash occured in 2010, while these stories are taking place in 2015.
This is a bland-name version of a well-known Disney character. It’s kinda tricky, though. Maybe you could come up with some ideas, Micki.
Oh, is it that simple?! I’d gone down the route of thinking there was Wicky the Warrior or someone like that I was unaware of! But if I turn that W upside down…
Yes, looking again all the other names are a bit off too. ドナウド should be ドナルド and プーやん should be プーさん. Obviously we were avoiding any copyright infringement. Presumably why the author also says they worked in “a theme park near the coast in the Kanto region”
I looked back and I think it was Yuko that saw him ascend not Asumi. Asumi only saw him in Lion form in the previous chapter. I was thinking his face is probably quite famous so she may have a faint recognition of his face from media sources. Or it maybe that these events occur after the previous chapter and she recognises a familiarity with him but doesn’t recognise him as she’s only seen him with his lion head on.
That makes sense. I had it the wrong way round - I thought the sentence was referring to the upcoming story, not the crash story.
That was cute. I’m really on the fence about continuing this one but I have way too many club commitments and there are too many volumes. Maybe later, and hopefully with a better quality edition.
Definitely too easy for the IMC though, in my opinion. I see that it’s now rated L22 on natively which seems about fair. The contrast with Nana that I was reading just before is stark!
Some parts of this chapter hit hard, and I really like the way the panels were framed near the end where the flag lines up with the reflection, the full page shot with Asumi holding the flag was cool too but I could only see the pages seperate
looking forward to continuing!
