Chapter forty-one’s title image is from “MATATABISTEP” by Passepied
Chapter forty-two’s is a real-world location instead, for a change. It’s, uh… here.
It seems to me like there’s always one chapter each volume that is genuinely painful to read, and well, for this volume it’s chapter 41. Starting with page 27, ロッキンジャポン is a reference to Rock in Japan, Japan’s biggest outdoor rock festival. ヴォルグ is likely a reference to Vogue magazine (which is normally rendered ヴォーグ in the real world).
Page 32, in the first panel, 熱血大陸 is, so far as I can tell, a reference to 情熱大陸 (the sound effects in the background of that panel are reportedly a representation of the show’s theme song). カンボジア宮殿 is カンブリア宮殿.
Page 33, fourth panel, ひたち海浜公園 was, at the time, the location of the Rock in Japan festival. It has since moved to 蘇我スポーツ公園 in Chiba.
Sixth panel of the same page, Kita makes a pair of rapid-fire references that I would never have spotted if I didn’t have someone else pointing them out to me: 香水 was a hugely popular song that topped the charts in Japan in 2020, while うっせえわ (rendered うるせぇばっか here) was a hugely infamous song that almost triggered a moral panic among the pearl-clutchers. No idea whether those are actually references or not, but it does go some way towards explaining what on Earth she’s going on about in this bubble.
Page 34, はっけよい and のこった are both calls in sumo matches used by the referee towards the wrestlers. What she’s getting at in this panel, though, is anyone’s guess.
Moving on to the next chapter (at last!), on page 37 third panel, クリップパイプ is a reference to CreepHyp, who (as per Ryo’s narration), got their start in Shimokitazawa Daisy Bar.
Page 39, I don’t need to observe that “Hard Opp” is Hard Off, right? 徳川埋蔵金, towards the end of Ryo’s solid wall of text in the seventh panel, is a reference to a Japanese urban legend that the Tokugawa Shogunate reportedly buried a vast amount of gold, possibly somewhere on Mount Akagi.
Page 40, Speed Cobra is a real kick drum pedal which allows you to operate a kick drum with both feet (so, I guess you use your other other foot for the hi-hat, then?). Sixth panel, ぼっちのグルメ references 孤独のグルメ. In the following panel, I’ve already mentioned this before, but ビレパン is Village Vanguard.
