Two days late, but… I have a question about page 55.
Why 行かれる and not just 行く? I know the Japanese passive isn’t the same as our passive, but I am only familiar with the ‘stuff being done to you’ and ‘stuff impacting you negatively’ nuances. How am I to interpret it here?
The passive form of a verb can also be used to speak politely about someone else’s actions. Here is a brief explanation I found through Google.
After looking at the photos I would also visit 
(Maybe the super cute doggo mikuji fortune thingies are for real…? 
)
Too bad the sign doesn’t have the same warning as shown on page 82. Maybe it used to? Since it looks like there’s space for one on top.
EDIT: wait a bit… is the pole sticking out on top not attached to the sign but something in the background?!! 
Can I just… buy all of them
I don’t see why not. You just need 24,000 yen.
Almost same price as wk lifetime 
I laughed so hard when Aki realized she was going to make noodles for the whole Kagamihara family 
also love how the expectation just kept rising up until the older sister arrived 
I can feel Rin’s struggle with the cute omikuji…
p.87 - I’m trying to parse「この犬どもめ」
この - this
犬 - dog
ども - as in 共?
め - what is this め？
It’s a derogatory suffix for referring to others. I often see it translated as “you bastard” in anime, but I think it isn’t necessarily as violent or otherwise can express different degrees of frustration. If you’ve seen Teasing Master Takagi-san there’s a lot of たかがいさんめ in it.
… Er, no, I’ve got nothing this week.
Start date: September 26th
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Rin opens this chapter at Hayataro Onsen Komakusa-no-yu - it’s about twenty minutes on foot from Kozenji, so a little bit closer than Gero. It costs 610 yen for adults, precisely what Aki quoted last chapter. The bath-and-meal combo ticket now costs 1100 yen (it’s shown close to the bottom of this page). The mini sauce katsudon costs 670 yen on its own, so 1100 is still not a bad deal. Not sure if this place even sells lo mein.
Rin’s final destination isn’t mentioned by name in this chapter, but it’s impossible for me to make my next observation without marking it on the map, so I’ma spoilerise this next line: After leaving, Rin heads to Jinbagatayama Campground. From Hayataro Onsen to Jinbagatayama Campground, it’s 52 minutes at regular car speeds.
Locations that Nadeshiko and Aki muse over: Raichosawa Campground (that’s near the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route - I’ve done that, but it was too foggy at Murodo for me to do any sightseeing there), Lake Tanuki Campground (doesn’t seem to be one named Tanukiko-no-Mori)
No particular questions or comments on the text itself this week, except I really wanna go there and have sauce katsudon.
Though, page 109, Rin put her shoes back on at some point, right? She seems to be running out the door in slippers.
And another cliffhanger! Will Rin ever make it to her destination?
I was drooling over the katsudon 
PS. I forgot to mention this during the previous chapter but 宝積山光前寺 seems like a super lovely and quaint shrine to go to. I may have preference for shrines situated in forests 
It’s a temple (= buddhist) rather than a shrine (= shinto), but otherwise I hear you. Many of the forest temples and shrines are extremely pretty.
Ohh so that’s the difference! Haha. Thanks for letting me know.
Yeah! I hope I can go here someday. Another one I’d love to visit is the forest shrine featured in the film Hotarubi no Mori E, inspired from Kamishikimi kumanoimasu (上色見熊野座神社 ) in Kumamoto.
Page 75 / 82
When I look up 系 I get ‘system’, ‘lineage’ ‘group’, ‘corollary’, ‘(taxonomical) series’. Seems like a pretty sciencey word. I just can’t figure out how it’s used in these contexts:
In cases like this it marks a group something belongs to thematically or by some common thread - maybe ‘kind of’ fits in English? The kind of story where x happens, the kind of statue with this atmosphere/made in this sort of style.
The dictionary explains that it’s a slang usage. It’s an expansion on the practice of sticking it on the back of a noun to mean “noun system”, except now it’s attached to anything. I confess I’m having some trouble understanding the precise subtleties of what the dictionary is getting at, but it’s worth noting that the ヴィジュアル系 music genre and the 癒し系 fiction genre are both usages of the slang form.
But yeah, I figure “type” or “kind of” works here. “Such-and-such a type of good story”.
Ahh that makes perfect sense, thanks!
Page 68
What is って doing here? Is it a quoting particle? If so, I’d expect some kind of verb to go with it…?
Page 77
What is みっか? I imagine the み is from 見る.
I think it’s the topic marker って (or at least, used to bring up a topic even if it isn’t explicitly said/written)
I believe it’s the てみる (to try to) form, but in slang ?
Wee bit behind as I just finished 15, but I really enjoyed this chapter even if nothing really happened in it (though I suppose you could say that of the SoL genre in general haha). Even on black-and-white pages, Afro’s scenery work is absolutely gorgeous and I’m glad I got the paperback versions to read this volume. Every frame really is a painting and a wonderful little snapshot of space and time.
I’m the kind of person who really enjoys solo-traveling, so being there with Rin as she maneuvered the mountain roads and stopped by a vending machine with nobody around was quite nostalgic and comfy for me. That said, it’s really nice to see her opening up to random people and even going out of her way to check in with Nadeshiko. It’s been a long time since I watched the show, so her character development is coming in pretty fresh for me.
Sidenote: Full-service gas stations are still a weird concept for me.
