Yes, it’s the 〜たい form of the verb, in this case
(赤く)する = to make red, to turn something red
(赤く)したい = to want to turn something (dye) red
ぼや is from the verb ぼやく, in its て-form ぼやいて. It means to grumble, to complain.
I would translate the sentence as something like „She actually wanted to dye her very short hair red, she grumbled.“ (imagine this sentence, but in a more character-describing introduction style)
Bleh, I keep forgetting I need to go follow the existing thread instead of waiting for someone to post a new one…
Just to point out one thing quickly: ベリーショート is quite specifically a women’s hairstyle in Japanese, almost but not quite approaching a pixie cut. It’s shorter than ショート, naturally.
+1 on what Myria said.
The official book translation has that sentence as: " [She’s a singer in a band] and goes on about wanting to dye her short hair red".
The ぼやく was translated as “goes on”, which probably fits the translation a bit better.
With this sentence:
泉さんと前の店で仲が良かったという主婦の女性がヘルプに来たときは、服装があまりに泉さんと似ているので間違えそうになったくらいだ。
Why is it 泉さんと前の店で仲が良かったという主婦 and not just 泉さんと前の店で仲が良かった主婦? I checked the Dutch and English translation and neither of them indicate that the lady claimed to have got along well with Izumi, so I don’t think it’s a quotation.
And then there is this one:
それをそのまま真似してはすぐにバレてしまうので、ブランド名で検索し、そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり、どちらのストールを買おうかな、と名前をあげている他のブランドを着ることにしている。
I got this far with it:
それをそのまま真似してはすぐにバレてしまうので、
Because I would immediately be found out if I imitated them exactly,
ブランド名で検索し、
I look up the brand name,
名前をあげている他のブランドを着ることにしている。
and I decide to wear the brands of other people who offer names
But then how does そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり、どちらのストールを買おうかな、と fit in?
I suspect と is a quotation と marking どちらのストールを買おうかな, so:
“[Asking] ‘which scarf should I buy?’”
And then そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり means ‘people who wear clothes from that place make introductions on blogs’..
But I am not sure how to ultimately string it together in one sentence that makes sense syntactically.
I think I can help you with your second question. You got the beginning already, so I’m starting after that:
そこの服を着ている人が - people who wear these clothes
ブログで紹介したり、- have given advice in their blogs (among other things)
どちらのストールを買おうかな、と - “I wonder which scarf I should buy” (quotation - that’s what they write in their blogs)
名前をあげている他のブランドを - (in the quotations in the blogs) the listed names of other brands
着ることにしている。- I usually wear.
Does this help already? (If not, please ask more questions!)
I guess if I had to put it in a proper English phrase, I would maybe say something like
… and I looked up some of those brand names on blogs of people who offer advice regarding clothing, took note of other brands they mentioned, and I would usually wear those clothes.
Ah, thanks, that meaning of 紹介 makes more sense! But I am still not sure why this is a ‘correct’ Japanese sentence, if that makes any sense? Like it seems that そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり just gets randomly tossed in there without any syntactical connection to the rest of the sentence…?
The way I see it:
I can see how these clauses can each be strung along together to make one sentence. But then そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり gets added in with a different subject. Is that another clause in its own right that just happens to have a different subject, or should we see it as part of clause 3?
Maybe this seems like an overly academic exercise, trying to apply some sort of taxonomy to the sentence. I have a background in Latin and Greek, so it’s what I’m familiar with. Perhaps it’s a case of ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ 
But it’s how my brain works!
Not at all! I think it is good to look into complicated sentences in detail and to try to pick them apart.
The way I see it is that this thing in the middle is a very very long relative clause. The main clause goes like this:
それをそのまま真似してはすぐにバレてしまうので、ブランド名で検索し、 他のブランドを着ることにしている。
And this is all about the implicit “I”, as we both agree.
Now what about these other brands? We need more information. And we find a relative clause that is attached to them:
そこの服を着ている人がブログで紹介したり、どちらのストールを買おうかな、と名前をあげている
In English you would say “other brands that were mentioned on the blogs of people who gave advice regarding clothing” or something, so the relative clause goes after the noun that it specifies. But in Japanese it’s the other way around, a relative clause always appears before its noun.
And that’s why we have the “randomly thrown in” new subject, it’s the subject of the relative clause.
(How do you recognize a relative clause? Look at dictionary forms, like あげている. If the sentence is not over after that, we found a relative clause.)
anyone know the difference in usage/使い分け between おわる and おえる (終)
Sweet baby Jesus that is the longest relative clause I have ever seen in Japanese 
You def need to read more 
Nah, just kidding. It was a pretty tough one actually, with the two commas and the quotation which kind of breaks the rhythm of the sentence flow. And tbh I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it straight away, it was only your question that made me realize. So thank you, good teamwork 
Haha amen! It’s stuff like this that is really challenging right now. Like I said in the home thread, I just don’t have the brain-RAM for this yet. Reading more will surely help me develop it! Thanks a lot for the help 
This isn’t a question specific to this week’s reading but something I asked myself again while reading. Since this is the first full length book I’m trying to read in Japanese, I wonder whether there is some kind of logic to which words get furigana and which don’t.
Names make a lot of sense of course but there are tons of words I don’t know how to pronounce and whenever I see furigana, half the time I would have already known how to pronounce it.
Yeah, sometimes it feels like words I already know well are getting furigana, whereas words that I would have expected to be relatively unknown - or where the reading is ambiguous, like for 日色町 - don’t.
This week is making me want konbini food. Making croquettes later this week, so hopefully that will help sate me. I’ve made onigiri several times and it’s pretty easy and tasty; highly recommend trying.
I like that Keiko has found a rhythm here. To address a post from the previous week’s discussion thread, if Keiko feels satisfied with her life and work that is absolutely a good thing. However, what’s important (and something I imagine we’ll see developed) is whether or not she has the proper perspective. There are fundamental aspects of her life, herself, and her role in society that she has yet to explore or consider more deeply.
Keiko right now has a role to fill in the konbini, but it’s simply the first thing she ran into that really made sense. Granted, it’s now been years since she started, but whether or not this willful dependence on her work is a positive or negative (or both) remains to be seen.
I am right there with you. Send me to japan, and get me an apartment directly above a Lawson’s, please.
I’m noticing on occasion that ファストフード gets used without specifying further, but in this chapter it’s noted as something separate from onigiri. I’m guessing that refers broadly to the hot foods sold at the counter like Fried Chicken and Yakitori. Maybe Oden too, though that seems like an inappropriate title.
I stayed one night a few trips ago in a capsule hotel near Ameyayokocho in Ueno which turned out to have a back door to the 7-Eleven on the street behind in the lobby, though I only realised that after I’d left (I’d thought at the time that it was a smoking room, so I didn’t go in).
Aye, that’s exactly it. And マメリカンドッグ.
Onigiri isn’t fast food. How insulting.
Hmmm, but sandwiches also aren’t considered fast food. 
So somehow it actually makes sense.
It sounds so awesome. 
Heh, I may have been in the same hotel a few nights!
Capsule Net Omotenashi no Oyado?
