I sometimes put a sentence into Deepl to see if it comes up with something different that I might be missing. Here’s what it made of a sentence on page 70:
しかも無理して倍数をあげるとなぜかドンドン朝のうんこがくサクなっていくんだ
And for some reason, when I force myself to multiply, my morning poop gets crisper and crisper.
Love the bonus panel of Nappa on the last page!
Sorry not trying to derail but where are all the Dragonball readers? Is it because it is quite challenging? I would’ve thought Dragonball would be more popular (i definitely plan to read it when I am ready).
It’s a good question! The original Dragon Ball was nominated in the beginner book club for a while and eventually dropped for lack of interest. This one was a spin off from the absolute beginner book club after the club picked a long factual book to read. But we were down to around 4 readers by week 3 or so!
Start date: 4 Dec
Pages: 77-94
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Not sure what’s up with the 群馬 / 利根川 joke. Did a bit of googling, but it didn’t get me anywhere.
I also had some trouble with the syntax of this sentence with multiple 〜たらs. There seems to be a whole lot of if’ing and not a lot of pay-off?
I also tried googling… My suggestion is that it is a reference to Masako Nozawa - the voice actress for Goku and a lot of the other characters. She was born in Tokyo but raised in Numata, Gunma prefecture. The building in the picture is the 群馬県庁 which is in Numata, and sits as in the manga, next to the Tone River.
Yeah, maybe it’s something about Yajirobe’s dialect? I didn’t read them as conditionals. I read it as: Because they’ve come so bloody close, I had no choice but to come and see what’s going on.
I could be one of those things where it’s speaking language, and you kind of change the sentence as you go, so you don’t get the most perfect syntax (if that makes sense).
Looking into the voice actress was brilliant! Jokes related to the voice acting have been made in the past, so I think you’re spot on.
Start date: 11 Dec
Pages: 95-112
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Sentence on page 100 - こんなことがあってたまるか…！
From context (and also checking the translation of the original) this means: “This cannot be happening”
こんな - this sort of
ことがある - (for something) to have occurred
I can’t then parse the last part. I’m thinking it’s たまる - maybe 溜まる? Also wonder about the た being short for いた。Any thoughts please?
I figured it was this one.
~> “I can’t bear for this to happen”.
Page 101
What’s the reference when Goku says when he’s seen a guy like that before?
And why do we see Vegeta in a Red Ribbon outfit between chapters?
Not sure. Wondered if the red ribbon outfit is a clue? Perhaps Vegeta reminds him of someone’s behaviour he encountered in fighting the red ribbon army?
Start date: 18 Dec
Pages: 113-130
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What a fun chapter! Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Goku’s friends to keep from him the secret of the tail, the moon and the giant ape form! Poor Goku has no idea what’s going on.
I had to look up this what this punctuation mark means on the first page: ※
Apparenty it’s called a komejirushi (米印) and acts like an asterisk - but tends to be in the text rather than a link to a footnote.
I thought there was a bubble on page 116 that said せめてら行にまとめてくれれば。After struggling to understand what the “ra line from the hiragana table” had to do with things, I realised it was actually ５行…
Page 117 - Vegeta says はじけてまざれっ which I read as “burst open and mix”. That didn’t make sense so looked at the translation of the original. It says “burst and mix”. 
I didn’t understand what happened to the Genkidama, I thought this was unclear in the drawing. It’s a bit more obvious in the original - this blog explains in more detail. Essentially Goku has the Genkidama in his right hand, but before he can attack with it Giant Ape Vegeta unleashes a mouth blast which hits Goku and disrupts him.
All that “zeno” talk from Vegeta really was hard to follow… Really made me feel like in Goku’s shoes.
On that note, didn’t quite get the construction of the sentence:
サイヤ人以外除く
以外
Noun, Adverb (fukushi)
除く
Godan verb with ku ending, Transitive verb
2. to exclude; to except
I think the sentence tries to say that inspite of his saying he is the strongest of the world, there’s an exception for a certain Saiyajin, Goku. However, why the double except-meaning words in the sentence? “Excepting the exception of a Saiyajin”?
That’s how I read it as well. I thought the asterisk marks this as an editor’s comment rather than Vegeta’s words. Vegeta is saying he’s the strongest on all planets, the editor’s comment is remarking that this excludes the Saiyans (as Goku is stronger than him).
I feel like I come across a number of examples in Japanese where there is apparent repitition of a word meaning/redundant word in an English translation. Sentences that say things like “it shines shinily”. Presumably they sound natural to Japanese even though they sound a bit odd in translation.
Just read next week’s chapter (56) a little ahead of schedule as other plans the next few days 
Lots of great one liners in this chapter - my favourite was Vegeta on page 140: しょせんクズの子はクズってわけなんか？ - After all, it makes sense that the son of piece of shit, is a piece of shit, right?
A close second was Kuririn’s complete misunderstanding of Goku’s intention when he asked to hold his hand!
Happy Christmas everyone!
At first I thought it was a horticultural proverb or something, because I thought of 葛 instead of 屑 Like ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’.
Start date: 1 Jan
Pages: 149-166
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I like the chopsticks cross! Although a cross to mark a grave doesn’t seem very Japanese!
I am taking this to be something like “if he’s moving that much, I won’t be able to hit him with my skill”. But it’s passive though. Why passive?
What’s the bottom left reference? チチの乳?
The reference to a beetle grave on page 163 confused me at first, but apparently Japanese kids keep them as pets and make graves for them when they die (with chopsticks I imagine ).
