I should have guessed that if the opponent’s Pokemon was Charmander last chapter, レッド would end up with Bulbasaur. Seems like a feisty one. I’m pretty sure my starter Pokemon never came with solar beam as a move… but my original green version Ash would appreciate the choice.
Reading wise I’m still finding some of the blurry characters challenging - like the first panel on page 30 with レッド responding to the Q about whether he knew solar beam. I know all those kanji - a number of them quite recent levels - but I still found that I struggled to recognise them. All good though! Practice makes perfect. I’m skimming over bits that I struggle with to avoid sinking way too much time into it and I can still enjoy the story.
I was uncertain on 「わしもおらんと」on page 23… I thought at first it was an old-fashioned way Oak is saying me and you, but I believe he is saying “not without me” as Red won’t know what to do without Oak there?
Also learned some new (what I refer to as) emotional ending sounds from Oak like 「め」for calling Red a burglar with contempt also on page 23.
Some other notable new words I learned about:
通う (かよ) - using it in the context of relating to connection with someone… I thought it was only for physical commuting before!
格闘 (かくとう) - could probably guess from the kanji, but seems like this might be useful Pokemon vocabulary?
しょってる - for the plant on the back of フシギダネ
Overall another fun chapter! Love the way they present the Pokemon in their balls
Had to pause on this for a moment as well due to the lack of kanji. Adding to what you have here, Oak is saying:「儂も おらん と」
儂 (わし) is a first person pronouns that is associated with older folks.
おる is another variant on the existence verb いる, and this stack exchange post has some nice quick-info on it. It’s a more humble form of the existence verb, but also associated with older folks. And apparently the etymology is いる came from ゐる (wiru) and おる came from をる!
I bought the book yesterday, I thought I might be able to read some, but it is too difficult for me at the moment. I really love Pokémon, I hoped I’m at good enough level, I feel bad now that it is too hard for me.
Use it to motivate you to keep going I bought a physical copy of Crayon Shinchan and every time I saw it lying around it reminded me what made me want to learn Japanese in the first place. Japanese people are horrified when they learn Shinchan is my muse lmao
This is how I was when I started reading it too but it got easier! The trick is to be consistent with reading.
You gather loads of momentum and there’s a lot of repeat vocab (it’s like free SRS!) so look up become a lot less frequent
Also, I like that it follows the games and not the anime, it’s a completely new adventure so I was always excited to find out what happens next.
I like the variety of Pokémon too, a lot of the main cast are ones I’ve never really had an opinion about before and they quickly became favourites of mine! The artwork is really cute for them all
I tried again to read the first page, this time on the Book walker app, but the furigana is really blurry, i barely can tell what they mean, even with zooming.
The most interesting thing I’m getting from this is learning the Japanese names of Pokemon. So faar, I’m not finding the whole thing too difficult. We’ll see if that changes. I do kinda wish this manga had a defined schedule though.
I feel like I’m having a much easier time reading this than I “should” based on my Japanese level and it’s great!
Frankly I don’t know a lot of the vocabulary or the grammar (in particular the way the professor speaks), but knowing, for example, what a pokedex is and how it works does a lot to smooth things over (and though it’s been many years since I read Pokemon Special, I do think having read it in English makes a bit of a difference)!
I’m feeling a lot more confident than I did before that I could keep up if we increased the pace.
At the end when they say 「究極のポケモントレーナー」it made me think of the only other time I remember seeing that word. Which is for Shadow the Hedgehog haha, because he’s the “ultimate life form”, in Japanese he’s the “究極の生命体”
Me too! I bought my copy of Crayon Shinchan years ago and I read a chapter from time to time, but it’s still too difficult for me. I still find it funny though.
It can be super tricky! Especially when a sentence seems like a non-sequitur and then after a lot of googling I find out it’s because it’s some 90s Japanese pop culture reference
I bought a physical copy of Crayon Shinchan and every time I saw it lying around it reminded me what made me want to learn Japanese in the first place. Japanese people are horrified when they learn Shinchan is my muse lmao
