レンタルおにいちゃん Volume 4

[ChristopherFritz]

Volume 4 Discussion Thread

Start Date: 2021-04-30T00:00:00Z

レンタルおにいちゃん Reading Club Home Thread

Vocabulary Lists

This is the first volume I haven’t transcribe, so I haven’t been able to auto-generate a list of Japanese words for the spreadsheet. Feel free to add words to it!

レンタルおにいちゃん Vocabulary

Reading Schedule

Based on the results of my last-minute poll, I’ve tried to work out a reasonable mix of chapter splits across one week or two weeks, considering also heaviness of dialogue in each chapter. Final week is end of series, so it can stretch out as far as each reader wants!

Week	Start Date	Pages*	Chapter
Week 1	Apr 30th	003–018 (14 pages)	Chapter 16 part 1
Week 2	May 7th	019–034 (14 pages)	Chapter 16 part 2
Week 3	May 14th	037–074 (27 pages)	Chapter 17
Week 4	May 21st	076–098 (18 pages)	Chapter 18 part 1
Week 5	May 28th	099–124 (19 pages)	Chapter 18 part 2
Week 6	Jun 4th	125–168 (25 pages)	Chapter 19
Week 7	Jun 11th+	171–222 (37 pages)	Chapter 20

* Pages with no dialogue (or only a few words) are excluded from page counts. For anyone reading a set number of pages each day, this may help with pacing.

Discussion Rules

• If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
• Please mention the chapter and page number.
• Please use spoiler tags for major events.
• If you read ahead, please hold questions questions until during or after the appropriate week.

[ChristopherFritz]

Week 1: Pages 003–018

Start Date: 2021-04-23T00:00:00Z

(I’ve started putting the correct timezone onto the start date, so it may show a different date. But I’m still posting new weeks the same day of the week as always, Friday afternoon my time.)

Participation

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(You can change your answer later if you’d like.)

• I’m reading along.
• I have finished this part.
• I’m still on an earlier volume.

[kousei22]

Hi everyone! First of all, many thanks @ChristopherFritz for setting up the thread for this final volume!
I´m so glad to be able to read alongside you guys to see how all of this ends! I´ve been quite busy this week so I´m a bit off pace (I´ve just started to read now) but just as I opened the first page, something struck me

Page 3

学校でいる物も…etc.

Shouldn´t 物 be used with ある? And how come there is a で particle with いる?

Sorry, it may be the silliest of questions and my mind could be temporally blocked, but it just doesn´t click!

Live edit: A bit of sunshine came… could it be not the existential verb いる but the 要る written in kana? However, in that case, is “X necessary for Y” expressed in the pattern Y でいる X"?

Thanks in advance!

[Belerith]

It’s been a while since I read this so I’m missing context, but just judging grammatically I agree with your assessment that it’s いる ‘to need’ here.

[ChristopherFritz]

Ah. WaniKani has lined up with my reading again.

(Two days ago.)

[ChristopherFritz]

I think there’s a bookstore in Koga City that’s winking at us:

“Things Needed for School / Koga Bookstore”

Unrelated to the contents of Kanami’s backpack, of course.

(Source.)

[kousei22]

Many thanks @Belerith and @ChristopherFritz for your feedback!!

@ChristopherFritz

Ah. WaniKani has lined up with my reading again.

And with my mind too… I haven´t reached level 28 yet but I just recently happened to learn that word outside WK and was so happy to see it!

[ChristopherFritz]

Week 2: Pages 019–034

Start Date: 2021-05-07T00:00:00Z

So… How are we feeling about お兄ちゃん these days?

Participation

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(You can change your answer later if you’d like.)

• I’m reading along.
• I have finished this part.
• I’m still on an earlier volume.

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

Completely forgot to put this thread in tracking mode…

@ChristopherFritz by the way the Home Thread doesn’t have a link to this thread and says that we are currently on volume 3… I tried editing it but it seems it’s not a wiki… thought you might want to update it…

[ChristopherFritz]

I totally slacked off too much on volume 4 prep that I didn’t even update the home thread? Aiee… Will update it now. Thanks!

[kousei22]

Hi everyone! How´s that reading going?

Astonishing week, right? By the way, am I the only one who didn´t immediately click on the まさか from Misuzu way back in volume 3, chapter 14, p. 127? Because now it completely makes sense and when I read it past then I thought: Why is Misuzu suddenly saying this word??

By the way, with this chapter´s radical info, how about a new Brother poll?

What team are you in? Any new Kazutaka fans out there?

• Makoto Team
• Kazutaka Team

Edit: I deleted the original post because for some reason I had clicked on “close the poll after 1 day”, which obviously I didn´t want!

[BarelyFragile]

This is a hard question. My opinion of Kazutaka has improved so far throughout volume 4, but I still can’t excuse his treatment of Kanami. Makoto has been mostly stellar all the way through though…so I guess this wasn’t a hard question after all.

[ChristopherFritz]

@kousei22

By the way, am I the only one who didn´t immediately click on the まさか from Misuzu way back in volume 3, chapter 14, p. 127?

Have you ever re-watched a movie you’ve seen, but with someone who’s seeing it for the first time, and at one scene you want to point out, “Take notice of this part and remember it,” but you know if you do that’ll ruin the surprise if they didn’t notice it on their own? That was me with that line.

@kousei22

how about a new Brother poll?

I’ve been wondering if I should give another poll related to him =D I forget if I’ve done two, or only one, so far.

[ChristopherFritz]

Week 3: Pages 037–074

Start Date: 2021-05-14T00:00:00Z

This is our first “big” week.

Be sure to ask if you have any questions that’re slowing you down too much!

I’ll be writing comments on some of the pages/grammar later, in case of may of be of use to anyone.

Participation

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(You can change your answer later if you’d like.)

• I’m reading along.
• I have finished this part.
• I’m still on an earlier volume.

[kousei22]

@BarelyFragile

so I guess this wasn’t a hard question after all

So so difficult for me, on the other hand!! I´m with you that his behaviour is, ultimately, inexcusable (and that´s why I ended up voting for Makoto), but with Misuzu´s reveal I´m actually starting to grow fond of all the suffering he has inside. I was tempted to go to his team. I mean, I totally get why @Belerith is there. Maybe I should have done a third “neutral” option. Now I kind of regret

If Kanami could use all the courage, experience and life lessons she has learned with Makoto to actually “save” Kazutaka and bring all this to a happy ending for all, it would be no words as to how stellar it would be for me. We´ll have to keep reading…

[ChristopherFritz]

Misc comments, summaries, etc:

Page 38: 「あれ」

I wonder if 「弱ってる花」 is used, rather than 弱い花, because the flower is in the process of getting weaker day by day.

I’m still not really “used to” verbs that end in てて. I understand that it’s [verb]ている, with the いる also in the て form (ていて), and then the い dropped (てて). I know I’ll get used to it with enough exposure, though!

Page 41: 「懐かしい夢……？」

Causitive is one of those things that I understand it when I see it…except for when it’s する, I seem to have a blind spot for it.

It comes up for me in the narration here: 「もう ひとりぼっちにさせない」. I have to carefully parse it out: する+causitive+ない.

Page 44: 「なんとか」

Maybe it’s just the irregular verbs in general that I need to take care to get better used to, as the しなきゃ here doesn’t immediately register to me as する + なきゃ. I know the verb and form, it’s just that it’s a blind spot for me. I must work harder to take notice of the forms of する, so I can get better used to them!

Page 46: 「ただの電池切れの…」

This makes for a nice contrast from a few pages earlier, where Kanami’s brother said that things like broken flowers cannot return to the way they used to be.

I don’t know if that one flower could have been “saved”, but as Makoto says about the clock, there are many things that can be tried to repair something.

Page 47: 「きっと他に原因が…」

For anyone struggling with this page, the gist of it is:

Makoto says there may be a different cause for the clock not working (aside from the prior page’s thought of it needing a new battery). Sure enough, inside he finds some fluid has leaked to an area where it’s not supposed to be. If he cleans it off (きれいにすれば), then it should should working again (ようになる: “to reach the point that; to come to be that; to turn into”).

Page 48: 「諦めなければ」

I always like seeing different uses of こと. Don’t know why.

Here’s another こと, the こと of 新しくできる (“newly able to do”) things, which take place only if 諦めない (“don’t give up”).

Page 52: 「今の叶美が」

As a native English speaker, I always like to see sentences with が in them. There’s a hint of familiarity for me.

And for some reason, when there’s a が-marked subject in there, it always makes me internalize the roll of the に-marked noun more easily. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I have a better idea what to expect by the time I reach the に particle.

(If this chapter were split over two weeks, this is where the split would have been.)

Page 53: 「ピッ ピッピピッ」

Even more than a year after moving into my home, this is how my room still looks =(

(Well, minus the trash bags.)

Page 55: 「また 新しい…」

I like her line in the bottom panels. “If it were the old me, I think I wouldn’t be able to do it. But, it’s different now.”

Pages 56-62

For anyone having difficulty, the gist of this section is:

Kanami had lost everyone (her parents, her brother) and had no one at school, so she couldn’t see a way forward. Makoto changed that for her, by showing her a world of people who were warm and kind, not scary. Reaching the end of the road means being able to see a new path.

But for her brother, he’s still in a dark place, alone and in pain. Kanami believes she can now help him find his way out of the darkness.

Pages 66-69

Boxes filled with things are heavy.

[Belerith]

@kousei22

I mean, I totally get why @Belerith is there.

It’s a mix of his backstory and, well, mostly how much Kanami wants to recover her good relationship with him, honestly.

[kousei22]

How´s everyone doing? I´m in such a cliffhanger at p. 58, but a particular word I can´t find anywhere has stopped me!

世界がぶわって

Haven´t got a clue what that is. The only similar thing I find is the onomatopoeia ぶわぶわ (spongy) which of course doesn´t make much sense. It should be a verb in て form, though.

I feel it´s a silly thing I´m missing, but I can´t figure it out

Thanks in advance!

[Belerith]

Most of the things I found also led to a meaning of ‘filled to bursting with water’ and the definition I’m basing my interpretation on also uses water in it’s example sentence. I’m open to more insights.

my interpretation

It’s not a verb in te form but an onomatopoeia with って acting as the quotation marker (instead of と). This onomatopoeia acts as an adverb and describes how the action of 広がる takes place. (It’s helpful to include the complete sentence, since context often matters quite a bit in Japanese ^^)

ぶわって・ぶわっと does mean the same as the ぶわぶわ you found. You can usually use onomatopoeic sounds doubled or not, and they’ll mean the same. (there’s differences, sometimes in whether or not the thing gets repeated)
In this case it’s somewhat helpful to look at a Japanese definition. This is the one I found on goo:

しまりがなくふくらんでいるさま。
「水を吸ってぶわぶわした畳」(the example sentence does talk about water again, though)

So it describes something that doesn’t keep it’s form and expands. I think this is meant metaphorically here, with no liquids involved. Just Kanami’s world expanding.

It’s pretty late here so I hope I didn’t write things in a confusing way.

[kousei22]

Many thanks @Belerith! Not confusing at all, perfectly explained! I didn´t know that the adverb と particle could also be replaced with って, that´s why I was confusing it too with a verb. Onomatopoeia are great, right? I myself tried saying the ぶわ out loud and yep, sounds like something is going to burst or expand

@Belerith

(It’s helpful to include the complete sentence, since context often matters quite a bit in Japanese ^^)

You´re totally right. I´ll make sure to include the full sentence next time

Edit: By the way, I just finished reading and all I can say is