It’s not a mystery, not sure if シュ一さん or the gang will ever understand it, but you have the power of google on your side. We even mentioned the exact kind of code in the spoilers above. I recommend going ahead and translating it for yourself.
I have to say, it was the opposite for me, lol. When it got nominated, I wasn’t looking forward to it too much because it felt… too cute and fun for me? But I was somehow curious with the trigger warnings and things like that. The previous chapters already dropped some interesting hints, but this chapter really got me hooked on it further.
No one is questioning why しーさん has seen them both 50 years ago, but still looks very… young? And why did he carry a cross on his shoulder in the timelapse?
This is currently my main concern that I hope will be answered
Apparently 揃 is not on WK. Even seems to not be a Joyo Kanji, though the words that I have seen on Jisho range from JLPT N2-N1. What kind of word is 揃いで?
My understanding is that 揃い is a suffix that can be appended to nouns to say “matching”. 美形揃い would be “matching beauties”. で I believe is just the particle で - in this case used to mark the reason (they were famous).
This chapter actually met my expectations of the manga going in. Sure, the artwork is cute and might seem disarming, but even from the cover, I got the feeling that things might be more bleak than the art shows, wuth that overgrown 止まれ sign giving some hints. Odds are very good I am going to have no self control and I’m going to finish the manga this weekend.
I had never heard of wabun as a code system, but when I saw the 4 symbols, my assumption of what 4-kana combination was likely in that situation ended up bearing out. As soon as I looked up the chart and saw the first kana was what it was, I had a little bit of pride that I assumed correctly.
Definitely an intriguing manga, and I’m all on board with it!
Oh no, quite the opposite. I thought your post was very thought-provoking. And I’m pretty sure the writer had in mind that quite a few readers wouldn’t know/figure out what the morse code says, so I do think he is trying to evoke the kinds of questions that you mentioned.
Oh noo this chapter was so sad! I initially thought along the same lines as @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz where I was like “well I find this really unsettling, but I shouldn’t judge too much when I don’t know all the details”, but then I deciphered the code… (thank you everyone for mentioning it was wabun code so I could figure it out) It makes me feel so sad that on page 49 you can see the husband repeating it over and over on the panel.
And then the happy little illustration of the two of them when they were young at the very end of the chapter (page 55)
Sorry, got the formatting wrong in my previous post so the spoilers weren’t hidden, then panicked and deleted it instead of fixing it
100% agreed! If anything, after reading your thoughts on it, I kinda wish that the morse code couldn’t be deciphered and that the situation stayed ambigious.
For me, it didn’t feel very ambigious, because I didn’t even try to see it from a non-human perspective. It just felt horrifying, with him essentially being a prisoner with no way of communicating, in a body that has been failing for what must feel like an eternity. And Mashu doesn’t even seem to acknowledge any of that. I wonder if it’s a difference in how her race thinks, or if she was driven mad by the thought of him dying. And if Rojica even thinks about it, we don’t see that; the only one reflecting on the situation and how the husband might feel seems to be Rakkasei.
Very glad to hear that! It was similar for me; the first two chapters were nice, but it was the third one where I really started to get into the manga.
Oh, I was wondering if anybody would notice those things!
I recommend reading it all in 4 days!
I know, right? They seem so happy back then
Page 52 question
Can this be read as “That a recent matter, isn’t it?” That how I originally understood it, but it seems a fan translation disagrees (instead opting for “Who said I saw them recently?”) and the とっくに also seems to point in the opposite direction.
According to this entry, 揃い when used as a suffix means “all” or “every one”, and I think the で is just the te-form for linking. So I interpreted this as しーさん saying that people of the famous plant race are all beautiful. (Edit: or famously beautiful)
I might be a little stupid here, but can someone tell me what that code translates to? Tried doing it, couldn’t figure it out. Or is it all just “Help”?