As usual, the book club did its thing, and 断つ is a word I learned literally earlier today on WK.
This was a lot of fun! I think with this chapter I’ve gotten a lot more into the manga. Looking forward to next week!
A few scattered, basic thoughts on the events themselves
If that guy is going to show up with different glasses constantly, I’m totally down for that. It’s a great look.
Those costumes sure surprised me haha, love it.
The little girls’ chaos was just really out in full force this time, and it’s fun to see. The banana sales on the car and all that was great. When reading よつばと I thought that that manga, making children out to be that adorable, was the best chance at increasing Japan’s birth rate… and this manga serves the exact opposite function!
Not sure this one got answered. ったく I think is short for まったく - “completely”. いい加減に is short for いい加減にしろ - cut it out!
It looks like Saitou speaking. 騙されやすい is an adjective meaning “gullible”. 年頃 could perhaps be defined - “the approximate age, judging by appearances”. So I think he’s referring to the old lady and saying - “Does she look the sort of age to be gullible?”
In case they missed this, that’s definitely what it is, but I just want to make it explicit that these are also used as a sort of “good grief” style expression.
You’ve got it! I think of it as kind of slurred, drawn out sound. Technically the dash is just a katakana thing, though it wouldn’t surprise me if people mix them somewhere in manga, where rules mean nothing. You probably noticed, but they frequently pair this with the sort of vowel shift, writing the words how they’re said rather than how they’re actually spelled, here, ない becoming ねぇ and whatnot. It’s probably also represented this way to make it immediately clear that that’s what’s going on. You’ll see it used for trailing off sounds too, whether a scream or someone just dragging out the end of a thought.
I’m also relatively certain that if it’s written in kana and it is alone, it’s usually the “good grief” meaning. I’ve only personally seen it used as the adverb “completely” when written as 全く, or when in a phrase like まったくもって or まったくのところ.
My first question is: what does っつか at the beginning of Saitou’s sentence mean? My second question is about sentence structure: I was wondering if 何だお前ら is actually a separate sentence? After all, だ is a verb (in non-past) and later we get another verb (in non-present) (じゃなかった). So I read his sentence as: What is with you? Weren’t you protecting the peace of the this city?. Is that correct?
First of all: Who is talking? Saitou? Also: Why past tense? If Saitou is talking, I would expect him to say: Look, go home. But that would be present tense…
Page 27
I was also wondering about 買や instead of 買う, and I was wondering about the いいんだろ part. So いいです means it’s good and I believe ろ to add emphasis. That’s why I read the sentence as: I’ll buy, it’s fine already, I’ll buy! But that translation does not take ー between 買や and いいんだろ into account. Is there a better translation?
I believe it’s a (very) lazy っていうか, which when at the beginning of a sentence, is used when you kinda want to rephrase something you just said. Sorta like an english, “Or rather; or perhaps I should say”
I also read it as two separate sentences, because of the bubble split, so I agree with your interpretation.
I think Saitou is the one speaking, yes. I don’t believe it’s past tense, though. I think it’s 帰ったなさい, the command to go home, but with the なさい dropped. Ehhhh. I’m actually doubting my read of this. So strike that, and let somebody else answer, because that’s not how that would usually be formed… I still read it as a command, but not sure why it’s 帰った
I’ll leave 27 to somebody who is more knowledgeable; I’m still not confident enough in my reading of it to feel comfortable giving an answer.
買や is possibly some contracted form of 買えば (and ー is just lengthening the sound to imitate speech). だろ I believe to be だろう, so “I guess I’d better buy them”
After finishing this chapter…
I hate the dumb girls and I’m entirely team Saitou. Sorry if this is bursting anyone’s bubble.
Some questions:
Summary
I get the meaning of “Sacchan, this fruit is an amazing product”, but と doesn’t make sense to me in this context. “With Sacchan [being here], this fruit is amazing” or something maybe?
Is that at the end just こう? “Let’s rapidly go that way” or something?
Not entirely sure about this one. I interpret it as “about that last [bunch of bananas], [o] righteous allies, Colours, that enemy [is]…”, implying that they’re reinterpreting their quest to sell bananas as some sort of RPG where they have to slay monsters?
I don’t think this question was actually answered and I also had some trouble with it. I remember てもいい from Genki as meaning “it’s allowed to…”, but somehow “because you can die, buy this, Saitou” doesn’t strike me as particularly meaningful.
(about: それいいとこ無しじゃねぇか).
Can you explain how you arrive at that meaning? I can’t piece the individual words together here.
Another one that wasn’t answered. I can’t make sense of the か in there, although I would assume assume that it means “you’re also an idiot”.
I’m not sure what this should mean, literally it reads like “we’ll cut off the bones and flesh” or “the bones and flesh are cutting off [something]”, but that doesn’t make any sense.
Are the kids saying that? It’s really so hard to make out who is saying what in this manga sometimes, first I thought the mom was saying this.
Assuming that that thing at the end is another non-standard way of writing 行こう, does this mean something like “let’s go destroy Saitou again”?
The last character is just a small tsu for effect or something, right? It seems almost like a regular tsu.
Is it the mother who’s having the bad feeling (because of what the kids just said)?
You already got a translation, but: 1. you left off a に, 2. structurally, the お前らに構ってる part is modifying 暇, so he’s talking about “the free time [to be caring about you guys]”.
For your first question, ところ is shortened to とこ in casual speech (based on what I read). So I read this sentence as The fruits from さっちゃん’s place (aka the store the mother is running) are amazing
いってこーっ is the shortened and volitional version of 行ってきた which means “to go and come back” “Let’s go and come back quickly” is how I translated this sentence
I’ve reached the same translation as you and sadly, can’t help you with that
You should be correct. いこーっ is a much casual version than いこう. I think children tend to omit う sounds because they want to sound exaggerated
Sadly, I have no idea how to organise everything like many people here who answer the questions do and this is the limit of my knowledge.
To expand on the answer given earlier, you’ll sometimes see this where (typically) the furigana tells what the person says, but the main text gives the meaning. In this case, one of the girls is saying サイトウ (by name), but the “meaning” is “警察”, perhaps to remind the reader of who the character by that name is.
In some cases, the main text may not include kanji and/or the furigana may include kanji. (I don’t think we’ll see that in this series, though.)
Some authors use it the other way around, where the main word is what is being said, and the furigana gives the meaning, such as saying 「あいつ」 with furigana telling the name of who あいつ refers to.
It can be a bother when the kanji and furigana don’t match up, because then you can’t look up the kanji as easily. But that’s why weren’t all here on WaniKani, isn’t it? So we can read that kanji regardless of the status of furigana, whether there is no furigana, or if it is there but it’s playing shenanigans on us.
I read this as, “You too, blockhead?!” If English would allow a question mark mid-sentence, I’d have put it before the comma rather than at the end.
This follows Saitou saying, “I don’t want it. I don’t want it at all. I could die of not wanting it.”[/spoiler] This leads to Sacchan saying:
くたばる + て + も + いい = “it’s okay if you drop dead”
から = “because (of that”)
買え = “buy (it)” (impertative form)
よ = emphasis
All together, it’s along the lines of saying “It’s find if you drop dead, so buy it already!” in English.
Even though he’s using a raised voice here, with the です I wonder if he isn’t actually speaking to the old woman here. Something like, “Are you at an appropriate age to be so gullible?”
His verbal treatment of the kids in chapter one starts to make more sense…
This one’s a tricky one at first, but it’s とこ, which is short of ところ (place). Thus さっちゃん(の)とこ(ろ) is Sacchan’s place, referring to her mother’s shop.
The は marks 「さっちゃんとこの果物」 and the topic. The comment being made on this topic is 「絶品だ」. “On the topic of Sacchan’s place’s fruit, it is an exquisite item.”
I wonder if this is from 行ってくる + volitional = 行ってこよう. A web search didn’t turn up any decent results, but I did find that for the anime they rewrote the line as 「よーし！売るぞ！」
正義の味方 is modifier カラーズ, for a meaning of “Colors, the Defenders of Justice”, the group the girls formed (which took place sometime before chapter one). The enemy of Colors is Saitou (something that also seems to have come to be before chapter one).
Kotoha’s working out how she’ll making use of the reward. She’s essentially saying, “I will sever bones and flesh.” Recall her line from the start of the chapter, when she agrees with Sacchan’s idea back in the clubhouse secret hideout.
It is indeed the kids (I’m guessing Sacchan, as she seems to be the idea person of the group).
Over time, you get used to speech patterns and personality types, and you get better at recognizing who’s saying what. (That’s how I knew the speaker in my response above was Kotoha.)
When a っ is at the end of a sentence, it’s sort of like putting an exclamation point in English, although maybe with a bit less strength to it than an exclamation point.
Welcome to manga =D
In English writing, it’s considered bad style to write words the way they’re spoken. But it’s common in Japanese comics. Y’ull git yuztuit. (You’ll get used to it.)
Saitou’s probably the most difficult person to understand for first-time readers, because of how he talks. But it’s also something that you’ll see over time if you (first-time readers) keep reading manga.
Here's from a manga I'm reading right now. (Seeing this panel reminded I wanted to reply about this.)
And here's from a chapter of another manga I read earlier today.
I still make this mistake from time to time even after a couple of years of reading =(
It results in a brief moment of “Wait, that doesn’t make sense,” followed by re-reading the line more slowly and catching my mistake. One day I may overcome とこ＋の!
I thought it was 行こう shortened to こー, not こよう. I may be wrong.
I can’t find any good references, but the way I’ve seen いいとこ無し used seems to roughly mean “no good”. If you take いいとこ to mean good thing, strong point as Jisho suggests, and 無し a suffix meaning without, ~less, you can sort of arrive at the meaning. じゃねぇか is just adding emphasis.
This was my original thought as well, and it may very well be. 行く＋いく = go somewhere, then go somewhere else = sounds right for trying to sell something.
But I can’t remember whether the い in いく gets dropped the same as い in いる.
