Page 34, Panel 2, old geezer
ああ 商品として 置いてた 金庫なんだが
back the nan up..
please could you help me with なん
I’ve got it as
‘it’s being left out as a product’
'it’s a safe, however … ’
‘(next bubble)… who’s action/deed (is it) in this way’
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This involves the explanatory の, which is used to fill in information missing from a situation.
Consider the following sentence:
「商品として置いてた金庫だ」
This is a statement: “It is a safe placed out (on a shelf) as a product (to sell).”
The reason he’s saying this is to explain the situation of the safe. Prior to this, Saitou and the kids already were aware that there was a safe, but they didn’t know why there was a safe.
When taking a situation with incomplete information (there’s a safe, but why is there a safe?), and adding in the missing information (this is why there is a safe), Japanese has specific grammar for this. This is done by turning the sentence into a noun, and adding だ, resulting in a noun sentence that reads as 「It is (sentence).」 Here, “it” refers to the missing information which is being presented.
Adding の＋だ to this results in:
「商品として 置いてた 金庫だのだ」
However, this is not proper grammar. Instead, that original だ becomes な:
「商品として 置いてた 金庫なのだ」
Now we have proper grammar.
In speech, it’s common for this の to be pronounced as ん:
「商品として 置いてた 金庫なんだ」
This changes the sentence from simply a statement of fact, to a statement that fills in the missing information: “It is that it is a safe placed out (on a shelf) as a product (to sell).”
As is common when comparing Japanese with English, we don’t quite have this structure in English. (Starting an English sentence with “It’s because…” is very close, though.) For the most part, this is something you’ll get used to over time, so long as you take notice of のだ and (な)のだ and their spoken counterparts んだ and (な)んだ, and ask yourself, “What is the partial information, where this のだ line is the missing information being provided (or asked for)?”
Edit: Just to be sure, I should mention so that 「商品として 置いてた」 is a modifier for 金庫. It’s giving information about the 金庫. Rather than simply “a safe”, it’s “a safe that was placed out (on the shelf) as a product (to sell)”. If you see a verb followed by a noun, it means the noun is being modified by the clause (partial sentence) that ends up that verb.
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thank you for the write-up; appreciated as always
It’s the trailing が in the sentence that is causing disruption…
I’ve most often come across it as a subject marking particle, and it’s a funny place for that use, so I’ve thought it’s だが (even though now when I read that it says it’s for formal written… definitely not manga then)
and then the only other が that I know is a formal ‘but’
edit: said or, meant but , confusing with か
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It’s the が meaning “but” (same as in the だが construction you linked to). You will often see it trailing in speech, implying there’s a continuation to the sentence left unsaid. Its role in these cases is often to soften the tone of whatever is being said.
Here it’s not really trailing however, it’s connecting 商品として 置いてた 金庫なんだ to 誰の仕業かこのとおり as a straightforward “but”.
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＊shakes fist at conjoined bubbles ＊
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Page 36, Panel 3, Old Geezer
俺は店に戻るとすっか
What’s the end of the sentence? Is it すっか or すつか. Couldn’t make sense of it.
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I believe this is may be a contraction of とするか (to decide to).
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And to make things more fun, this HiNative posting suggests it can also be しよう (as well as する).
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Interesting, the question is on exactly the phrase we’re discussing…
I’m not sure I’m understanding it correctly, but I think they’re saying that とするか is equivalent in meaning to としよう, not that すっか is a contraction of としよう as such.
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I’ve chuckled at 2 things I’ve translated … what happening…
(as in I’ve found the manga funny, not laughing at my translating… crying at times yes…)
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Just wanted to check my comprehension on a couple points.
Page 35, panel 1, am I correct that there are two sentences in the first bubble but without periods? That is, I’m seeing じゃあ これを渡しておく followed by 犯人からの暗号だ. I’m reading this as (loose translation) “Well then, I’ll hand over this. It’s a clue from the culprit.” I think the ておく might be the grammar point “to do something in advance,” but I’m not sure what that grammar would add here. Alternately, perhaps the first “sentence” is all together modifying 犯人, but I think that’s unlikely. I don’t see how that interpretation would work or add anything to my original translation.
Page 38, panel 3, I think ことは speaks first followed by さっちゃん. ことは says (loosly) “sorry, I didn’t follow (your meaning)” and さっちゃん replies with “they thought poop was completely unrelated.” I’m not sure why は is needed in this sentence.
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Page 35, panel 1
I agree it’s two sentences, there should be either a period or a comma there. As for ておく, it basically means doing something now so that it will come in useful later. So: I’m giving you this (now, so that maybe later it will help you open the safe).
Page 38, panel 3
I think Kotoha says “Sorry I couldn’t keep up with you”. (Satchan is shown to be running ahead of the other girls when she enters the bakery). Kotoha probably wishes she had been in the bakery too to witness the chaos, or possibly contribute to it.
I’m not sure which girl speaks next, Satchan probably, but I believe she says “I think poop was completely unrelated”. は just adds emphasis and an implied contrast, like there’s a though or but in the sentence. I’m not absolutely sure whether she means it’s unrelated to the riddle or to the baker’s reaction though.
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Thanks to reading through this discussion all of the sentences that I had marked as unclear/uncertain I feel much more confident about. As always, thanks to everyone for asking questions and for those who are very patiently sharing their experience!
I’m curious where it was agreed to that we’d stay on two weeks per chapter. I saw there were some questions about it and a poll and only a few comments that I felt didn’t particularly lean one way or the other. I don’t at all mind the slower pace as I’m not in a rush to finish this book but I was wondering if I had missed some bigger discussion?
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The cat gives two claps and she wishes to win (the competition she’s entered). Presumably this is copying what people do at a Japanese shrine, clapping twice before making their wish and praying.
Has anyone else been confused whether the cat that looks like a panda is a toy or a real cat?! (I’ve decided it’s real. I think…)
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She (he?) does look very passive and toy-like, doesn’t she? Especially when the girls are holding her. She’s presented as a real cat, but I’m suspicious.
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It was mostly down to the number of people who voted in last week’s poll for continuing with a two-week pace. It’s very common for the ABBC to lose a lot of readers in the first month, leaving us with first-time readers who’ve stuck it out thus far but could be on the cusp of dropping out. Micki has brought up this situation, which I’ve both observed and experienced in the clubs.
There’s also the consideration of holidays for December (although I didn’t mention this one) where a lot of people may have reduced time for deciphering their way through pages.
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Conclusion of chapter 3, and the case of the locked safe:
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I interpreted it differently but I might totally be off. I thought that な here would be a form of だ at the end of a subordinate clause. So I thought the whole thing would mean something like “I made a mistake which is that it’s a safe, not poop”.
I’m aware I’m pretty late to the party, but maybe you are nonetheless willing to elaborate a bit? I am so confused how these sentences connect, especially, since I’m not sure what 誰の仕業かこのとおり means…
My current translation: It’s a safe, which is put as a product, but whose deed? As you can see.
Does the old geezer mean to say that someone closed the safe which he had a product? Or that someone unknown put the locked safe as a product in his shop? 
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I’m not entirely confident on how to break down this second phrase to be honest.
Your translation seems okay as a first step, just disjointed. I’d regard 誰の仕業か as an indirect question, seeing that か is not at the end and he doesn’t seem to be interested in who did it, so I’d change it to “someone did it” and I’d probably interpret このとおり more as “like this”. So the result might be something like “It’s a safe I put out as a product, but by someone’s wrongdoing (it ended up) like this.” If someone is more confident in their interpretation, please chime in.
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