夏目友人帳 - Natsume’s Book of Friends: Chapter 3 Discussion

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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夏目友人帳 Chapter 3

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Start Date: November 10th
Previous Chapter: Chapter 2
Next Chapter: Chapter 4

Vocabulary List

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for content that would be considered a spoiler.
  • When asking for help, please mention the page, panel, and speech bubble.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle_the_explorer:

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夏目友人帳 - Natsume’s Book of Friends: Chapter 4 Discussion
夏目友人帳 - Natsume’s Book of Friends: Chapter 2 Discussion
#2

The number of people reading along is divided by 2 at each chapter :see_no_evil:

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#3

Standard book club :grin:

Always sad to see though. Gonna do my best to contribute again this week ^^

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#4

I would have tried to catch up today… if I hadn’t forgotten my copy of the manga somewhere. Oh well… maybe I’ll be able to read chapters two and three next weekend, and then join the discussion for chapter 4!

#5

I have to say I’ve found less advanced bookclubs easier, because so many people post questions that is saves me a lot of time in reading the book… As it is, time wise it is difficult for me to read the book and post all the questions that I encounter :slight_smile:

Continued: and so I’ve skipped most of chapter two to try to follow along and stay in the active thread :slight_smile: It helps that I’ve watched the anime so know all the stories :slight_smile:

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#6

Alright, I have some actual questions!

Page 107 (probably - who knows at this point)

Middle panel

あいつ影
薄いから

Can 影 refer to a person’s ‘presence’, as it were, rather than just their literal shadow? I assume this character isn’t literally saying that Natsume has a weak shadow :grin:

Page 109

Bottom-right panel

多くの妖怪達に名を紙に書かせ
集めた

Just curious what the conjugation of 書く is here - causative (which would explain the に being attached to the 妖怪達)?

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#7

Yes, it can. Similarly 人影 means presence (as in someone being there).

I don’t know the context (since I don’t have the book :sweat_smile:) but yes, that causative. Someone have made many yokai write their own name (and the same someone has gathered those names).
Crazy how things can be easier to express in one language compared to another.

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#8

Yeah, I can’t imagine how difficult it is to translate books well.

Cheers Nath! So is the way that 書かせ集めた just runs into each other (rather than e.g. 書かせて) a result of the casual speech?

#9

No, it’s more like you can use 集める as a verb suffix (I don’t know the actual technical grammatical term). It adds the idea of gathering to the previous action. Here are some examples:

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#10

Aah, thank you. That was my initial assumption but I couldn’t find any specific examples on Jisho (which does usually mention auxiliary verb functions, I think?).

Only four pages in and already learned something new :heart_eyes:

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#11

Page 117, the two 妖怪 are marching along, calling out そののけー、そののけー、下にー, 下にー
Are they referencing something I should know about?

#12

Yeah so here’s me checking my unread threads every day to check whether anyone’s posted anything in chapter 3 yet… only to realise a week too late that that I haven’t even bookmarked it properly :see_no_evil:
Anyhow, hi, somehow, I’ve been able to keep up so far :joy::joy:

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#13

I have 10 pages to go!
Better stop browsing the forums and go read it!

#14

OK, I finally made it through Ch 3!
I have to say I quite liked Cyclops and Cowface, especially when they were acting as his cheer squad at school. Also when ニャンコ先生 showed up with おみやげ :grinning:
It was a bit sad around the p130+ mark when it turned out his new friend was just another 妖怪 :disappointed_relieved:

By the way, I’ve not had the time or (to be honest) the inclination to read all those text boxes which show up from time to time on the left hand side eg p135. My impression is that they are not critical for the storyline… if someone could confirm that, I would appreciate it.

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#15

I’m still catching up a little myself!

I don’t believe so (and I’ve also been skipping them). From what I read of the first one, they’re basically little messages from the author, and I seem to remember somebody way back reassuring me that they were all like that. So basically they’re entirely external to the story itself.

#16

The very left speech bubble on page 109 reads

彼らの命ともいえる「名」を握っていても
仕様はないので返還に応じる日々なのだが

I dont understand the second half. What does 仕様 refer to and what does 返還に応じる mean?

#17

Hi!

The second line is 仕様がない, but instead of looking just at 仕様, you need to look at the phrase as a whole. It has the same meaning as 仕方がない. If you also aren’t familiar with that phrase, it means something like “can’t be helped” or more literally, “there is no way (not to do something).”

返還に応じる、this means to agree/to comply with returning, i.e. the returning of the names of the yokai. (On the page is also the phrase: 名の返還を求める妖怪).

This my interpretation:

Because I have their names, which are also their lives, in my hands,
I have no choice but to comply with their requests day after day.

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#18

Chapter 4 thread is up! (final chapter :tada:)

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