That makes sense; the only reason I assumed animated was because the motion was described, and also because of this page that came up when I looked it up. 
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Nice! It features a very nice bowing frog too. I only came across static images in my search for some reason…
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I did specify LINE in my search, since it was mentioned in the text, so maybe that’s the reason for the difference in the searches, given that page is very much an official LINE store?
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Oh okay! Interesting, then! Just the algorithm choosing different things to show us, I guess!
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Alright, read a few more pages!
ebook page 8:
- そしたら、今みたいに息をひそめて教室にいる目立たない地味なあたしじゃなく、明るく元気な新しい自分に生まれ変わろう！
I think I get the meaning of the sentence (the subsentence relationships of that monster sentence would be worthy of a diagram, phew!), but why is it じゃなく? What is it modifying? (And the sentence is “And then, instead of holding by breath and trying to be the plain me who’s not standing out in class like right now, a cheerful new me full of energy will be born!”, right?)
ebook page 9:
- あたしはまたここで、息をひそめるようにして、生きていくしかないんだ。
“I’m again here (in this situation), making sure to hold my breath, having no choice but to keep on living.”?
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P8:
Yes your translation is essentially correct. I don’t see a “trying to be” in there but overall the meaning comes across. Also the second part is volitional which doesn’t necessarily reflect in your translation. Translating is always a bit iffy.
じゃなく is the copula after あたし in this sentence. So “not the (whole sentence modyfing) me”. It is no longer the “current holding breath yadayda” me.
Would the sentence end right there you would have to but a だ there. But since I will be no longer this pathetic self it is negative ではない. And then you connect to the next sentence to give what you will change into with ではなくて and voila じゃなく(て).
Does that make sense?
P9:
The 息をひそめるようにして modifies the WAY in which she is keeping on living here. I don’t have a perfect translation either.
Here again there is nothing to do but to keep living on making sure to hold my breath.
Bah thats a rough rough english sentence ^^
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I think that both じゃなく (adverbial form of じゃない) and 明るく modify 元気な新しい自分 here. As in, her new self will be cheerfully and not holding her breath trying not to stand out etc 元気.
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Thanks for pointing out what I mistranslated!
Mostly! I’m was mainly wondering why it ends with く, sorry to not be more clear there. I would’ve understood じゃないで (without being) and じゃなくて (not being, and…), but じゃなく seems like an adverbial ではない and I don’t understand what it is modifying.
Hmmm. That might be it, thanks! The comma really doesn’t help there, haha.
Oh! What’s the grammar here that makes it a modifier? I would’ve expected it to be a connective て, so two separate sentences and not a modifier on the how she keeps living. (Although I can see how it could be “Nothing to do but [keep on living] and [making sure to hold my breath].”, so two separate things that she has no choice to do.)
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It is a connective て it’s just a little in the way you interpret it.
It really is all context and here this makes the most sense. It’s like 歩いて帰る. The way you return home is by walking. And the same thing is happening here with the にして生きていく. The way you go on living is by making sure…
The て in written japanese is much more optional than many people think. じゃなく is just a more literary form of the じゃなくて you know and love.
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Tofugu has a nice analysis on the ku and te forms of adjectives. They can both be used to link clauses together but the nuance is very slightly different.
Using the く form to link clauses together is generally considered to be more formal and literary than using the て form. Linguists still debate exactly why this is, but let’s take a look at one interesting theory.[…]This is because the く form implies a looser, more indirect relationship between the two clauses. Indirectness is one way of raising the formality level in Japanese, so this explains why the く form is more associated with formal writing than its て form equivalent.
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I’m curious if I got this sentence right:
クラスのリーダー的なそんざあで、アイドルのセンターで歌ってるこに似ていることもあって、クラスの人気者。
Does this mean something along the lines of
He was a class leader, looked like the front singer of an idol group and he was the most popular person in class.
?
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Summary
It’s more like “With a class-leader-like existence, similar to the front singer of an idol group, she* was the most popular in class.”
*This is talking about Yayako, the girl who bullied Hanabi in elementary.
So, aside from gender, yeah, you got it pretty much right. Though Hanabi wasn’t comparing her to an idol group singer in looks, more like in the sort of air she has. Edit: At least, I don’t think she was…? Now that I think about it more, it’s possible she might have been…
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Ohh, I was originally reading it as separate too, but I can see now how it’s not. It’s not a “not A but B” construction, but a “B which is not A” construction where the whole phrase that’s negated by じゃない is used to modify B, which is a little different. Makes me wonder a bit whether the other じゃなくs I’ve come across that I interpreted as a “not A but B” were actually like this, though I definitely won’t be able to find them easily…
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クラスのリーダー的な存在で (Her existence was very leader-like)、アイドルのセンターで歌ってる子に似ていることもあって (similar to a singing idol taking center stage)、クラスの人気者 (she was the popular thing in our class)。
More naturally: “(Yayako) had the air of a class leader, like a singing idol star, she was Miss Popular of our class.”
What’s important is this is Yayako’s description from Hanabi’s point of view. This might also be what a lot of other students see when they think of Yayako, hence why they follow her, but you can already see how Hanabi views her worth by putting a fellow student on a pedestal like that.
I got it clarified and you’re right! I need to stop overthinking. 
Though we had an interesting discussion about different viewpoints for that section. The target age group reading is supposed to feel bad for Hanabi even if they recognize she’s technically at fault for her mistakes.
Adults reading it would think Yayako was in the right because in the real world, if you’re constantly making mistakes in your work, you’re bringing the other people in your company down. (Sounds reasonable, so to speak, considering Japan is very teamwork-oriented.) But I wonder how westerners feel when reading it? Do you guys justify Yayako’s words in that moment (perhaps ignoring anything else she might have done that you are aware of) or do you just pity Hanabi in that moment?
Personally I don’t like victim blaming that comes with interpreting that scene because no matter the reason for it, bullying is never right. But the other interesting thing my husband mentioned was just looking at this scene separately, you wouldn’t even know Yayako was a bully because a real friend would also scold someone they care about so they can improve themselves. If they didn’t really care about you, they wouldn’t say anything.
I don’t know if this is just unique to Japanese culture, but with the 建前 culture, it’s true that with someone you aren’t close with, you don’t share your real feelings (本前) because you don’t have any significant relationship with them. If it’s a close friend and they do something stupid, then you’ll call them out on it because you two are close enough that even if they feel bad about what you said, it wouldn’t be the end of the relationship because you understand each other. If you did it, to say, someone you hardly know, you could potentially make things awkward because you don’t really understand each other’s personalities to begin with.
Just wondering other people’s thoughts? Just to clarify, the 運動会 scene on page 7.
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That’s certainly an interesting point of view, and does make a certain amount of sense, even if personally, I don’t feel the same.
Coming from a western point of view, I wouldn’t justify Yayako’s actions. In western culture (well, American, anyway), people often have no qualms saying what they think (for better or worse), even to complete strangers. Certainly, kids are notorious for not having any sort of a filter. Is 建前 ingrained at such a young age in Japan? Taking into mind the events happened in the 5th year, that’s maybe 10-11 years old, right? Even the notoriously polite Canadians aren’t so polite at that age, and still brutally direct when they speak, so I’m curious about that.
I can also understand that with a real friend, you might “scold” (feels like the wrong word here. Even if I have told a friend something they are doing is wrong, scolding is not how I would describe it, since that implies a relationship of a higher-up and a subordinate as opposed to a relationship of equals) them, but there’s a method, a time, and a place. If I were to talk to a friend, I would not:
A: Be so direct. I would try to be kind and constructive, offering support and sympathy as much as I could (even if frustrated). I would not just tell them that I’ve never seen someone so bad at what they are doing that I couldn’t believe it.
B: I would not do it in front of everybody during the event. You only really publicly berate somebody like that if the goal is to humiliate, in my view, and humiliation is not a great tactic if you want to be friends with the person. It’s a wonderful tactic if you want to place yourself above them and make them feel less than, though, which I feel like is the goal of a bully.
With that in mind, I definitely feel for Hanabi in that moment. Even if you are aware you are bad at something, being told in that way is still disheartening and upsetting, made all the worse by the very public nature of it, and at an age where that kind of thing feels like the end of the world (even if it isn’t).
All that said, that is very much a western way of thinking, and is not necessarily applicable here. Your husband’s line of thought might be what’s actually expected by the author, if one were to judge off of a singular event.
I also think we have enough information (though, admittedly given by a first person narrator whose thoughts are coloring our own view) to judge Yayako as, if not a bully, certainly not very kind, if we look beyond just that event (though that is outside the scope of your question, of course).
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Let me just start off by saying I agree with everything you said. Being a westerner raised in the states, my views line up very similarly with yours. Sometimes I do forget how extremely different the two cultures are having been used to the way things are here (which is scary). So everything I write below isn’t necessarily what I support, but the way things are in Japan based on my observations.
I think the reason why people here tend to just endure the bullying or even harassment at work because (I think to them) the borderlines aren’t always clear. It’s actually encouraged at a young age to call out someone if they’re straying from the group or doing something wrong, and it’s a bonus if you can catch them in front of other people too to make an example of them (not necessarily in a bad way, but in case someone makes the same mistake they can learn from them - ideally anyway).
A couple of examples where it's encouraged
I’ve seen kids as young as my 1st graders and 2nd graders call each other out. For example, the homeroom teacher gives clear instructions to only work on the front page of the worksheet and not to proceed ahead (assuming that the student will probably not understand how to do it because directions aren’t given out, and they want everyone to work at the same pace). Another student might look over to see a neighbor working on the backside of a sheet and say it loud enough for the whole class to hear: “Hey, the teacher said you can’t work on that side yet!”
Or in an example that seems a little misplaced: A 2nd grader that knows how to write English letters and wants to write their name in English on the assignment but is told not to (because the other students can’t read yet and it’s the students that pass back the assignments to their classmates). The student (being mixed and obviously literate in English) proceeds to write in English anyway but also includes hiragana for his classmates. Another student calls him out because he didn’t follow direction and the teacher makes him erase the English to make it fair to the other students (who can’t read and write). In the same vein, they’re not allowed to write in kanji the whole class hasn’t learned yet.
The problem is they are very direct with their language when they are calling out that in times when the “scolding” was done for the sake of teaching a lesson, it can turn into bullying, especially when it’s encouraged by others. (What I mean by direct language is name calling is fairly common, like calling someone ばか when making a simple error. 下手くそ is also used a lot, which I’m personally not fond of because it has a strong connotation especially when you’re directly talking about another person.
But sometimes it’s difficult to understand the intention when using words that have different connotations in different situations like this one because it really depends on social status (same age, teacher-student, boss-worker, etc.). The social hierarchy plays a huge factor in Japanese language, and I think that’s why it’s also very difficult for non-native speakers, particularly westerners to really grasp the language if they don’t understand how the different relationships are supposed to work. (There’s also people that take advantage of this and use this as a cover to bully or harass others if their social standing is higher.)
Of course, there’s straight up bullying because person A doesn’t like person B for whatever reason, and they seem to be making more friends by appearing stronger than the people they’re doing the bullying to. In my opinion, I thought Yayako was this kind of bully when I first read through, but now I’m going to read the scenes more carefully to see if this is actually headed in a different direction. (I personally hope not.)
Condensing for space
From my perspective, on average, the kids I’ve taught reach a more social maturity around the end of their 2nd year of junior high school (with the preparation of tests and preparing for their last year), but it’s not really ingrained until about mid-way into their third year when it really hits them that they’re going out into society. Depending on the schools (and even just the homeroom teacher), some of the elementary school kids can be very mature though, and that would be by mid-4th grade at the absolute earliest.
To answer your question though, the students in elementary school are still very 素直 or very honest with their feelings in general. Grades 1-3 aren’t graded the same way grades 4-6 are. It’s from 4th grade and higher that students start to worry about tests and preparing for the realities of society. And even then, the real testing is from 5th-6th grade with 4th grade being the prep year, so to speak. But it’s still nothing as intensive as junior high school where tests and results being the focus of their 3 years. (That’s where a lot of them turn into robots unfortunately…)
But in elementary school, and even pre-school, they’re still taught the proper way of doing things starting with the opening ceremony. It’s rehearsed and almost militaristic in that all the movements are in sync. Even the teachers rehearse to make sure we all sit and stand at the same time to show how we’re one as a group. It’s really a sight to behold because there’s nothing like it in the states, but when you’ve seen it enough times, it’s also kind of sad how strict they are about making sure the kids stand up still and leave enough space so the timing is just right.
Even 運動会 is rehearsed to make sure they know what they’re doing (because the event is for the students and teachers to show off to the parents so they got to make the very best showing possible). So when they’re doing the real event, everyone already has an idea of who’s going to win the relay race or which group is likely to win. 体育会 in junior high school is a more extreme version of its ES counterpart (although admittedly very impressive). Since the grades are mixed around to form the groups, the students have to be mature enough to work together as a group with other students they don’t normally work with everyday.
Since Yayako’s followers were nowhere to be seen when she moved on to junior high school, I think it’s safe to assume she’s just a dislikable person. But I also think the author doesn’t want us to think she’s the villain either. I still don’t like her, and I think it’s fine if you feel the same.
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I fully agree with @MrGeneric on that one. I do understand Yayako’s frustration, but her reaction is hurtful and unhelpful.
I can’t speak for all westerns, but in my eyes, a reasonable consequence for “constantly making mistakes in your work” would be a private talk with a superior (to identify the problem, see if it can be fixed and offer support if that is necessary and helpful) and ultimately being let go if the mistakes persist and are enough of a problem. Public humiliation seems counterproductive to me because a) it makes people unhappy (and I don’t think unhappy people work well) and b) it makes people afraid to admit mistakes.
I wonder what the adults that think that Yayako is in the right there think Hanabi should’ve done. It doesn’t seem like she’s just lazy and not giving her best there, so… train until she gets better at sports?
And a side note: I feel like both that specific event and anything that happens after it in chapter 1 could happen exactly like this in e.g. Germany (where I am from).
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If you really want to know… they would probably say, she should’ve apologized and tried harder to improve herself so she can earn their respect. Because that’s what they would have to do in the workplace.
To be fair, she’s still an early teen moving on to junior high school. She’s probably got raging hormones and feeling a little extra sensitive at times than usual. From what we saw in the first chapter, her home situation is also not very stable, so she’s probably not receiving very good guidance either.
She’s trying to find a solution but so far she’s been running away. It would be hard for adults to understand unless they could really put themselves in her shoes. But I think that’s also why this is a great book for parents to read, especially side-by-side their kids because it brings up some good discussion points for issues they might encounter in real life. It’ll be even more obvious why this book is so great for that in later chapters. Look forward to it. 
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Oh, certainly, and to be clear, I am actually with the author on this one; I wouldn’t think Yayako is an outright villain, just a mean kid who has malicious tendencies. She is also 10-11 years old. There’s plenty of time for her to mature and become a better person (which I hope would be the direction she goes, as opposed to the all-too-common doubling down on negative traits that folks trend towards). Were my final personality to have been formed at that age, I would be a total shut-in, incapable of basic interaction.
I also wouldn’t say I dislike Yayako, per se; just her actions. We can judge her as unkind and with the tendency to be a bully, certainly, but I’m the type of person that it takes a heck of a lot for me to say I dislike somebody. The person will have to have proven a complete lack of desire/inability to better negative things before I say that I dislike them.
Either way, thank you for providing some cultural context. Even if I personally feel differently about how things should be handled here (purely as a result of being raised in a very different culture… though, on reflection, I can honestly see some parallels here with the religious group that was predominant where I grew up, re: shaming/humiliation of members–or people they wanted to be members–to condition expected behavior), it was very interesting and illuminating to see a different point of view, and I’ll be keeping it in mind as we continue to read!
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