大海原と大海原 ・Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea Absolute Beginners Book Club Chapter 4 Thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to the Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea Book Club!

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Summary

An Ocean in Peril!

The young witch Wadanohara has returned from a journey across the sea, only to find that her peaceful ocean home has come under attack from the nefarious Tosatsu Empire. Alongside her faithful familiars – Memoca, Dolphi, and Fukami – Wadanohara promises to do all she can to prevent a terrible war. But when a mysterious figure from her past demands that she leave, can the pure-hearted Wadanohara muster the courage and magic she needs to save the Sea Kingdom once and for all?

Details

We are reading this book as part of the Absolute Beginners Book Club. This book club will be starting in early September with an official start date to be decided on soon. Everyone is welcome to join the book club! Previous grammar and vocabulary knowledge is helpful, but we will have a vocab sheet and lots of people to help with grammar questions, so please don’t be discouraged if you are just getting started on your learning journey! If you want to see if this book if for you please check out the nomination post and a reading sample on Bookwalker.

How Book Clubs Work on WaniKani

For each weeks reading we will have a new thread for discussing the chapter. In the thread you can ask questions on grammar/ vocab, talk about the book, and help others stay motivated! We also will have a shared vocab sheet. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: If you plan on reading along I would highly recommend setting this thread to watching and bookmark it, so you will be up to date and have easy access to the discussion threads!

Where to Buy the Book

Digital: Bookwalker, Amazon JP, Kobo

Physical: Manga Republic

** To buy the digital version from amazon you will need a Japanese amazon account that has a Japanese address or else the book will say unavailable.
** Notes on Physical Copies: This book is unfortunately difficult to get a physical copy of. Both CDJapan and Amazon are sold out. Manga Republic has it available (used but in excellent condition) with worldwide shipping. However, their shipping times are decently long and the supply is limited, so if you plan to order from them I would do so soon.

Schedule

HOME THREAD

Start Date Chapter Page Numbers Page Count
September 11th Prologue 1 to 10 9
September 18th Chp1 13 to 26 14
September 25th Chp 2 30 to 42 12
October 2nd Chp 3 46 to 58 13
October 9th Chp 4 61 to 76 15
October 16th Chp 5 80 to 94 15
October 23rd Chp 6 97 to 112 15
October 30th Chp 7 116 to 132 17
*Pgs 142-143 have a two page bonus manga.

Vocabulary

Weekly Update
  • I’m reading ahead
  • I’m reading with the schedule
  • I’m reading at a slower pace
  • I’m no longer reading

0 voters

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This was the most fun chapter so far. I enjoyed meeting the residents of the city at the bottom of the sea. I’m certainly improving my vocabulary of marine creatures - this week added クラゲ - jellyfish. Based on its name I’d mistakenly thought たらこ was cod roe - but I think that’s just its name, and it’s actually just a little octopus, who apparently like タコちゅー!

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I fell behind on my reading and this chapter is a lot more challenging than the last one :sweat_smile: At least I’ve managed to add some to the vocab sheet this time so I feel useful haha
Haven’t finished the chapter yet but I have some trouble so far

page 63

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I guess this isn’t important plot-wise and probably actually a simple phrase but I just don’t know what it’s supposed to mean

page 67

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I got completely overwhelmed trying to decipher this sentence. Every time I re read it my headache intensifies :sweat: Could really use some help on this.

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page 63

Doesn’t really have a specific meaning, honestly. よいしょ is just a phrase that indicates the person who says it is doing some kind of physical effort. Probably the closest English equivalent is “heave-ho!”

page 67

アンタら

アンタ is a somewhat rough/contemptuous way to say “you”, and ら is a suffix makes it plural, which is probably why it’s in hiragana.

ちゃんとしていれば

ちゃんとする is to do something properly. It’s conjugated in the ている form, indicating ongoing action, and it’s also using the ば conditional form, indicating the sentence is a hypothetical situation. (I’m not going to go into the nuances of the various Japanese conditional forms for the purposes of this explanation.)

If you put that all together, the first half of this sentence is “If you guys were doing it properly” (presumably referring to their jobs/duties, given the context of the scene.)

この国も荒らされずに

There’s multiple conjugations going on here. 荒らす means to devastate/to lay waste. It’s first conjugated into the passive form, 荒らされる, meaning to be devastated. Then it’s conjugated into the ずに form, which means without doing [insert verb here]. So 荒らされずに is “without being devastated”.

すんだはず

After doing some research, I’m fairly certain that the verb here is 済む, and the grammar point used is the one below (from here):
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The はず indicates that this is a supposition, or something that thinks was supposed to have happened.

Altogether, the sentence means:

“If you guys had been doing your jobs properly, this country could have gotten by without being devastated.”

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thank you so much for the thorough response, this was super useful!! The ずに form was completely unfamiliar to me, and passive is still challenging most of the time

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Was struggling a bit with last weeks chapter but I enjoyed the setting and the characters from this chapter so feeling a bit more at ease with my grammar struggle.

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The character designs were really fun in this chapter

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Not sure if I’ll actually get to do a full dive this week- and maybe not next :sweat: We’ve been preparing for a trip and I’m beat. If I have wifi on the plane I’ll see what I can do!

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I greatly enjoyed this weeks chapter! New characters yay! (Although I probably should start writing down who is who as I am really bad at remembering names o.O)

As always I have a few questions:

Page 64

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I am a bit lost, what メモカ is saying. I’m guessing he is saying:
It would be okay to do these things later.
Does he mean it would be okay for them to return later? Or that it would be okay for Wadanohara to postpone the greeting she is planning to do? I also wonder what kind of sentence ending the “…” implies? Any suggestions?

Page 65

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Nothing of importance, but I was wondering what ふわん is supposed to mean? Is that a happy sound? Is that a I-am-surprised sound? Is that a particular sound for particular situaions?

Page 68

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I am genuinely confused.

I read the first speech bubble as:
It’s because you and the others rely on Wadanohara too much in the first place.

But I don’t understand why she would be saying that… On the page before it seemed to be just a casual conversation about if everything was fine. And it seems to be so (at least according to the characters). So I wonder why she reacts the way she does? Why is she mad?

Page 76

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For some reason, the last page of every chapter has me puzzled… I feel that I understand the words, but just can’t come up with a sentence that would make sense…

What I’ve got so far:
兵に見回りをさせましたが
The soldier(s) I have patroling

海上のほうも特に問題はないと
in the direction of the ocean’s surface, also say there are no particular problems.

Is it just that mysterious? Or am I missing/misunderstanding something?

Thanks in advance!

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I haven’t finished the chapter yet, but I can try to help with pg 64.

Page 64

I read it more as it would be okay for Wadanohara to do her greetings later. I think the sentence ending of “…” maybe is meant to imply a slight confusion or frustration like “why do you have to do that immediately?” I know メモカ mentioned being hungry in the previous page so maybe they don’t want any delays in getting something to eat. :joy:

edit:

Page 65

It might be an inflection of ふわ which means something like fluffy and could be referencing her body? dress? *It also seems to be associated with light, airy, soft, and floaty so it fits well with what @Jaimejo found! I think they’re derived from the same thing :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Page 65

Maybe it is something like this? I believe she’s a jellyfish and she seems to be floating? :woman_shrugging:

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page 64

I believe this is the ばいいのに structure and Memoka is basically saying “I wish you would do that later” presumably because as @bearytoast mentioned, she’s hungry

I was surprised to see this is apparently N2 grammar, I learned it on duolingo lol
JLPT N2 Grammar: ばいいのに (ba ii noni)

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Thanks for the link! I didn’t realize that it was a set structure. :blush:

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Page 68

We don’t know the exact reasons, but if you check the previous panel (at the end of the previous page), you’ll notice that the somewhat light mood gets slightly more serious as they remember something (unspecified) about the past just after Wadanohara asks if something has happened recently.

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Specially the 前よりはねぇ~ this implies that recently not much has happened, at least compared to some big event(s) in the past, which seems to be what that character is mad about in the following panel - whatever bad event they are referring to in the past, the cause is probably related to them relaying on Wadanohara too much.

Page 76

I agree that this author just loves to throw very vague dialogue at us at the end of every chapter for the sake of keeping the mysterious tone of the story.

I agree with your interpretation, just that I’d use something like “I had the soldiers go patrol” for the first one, since it seems it was a explicit order that was given - and the reason for giving that order seems to be Wadanohara’s arrival

We have little context here, but what seems to be implied here is that Wadanohara might be being followed or in some other way might attract something undesirable into the 海底町, and that’s why they are having soldiers patrol for possible trouble.

This might or might not refer to the Shark familiar from previous chapters, since back then it was also implied that the Shark is a traitor of some sort.

In summary, I don’t think you are missing something; I believe it’s just supposed to be unclear at this point in the story

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page 65

I don’t think it’s supposed to have a specific meaning, personally. I think it’s just a general sound of excitement.
I can’t find any specific definitions for it, and several of the results I get when I search for it in katakana are descriptions of sound effects.

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I figured sound effect based off this word

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I checked the translation notes from the original game:

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So it is based off of ふわふわ、but it doesn’t mean anything in particular. It’s a verbal tic.

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Page 63

Is it maybe as well some sort of pun with shot (ショット)?
Maybe it means both よいしょ and 良いショット as in “nice shot, just where i wanted to land”.

I also have a question of my own

Page 69

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I don’t understand this sentence, mainly the use of まま. Is it something like “it fell asleep while crying a lot” ?

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page 63

よいしょっと is just a variant of よいしょ, which has quite a few different forms. (よっこいしょ、んんしょ、よっこらしょっと). I think it’s just a coincidence that they happen to sound similar.

page 69

Pretty much. まま is a word that indicates that something is remaining in the same condition that it was in. The idea is that it was crying a lot, and then fell asleep while it was still crying.

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Page 63

Ahh, I hadn’t seen that form of よいしょ before, then maybe it was me overreaching a bit haha. Also the fact that it is all hiragana makes me think that what you said must be the case.

Page 69

Ohh alright, it’s nice that I got the gist of it, I’m still trying to grasp まま, so it’s good to know that I’m on the right track, thankss!

3 Likes