少女終末旅行: Chapter 16 Discussion (End of Volume 2)

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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少女終末旅行 home thread

Chapter 16: 離陸 :flight_departure:

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Start Date: June 29th
Previous Chapter: Chapter 15
Next Volume: Volume 3

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少女終末旅行 Home Thread (Beginner Book Club)
#2

Really enjoyed this final chapter. I really like how Yuu sometimes throws this unexpected questions about everyday things like:

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(Slightly off topic, but this reminds of a scene in Final Fantasy X where Yuna walks up to the Tidus who is gazing at the scenery and says “A penny for your thoughts”. Tidus frowns and asks “What’s a ‘penny’?” Yuna just shrugs and says “I don’t know. It is a very old saying”)

Anyway, I was wondering about about the following:

Pages 149-150

イシイ is falling down and says:

一人でがんばってきたが…
…でもまあ失敗してみれば
気楽なもんだな…

I am not really sure what she means. I am mostly confused by 失敗してみれば. As far as I understand, てみる is used when saying that you are trying out an action. So it is something like “I tried to fail” ? Doesn’t seem to make much sense…

Any help is appreciated!

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#3
Pages 149-150

I can’t make any sense of it either, except if it’s not the normal てみる (try) but してみると here in its variant form してみれば.

In Japanese dictionary they define it as 先行の事柄の結果として、後続の事柄へ続くことを示す。そうしてみると。そうだとすると. So something like “As a result of previous matters, the following matters follow”

So something like “I tried so hard all by myself, but not that I failed I feel at ease” (maybe kind of released from the huge burden she put on herself ?)

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#4

I kind of suspected it was something like that, but I couldn’t figure out how the grammar led there. Thanks for the help!

#5

Are we going to be reading Volume 3 together too by any chance, or did we not have enough people interested in the end? Or should I go ahead and start reading it.

#6

Yeah, another “special use of -reba”. You seem to collect them. :stuck_out_tongue: This one is fairly well documented though; Martin suggests that the sense “now that / since (now)” is kept from the classical -reba “since”, but I like to read it as just a speech-level phrase " I failed and if we look at it now …" (perhaps how it got reinterpreted?). Either way, I think your translation is good.

PS: For the avoidance of doubt, the construction is V-te mireba / miru to meaning “now that V”, “since now V”, etc.

#7

That’s exactly what I thought !! :rofl::rofl:
Actually I was not sure if this special use was only for してくれば or any verb-てみれば, so thanks for the precision.

#8

I (and a couple of others) already finished the next volume / the series, but I’m still happy to discuss with you and other readers if there are questions, or maybe we can even discuss the plot for a bit? So if you’re interested in that, I’m open to joining the subsequent threads.
I actually quite liked the idea of having one thread per volume because there are not that many participants, so the chapter-threads felt a bit empty recently… What do you think?

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#9

Sorry, I was waiting to see if anyone else would chime in the Home Thread to see how we are going to proceed. It seems we all agree on getting a thread per volume. I will post more details in that thread, since I guess that’s a better place to continue this discussion (I think…)

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#10

Yeah. One thread per volume works.

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#11

Wonderful! Just finished this chapter, and thus volume two! Another wonderful chapter, if a bit 絶望, though I suppose we have to make friends with that!

Just one question… what is the kanji on page 138, second panel?

I think Ishii is telling them that she’ll draw them a map later:
あとで kanji な地図を描いてあげよう

Poor old Isshii, the last pilot in human history!

Thanks again everyone for a great bookclub. I’m going to put Girls Last Tour down for a while now, but will 100% be back to read volume 3 some time in the future, all being well! Thank you!

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#12

It would be 簡単, which means “easy, simple”

あとで簡単な
地図を描いてあげよう

“I will draw a simple map for you later”

Glad to hear you are enjoying this series! After this chapter we mostly had threads for each volume and everyone read at their own pace, so there weren’t many questions, but the vocab sheet is filled for all chapters until the end.

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#13

Thank you so much for explaining the kanji and the sentence @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz! And thank you, and everyone, for these discussions, and for those wordlists you mentioned - I couldn’t read this book without them! Thank you so much!

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#14

「簡単」の漢字は簡単じゃない

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#15

Hi all, just checking in after finishing volume 2. It feels good that I’m able to read this on my own, but I also enjoyed looking at the comments and questions which gave me some extra insights.

It’s interesting reading this after Shimeji Simulation. There are so many similarities in the surreal plotlines, the frequent appearance of fish, some moments of deep philosophy, and the dynamic between the two lead female characters.

Will be planning to read the other volumes at some point. I want to know how this ends!

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