-chan can be used for males, though it tends towards being used for females. Technically, all honorifics are gender-neutral, by my understanding, there is just trends in how they are used.
I’ve seen -chan used for males in a couple of different circumstances, usually ones that imply intimacy. Though, there is also the Yakuza series and Majima constantly calling the MC “Kiryu-chan” which is used for a bit of comedic effect.
In this case, I imagine it’s supposed to show Maruko’s kinda “motherly” nature. But I could be misreading the intent behind the use.
Iyoda is definitely male, though.
Pg. 36
I don’t actually have any sources outside of just pointing out that か is often used to inject just a bit of doubt/uncertainty into the sentence, so it becoming like a “I suppose I could; I might as well” feels like it makes sense… I will do some digging to see if I can find something more concrete for you.
Actually, maybe reframing the translation would be a better way to go about it.
“Since it’s okay to make a mess, shall I cook?..”
With an invitation to another person, you would probably use the negative form to form the “shall”, since that’s more indirect, but since he is just speaking to himself, it feels okay to just be a direct question.
English would probably phrase it differently, more along the lines of the “might as well”, but I think just shifting gears and viewing it as a question to himself makes this make sense and doesn’t require as much twisting to get there.
That’s just kind of an off the cuff thought while I continue to look anyway, though.
My apologies, my brain sometimes completely switches between translating everything literally to making a lot of adjustments for more natural English.
As @MrGeneric mentioned, か is the interrogative particle, so 料理するか would just be “Do I cook?”. In this particular context though, we have 散らかしていいなら, which specifies a certain condition that makes cooking a possibility - that’s why “might as well (given this condition)” fits as a translation.
Definitely “might as well” is not a perfect translation (it sounds more assertive than the sentence is in japanese, probably), and is by no means an “official” meaning for か you’d find in a dictionary.
Page 29: Maruko-san using Iyoda-chan. Well, I don’t see how this could be a spoiler, because it was in the first book. But if I remember right, Maruko-san is the oldest (not including the landlord). She’s a salaryman, I think or at least has a regular office job. In fact, I thought she was quite a bit older.
I made notes about each character as I read, because it helps me get established. (And they did introduce a lot of characters at the beginning of book 1.) I’m buried in a remodel, so when I see the first book again…
“Such remains of bugs are a rare thing, but it happening to cultural assets is very likely.”
…is the best I could make of 起きるのはすごい確率, but I don’t see why that would be very likely to happen to cultural assets, so I’m not sure it’s right? She even ends the sentence with a ね…
Page 46
In the chat: 命を大事にしないやつは〇ね
…what’s the 〇 here? Is it a censored word? Is it a 0 to express something like worthlessness?
Also: アホ発見 is great
Page 47
Classmate: ヒュソってなった / or maybe ヒュン?
Is that something like “It made wooosh”? I can’t find it anywhere.
Page 57
Swimmer: もういつ終わってもおかしくないぞ
I guess that’s something like “It wouldn’t be strange if it ended any minute now”? (Or, less literal “It will probably end any minute now.”)
What’s the いつ there? Jisho says “when; at what time; how soon”, and I don’t understand why it’s a question word. I would’ve expected something like もうすぐ instead.
I’m pretty sure the すごい確率 in this case actually means that is a supppppper low probability. That would align with common sense, since obviously there aren’t that many cultural assets
the いつ終わっても can be split up into いつ~ても and the verb and if you only look at the いつ~ても you can already kind of see いつでも which means any any time and this grammar point also means no matter when/what time
@TobiasW, @Shadowlauch I definitely took すごい確率 as meaning “an abnormally high probability”. Given the が conjunction, I don’t see how it could mean a low probability. It doesn’t mean it’s very likely though, just that it’s すごい compared to normal (すごい = びっくりするほど程度がはなはだしい). If normally it’s 0.000001% and for cultural assets it’s 0.0005%, that is an extremely large difference despite it still being unlikely.
That said, if my interpretation is correct, this seems like a pretty fallacious argument to me. Isn’t it more likely just that a bug sticking around on a cultural asset is much more likely to be widely noticed/publicized than (to use an example from this chapter) a pencil no longer working permanently because it can’t break?
They mention that they are using regular せっけん, but doesn’t that specifically refer to bar soap? Or can it refer to liquid soap too? I’m asking because if it’s bar soap, it shouldn’t be able to create bubbles for the same reason the chalk can write on the blackboard – it needs to “break” in order to generate bubbles. (For what it’s worth, google images shows primarily bar soap, but looking it up in a monolingual dictionary was unhelpful because the definition is insanely technical.) Maybe I’m just trying too hard to understand these bugs though.
General chapter comments
Interesting bug and chapter. I do wonder if the secondary bug stuff will end up being important or if this is the kind of manga that will never go anywhere story-wise (not that I mind so long as it’s entertaining). I guess it’s good to know that no one died from walking in the sky when that bug ended!
The が does not necessarily have to show an opposite. Like in english you could also say “A is super rare, but B is even more so” and that is the way I took this. Basically her saying “It is super rare for things to remain after the bug ends, but for a cultural asset to be involved the probability is minute”. The すごい definition would also fit since it does not really innately give a direction just that it is extreme.
I see your point, but I’m not convinced. I know が doesn’t have to be used contrastively, but that’s still the more common usage, and I don’t see a reason not to interpret it that way here.
…and huh, I swear I looked on thejadednetwork and didn’t find it. Guess I only looked up the one I spelled wrong after all.
Page 40 discussion
Could the first part of the sentence maybe be interpreted like “Such remains of bugs are things that exist, but the chance of it happening to cultural assets is extremely low, isn’t it.”? If so, that seems like it would fit both the が and the “low probability”.
If on the other hand it actually is a high probability: Yeah, it seems weird. But considering that the nature of the bugs being very handwavy in general and so not completely explained to us… maybe it just is the case that things that are famous, have lots of eyes on them etc. are more likely to be hit by this “bug remains” phenomena.
I originally interpreted the first half as “residual bugs like this are rare”, but I suppose it’s more like “residual bugs like this do rarely exist”. In which case I guess the second half could be indicating that the chances of this happening with cultural assets is low? I don’t know. I still think it could be that despite residual bugs like this (rarely) existing, the probably of it happening with cultural assets is high(er than normal).
This was an interesting bug…I still feel like this would make for a really fun animated series…
some of these bugs are confusing…glad they semi-explained a little at the end…though now I just have more questions
BTW: Populated the vocab list… Assuming its the same sheet…nothing was setup for this week’s chapter so copied the ch6 that I filled in and went along and filled in for ch7… (imagine so few of the advanced readers even use it…) but if there is some other location let me know and I’ll move it accordingly.
Is that the normal permission-granting てもいい? Something like “Come on, you’re allowed to break!” because he’s getting a bit impatient/nervous?
Page 59
Teo: 避けるのは無しだからな
“Because avoiding it doesn’t exist”? Eh?
Page 60
Pupil: 待って先生いまいいとこなんです！
Is that “Wait, sensei, we’re getting to the good part now”?
Page 64
Kasane: わからない そうなるんだからそうだとしか
“I don’t know, I’m just saying it because that’s how it becomes/is”?
Chapter notes
I guess the fact that a bug like this doesn’t go on too long is also 優しさ - if it would last, people would start having a lot of trouble. Like… food. The only food that you could still eat would be liquid (you couldn’t even chew chunks in soup!), and since you can’t open cans and bottles…
It’s certainly weird how that secondary bug effect drew a line between “Nene getting completely wet” and “Kon getting completely wet” - and also between “hearing the sound made by the balloon popping” and “experiencing the result of the balloon popping (getting wet)”. I’m glad Kon picked up on that being weird too. Much like @seanblue I’m wondering if we just have to accept that “that’s the way it is”, or if that was a setup for a later chapter. Either way - it’s nice that’re finally getting more info on how nobody gets hurt in the more dangerous-seeming bugs, even if it seems a bit handwavy deus ex machinaっぽい for now.
And I learnt that 上がる can both mean “to enter” and “to get out (of water)”. I was briefly confused, but I guess the latter makes sense with the other meaning being “to come ashore”!
無し can also mean “unacceptable”. This is very often in relation to rules of a game like in this case - it’s against the rules to avoid the balloon.
Page 60
I agree with your translation.
Page 64
Not very confident on this, but my understanding here is that this has an implied “言えない” (or something similar) at the end. そうなるんだからそうだとしか ends with the quoting particle と and then しか would mean “except for” . “Because it becomes like that, except for ‘That’s how it is’ (そうだと), there’s nothing else I can say.”
Random story comments
The thing that surprised me the most this chapter is how fast the Extraordinary Phenomena (ministry? bureau?) figured out what the bug was and gave a duration estimate. I mean, the bug had barely started and they had an announcement already. I wish my government was half this efficient.
I’m still catching up, in the first chapter. The last part of page 33: It reads “10 pieces”, but the whole box makes no sense to me. 10 pieces of what, and why is Marukosan seem distressed about it? Thanks！
This is a beginner book club, so even thought I know a lot of you are advanced readers - I definitely appreciate definitions of some of the harder phrases.
