美少女戦士セーラームーン 第一期 ダーク・キングダム編 🏰

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美少女戦士セーラームーン Home Thread

Act discussions

Vocabulary List

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current act’s reading.
  • If you are reading ahead, please withhold discussing future acts.
  • When asking for help, please mention your book version (tankoubon, shinsouban, or kanzenban), act, and page number. Feel free to use shorthand as well. Examples:
    • Shinsouban Act.1 Page 15
    • S.1.15
  • If there’s anything you don’t understand while reading, don’t hesitate to ask questions.
  • Join the conversation, and have fun!

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m skipping this series

0 voters

Which release are you reading?

  • Tankoubon
  • Shinsouban
  • Kanzenban (Physical)
  • Kanzenban (Digital eBook)
  • Nakayoshi (pulled out of storage and dusted off)

0 voters

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Act.1 うさぎ—SAILORMOON

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Things to Watch For

カタカナ

Author/artist Takeuchi Naoko likes to カタカナ all the things. Here are a few you’ll encounter in Act.1:

  • ウチのムスメ
  • ママのバカ
  • ガッコ (がっこう)
  • 泣きムシ
  • 女のコ
  • 朝食ヌキ
  • センセ (せんせい)
  • エーゴ (えいご)
  • 女のコのクセに
  • イヤミなヤツ

Version Differences

There will be slight differences based on the version you’re reading.

Act.1 Page T.2/S.5/K.3

The newspaper originally included a line reading 全員たいほ. This was removed from the tankoubon and shinsouban releases, likely due to their smaller formats. It’s restored in the kanzenban release.

View kanzenban page.

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Act.1 Page T.15/S.21/K.19

In the tankoubon release, Usagi refers to the gamecenter employee as 「やさしいの」. In the latter releases, she refers to him as 「カッコよくてやさしいの」. Congrats on the upgrade, Motoki.

Act.1 Page T.16/S.22/K.20

In the tankoubon release, Usagi’s mother says 「テスト ９５点だったって」. The latter releases make it more clear whose test she’s talking about, as she instead says 「海野くん テストで ９５点だったって」.

Act.1 Page T.17/S.23/K.21

Insignificant to mention, but in the middle panel along the bottom, in the tankoubon release Usagi says おとうと. This became おとーと for the latter releases.

Act.1 Page T.19/S.25/K.23

The word エネルギー appears in the top-right and top-left panels. However, the kanzenban release changed the second instance to エナジー.

The dialogue in the fifth panel (middle row, left-hand side) was handwritten in the tankoubon release, but it’s typed in the shinsouban and kanzenban releases. This also included the change from イタダク (handwritten) to いただく (typed).

Act.1 Page T.20/S.26/K.24

Another insignificant mention, Usagi’s book originally says 「えーご」 on the front in the tankoubon, but this is 「English」 in the shinsouban and kanzenban releases.

Act.1 Page T.26/S.32/K.3030

Not dialogue, but this page was redrawn for the shinsouban and kanzenban releases. For anyone reading the tankoubon, here’s the redrawn page which adds the brooch to the first panel, and adds a third panel showing Usagi.

View kanzenban page.

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Act.1 Page T.30/S.36/K.34

In the tankoubon release, Usagi’s first dialogue balloon ends with 「はなれなさいよっ」. The shinsouban and kanzenban releases changed this to 「はなれなさいッ！」

Another change from the first panel is Sailormoon refering to the enemy as 「ごうつく」 in the tankoubon release, and 怪物 in the shinsouban and kanzenban releases.

Act.1 Page T.35/S.41/K.39

Sailormoon’s attack in the tankoubon release is called 「ムーン フリスビー」. This is updated in the shinsouban and kanzenban versions to 「ムーン・ティアラ・ブーメラン」.

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For S.1.5, the newspaper has a line which reads “現代人物考” (げんだいじんぶつこう).
I think it might mean something like “investigative report on modern personalities”, but I’m not sure. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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This is the one line I never actually bothered to read when looking at this page =P

We can break it down into the parts (as you’ve seen):

  • 現代 = nowadays; modern era; modern times
  • 人物 = person
  • 考 = [suffix] report on one’s investigation into …

I read this as “Report on the Modern Person”, meaning a report on the people to today (as opposed to how people were in the past).

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I’m looking forward to reading Sailor Moon with all of you :blush:. However, I should receive my copy next week, so I need to wait a bit more.

But I already have a silly question - what hiragana is it in the first line of the last picture (in the post above)? It looks a bit like い, but I’m not sure.

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I don’t know which line you’re referring to, but here’s a transcript of the last page of the 2nd (above) post: (from right to left)

プリズム・パワー！（ぷりずむ・ぱわー）
メイクアップ！！（めいくあっぷ）
パアッ（ぱあっ）

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@Himilika, do you mean the color picture with the red text in the last panel? (I was looking at the same image as @Tealwing at first, which is further down in the same post.) If so, it’s 「いっや～ん」. Handwritten characters can be a bit difficult to read until you get used to them.

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I seem to recall hearing somewhere that manga artists sometimes use katakana as a kind of textual emphasis of one kind or another. In English typography we have ALL CAPS, italics, bold, underline, etc. for similar purposes. Could be mistaken, but I think that’s the general purpose of doing that.

The line where Usagi says 「泣きムシ」is interesting because only ムシ is set apart in this way. Now, むし usually means ‘insect’ or ‘bug’, with the kanji 虫, but this kanji is not usually shown with katakana ムシ unless it’s part of the name of a particular species of plant or animal. Which made me wonder. So I looked it up in Jisho and found out that むし has several translations, and a few of them could possibly fit in this place as having a double-meaning.

First of all, we should look at the most obvious (to a native Japanese speaker) meaning, which happens to be a common expression: 泣き虫 (なきむし) actually means something like ‘crybaby’ or ‘blubberer’, according to Jisho. Not just ‘crying insect’, just like ‘crybaby’ doesn’t just mean ‘crying baby’.

So, with that main meaning identified, we can ask, why might the author have written 泣きムシ instead of 泣き虫 or even just 泣きむし? Here are some other meanings of むし, so we can have fun speculating:

  • 虫 also can mean: one’s feelings, one’s emotions; temper; nervousness, fretfulness.
  • 無視 is a noun meaning disregarding; ignoring​.
  • 無私 is an adj./noun meaning unselfish; selfless; disinterested​.
  • 蒸し is a noun meaning steaming.
  • 無始 is a Buddhist term meaning beginninglessness​. (probably too obscure)

Of these, I could imagine there might be some possible layers of meaning where Usagi could be saying, with rough translations from Google Translate:

  • ちょっと泣きムシ。A little crying bug.
  • ちょっと泣き虫。A little crybaby. (seems most likely meaning)
  • ちょっと泣き無視 。Ignore a little crying.
  • ちょっと泣き無私 。A little selfless crying. (My own rough interpretation)
  • ちょっと泣き蒸し。A little crying and steaming.
  • ちょっと泣きむし。I cry a little. (Just tried it to see what GT would do. Don’t think it’s accurate, though.)

Of those, I could imagine there being some possible intentional double-meaning where Usagi is emphasizing the ムシ to try to dismiss her crying away. She might be calling herself a literal crying ‘bug’ (as opposed to a ‘crybaby’ or ‘crybug’), there may be a hint in there that she’s trying to ‘ignore’ her crying, she may be trying to ‘take the high road’ by calling her crying ‘selfless’, she may be saying it’s not such a big deal as it’s ‘just a little crying and steaming’, or perhaps a mixture of some of those.

Or it could just be emphasized solely to indicate a vocal emphasis, like if we were to write: Just a little crybaby.

I don’t really know either way, this is just something that caught my eye, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the author plays around with language and typography like this throughout the series.

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Haha! I like 「ムーン フリスビー」 better. :joy:

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Haha yeah, good way to pratice katakana reading…

I already read through the first chapter without caring much about grammar and without trying to understand each and every sentence. Just looked up what felt like tons of vocab (and 2-3 grammar points because I couldn’t read past them when I knew that I’ve seen or studied them before but wasn’t able to remember what they mean :angry:).

Reading that way worked quiet well, this way I might be able to keep up with the pace. But if I find the time, I might read throught act 1 again before starting act 2, the vocab sheet and your notes might help a lot and make the reading go more smoothly!

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Hopefully everyone’s カタカナ is strong! I learned ひらがな and かたかな back in the late 1990’s by writing them over and over and over, and then learning words using them, and writing those over and over. And かたかな was a first-class citizen in my high school Japanese class, so we didn’t skimp any. In more recent years, I’ve seen learning various resources put a huge emphasis on ひらがな (understandably so) and something of a de-emphasis on かたかな (like it’s not really all that important). Clearly the people behind those resources never read Sailormoon in Japanese.

That’s how I’m doing my first read-through of each act as well. Then I’ll re-read, look up the words I don’t know, try getting more added to the vocabulary sheet, and look up any grammar I either don’t recognize, and don’t know strongly. I plan to pay extra attention to learning grammar at a deeper level in 2020.

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T.1.2 / S.1.5 / K.1.3

(I don’t expect anyone to list all three page numbers, but I figured since I can easily see the three on the vocabulary sheet, I’d try including all three.)

I remember the first time I saw an in-color manga drawing of Usagi’s mother. I thought, “Why’s her hair brown?” I guess the real question is for the anime: “Why did they make her hair blue?”

Although it’s not mentioned yet, Usagi’s mother’s name is 育子(いくこ). 子 is a common ending-sound on girl names. Anyone who’s worked their way through level 11 on WaniKani will recognize the kanji text 育 as meaning “nurture”, and is used when refering to things like raising a child.

This kind of word play comes up all over the place in Sailormoon. 月(つき)のうさぎ means “rabbit of the moon”, but if we replace that の with the kanji 野, you get 月野, which resembles a surname: 月野うさぎ. Adding in that Usagi is Sailormoon (hopefully I don’t have to mark that one as a spoiler!), and her long hair in twintails resembles long rabbit ears, it all ties in together.

Ikuko uses the word おてがら. The more I learn kanji, the more I wish it were used! (Just so long as I get furigana.) With kanji, this word is お手柄. WaniKani doesn’t teach this word, but 手 (hand) is level 2, and 柄 (pattern) is level 42 (ah, I won’t see that one for a while!) Checking in a Japanese dictionary (I think Weblio is what came up when I did a search on the word), 手(て)柄(がら) means 「目覚ましい働き」 or “remarkable work/achievement”, as well as 「腕前を発揮した成果」 or “accomplishment that shows skill”. I suppose if you think of a pattern made by hand, it would be an accomplishment that took skill. (Thanks for reminding me that I’m not good at handicrafts, Naoko Takeuchi. No wonder you left the kanji out.)

By the end of this first page, I have to admit, I’m surprised at how little kanji there is. It does make sense, though, as Sailormoon appeared in the phonebook-sized monthly manga publication Nakayoshi, which targets elementary school-aged girls.

Edit: I missed some kanji in the numbers in the next paragraph. They have been updated. I’ll update again if I find I’ve missed any more.

Looking over the kanji, excluding the newspaper on the first page, there are about 312 kanji in Act 1, from about 175 unique kanji. Anyone who’s reached WaniKani level 9 will recognize half of the kanji used in Act 1, and by level 10 will recognize half of the unique kanji. By the end of level 15, you’ll be able to recognize over 75% of the total kanji in Act 1. The most common kanji is 見, which appears 9 times.

Intersting tidbit: You’ll notice Usagi’s hair buns look wider and flatter that usual in the bottom panel of this page. This was her original hairstyle. When the series was republished in tankoubon form, Naoko Takeuchi did a lot of clean-up artwork (especially on scenes with Luna), and one of the clean-ups was to make Usagi’s hair look more like in the anime adaptation.

Here’s an display of the changes in Usagi’s hair buns (from the next page):

Screenshot_20200101_090629

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My first Japanese book from the 90s was Reading Japanese by Eleanor Harz Jorden, which was actually published in the mid-70s. It starts with katakana, and teaches hiragana second. (It’s also just an optional companion volume to the Beginning Japanese series by the same author, which is all in romaji.)

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I’m up for it! It’ll have to wait till tomorrow though. :slight_smile:

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I started reading and am wondering if I should look up everything I don’t understand as I read or just read through it and worry about that later…

While I was reading the first couple よつばと！ volumes I just read through them and then went back and wrote down what I didn’t understand to look up later, but those are also a lower level than Sailor Moon haha

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Yes! Finally one of the reading groups where I have the manga on my shelves. I’ve read the first volume once before but am excited to get to grips with it along with you guys.

Also there is no truer statement than Takeuchi Naoko loving her katakana :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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I’d say the primary question is, are you familiar with the grammar you’re reading? If there’s any grammar you don’t recognize, It’d make that a priority to learn, as each grammar point you learn will go very far.

For vocabulary, at the very least I recommend looking up words you don’t know (or checking the vocabulary list, which I need to put some time into adding to today) to help understand what’s being talked about. Depending on how you go about learning new vocabulary, you can either add it to an SRS deck (if you’re making your own), or don’t worry about it if you’re using a pre-made vocabulary deck outside of WaniKani (because you’ll be learning a lot of words via the SRS deck already).

This is what I’m doing with Sailormoon. At the very least, I should be able to get the gist of everything I read. If there’s anything I struggled with or anything I didn’t quite get, I’ll give it extra time on my second read through of the act and look up the parts I’m having trouble with.

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This was an interesting look at possible reasons for the カタカナ in 泣きムシ. But I also wanted to mention that sometimes an author just does something because it feels right, with no (conscious) deeper meaning behind it. (Being an author myself, I certainly do.)

However, teasing out deeper meanings can be very worthwhile. So please do it again if your curiosity is piqued. Because your message was interesting and educational. :slight_smile:

@turii There are many different ways to read. My method so far with this manga is that as a rule I don’t look anything up unless I’m not understanding the gist at all. Aka, if I don’t understand multiple words in a speech bubble and I can’t guess accurately enough from context, then I will look stuff up. I’ll be more inclined to look stuff up if I know it is vital to the story (like a lot of what Luna says, or the bad guys, while Usagi talking to her classmates might not be as important (although it differs from chapter to chapter)).

But I also seem to have a grasp on most of the grammar showing up so far in Sailormoon, and especially in Japanese a lot of grammar can clue you in to so much meaning. Like when causative-passive is used, even if I don’t know the verb, I can figure out a lot from that. (I currently go to Japanese school in Japan, and we are studying N3, and have for three months, and in another three months my class will finish N3. I personally wouldn’t say I feel half done with N3 grammar though. :sweat_smile: But it gives you an idea of how much grammar I’ve studied.)

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T.1.7 / S.1.13 / K.1.11

「だって エーゴ キライ なのよーー」

I think I know someone who never thought, “If only there were an English vocabulary flash card web site, with a great message board community, and book clubs for reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Little Women.” (Though now I’m imagining a Japanese Absolute Beginners Book Club working their way through The Cat in the Hat.)

Near the end of the page, Umino says, 「テストなんて ゲームっすよ」

I’m sure I’ve seen this っす before in the past, but never looked into it. Checking online, I see people saying it’s short for です. Checking in the parser program mecab confirms it, as it labels this use of っす as 「助動詞」 (auxiliary verb) and 「特殊・デス」 (special・です). I’ll have to keep this one in mind.

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I could only manage to read the first 6 or 7 pages today and I couldn’t 100% understand everything since my vocabulary and grammar are lacking, but I still managed to get the gist of it. :sweat_smile:

Also, I never realized how motivating it can be to read along with a group…

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