Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Posting Advice
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
For the Bookwalker version of this manga, the page numbers in the panels and the page number in the UI are always 2 apart. If you subtract 2 from the UI page number, this will give you the accurate page number!
Live Readings
Some users are currently in the progress of arranging a time for a live reading. Join the Japanese Book Club Discord to either read or listen!
Proper Nouns
Name
Reading
Image
Notes
日向
ひなた
Main character
文夏
もか
Hinata’s classmate (Note, you’ll often see her name written as モカ)
千春
ちはる
Hinata’s classmate
Discussion Questions
What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
What do you think of the daikon cure?
Dialect Guide
Hinata speaks with a little bit of a Fukushima dialect at times. You’ll see this with ぺ or っぺ replacing the ends of sentences, so e.g. だっぺ instead of だよ or だった。Unfortunately it’s not always the same replacement.
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’m reading this book after the club has finished
I’m no longer reading the book
0voters
If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”
Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!
自分が - I/ myself (subject)
ばーちゃんな こと は - (as for the) granny matter
なんとなく内緒 - somehow or another, secret (or is this supposed to be circumstances?)
だって - because
自分の子供が - myself/I, the child,
急にばーちゃんなんて - suddenly, granny(! なんて = can you imagine this kind of thing?!)
がっかりすっぺ - to be disappointed (side note, I was so proud when I found out がっかり is also a する verb!)
Sooooo my best guess at understanding is something like, the granny situation is secret, because, a child that is a granny? Imagine that! It’s depressing.
Totally not literal but that’s my sense, I would love to be corrected though.
自分の子供 = “My child” (or “my own child”), rather than “myself, the child”. Also, I reckon I’d go with the “without knowing why” or “for some reason” definition of なんとなく. Does that help your understanding?
I interpret that bit as Hinata thinking from her mother’s point of view. Like, “if my child was suddenly a granny, I’d be disappointed.”
Page 13
The panel at the bottom, what is the 抜けがらみてぇ part supposed to be? I think I’ve got that the rest of the sentence is saying that she has a bad habit from when she was a granny of dipping daikon in her drink like a biscuit. I don’t think it makes sense if she’s saying the daikon looks like insect skin?
I didn’t really get that part either, but if I look up 抜け殻, the second definition is 中身のなくなったあとのもの meaning something along the lines of the husk of something that’s disappeared. My best guess would be that the daikon has been cooked so much that all the taste has gone out? Or maybe she’s suckling all the juice out of it? idk
@page 10 yeah that’s exactly how I understood it too.
I just googled it and it seems daikon skin was an old timey recipe and considered healthy. Some still say it’s an immune booster. Not sure how reliable the sources are.
I believe so!
My understanding would now be, and I’m going refresh myself on the context here, Hinata’s mother is asking if she’s met 住吉's grandmother, to which Hinata replies that no, she saw it in a picture book.
New understanding:
As for the thing of (me) being a grandmother, it’s vaguely a secret. If my child was suddenly/unexpectedy a granny, I’d be disappointed.
She’s not dipping it in to that container, she’s taking it out. Note that the container in the fourth panel is the same as the one she was about to present to the teacher in the first and second panel, and is different to the cup she’s holding in the seventh - the container with the daikon is now sitting on the floor next to the thermos in that panel.
I feel like daikon skin is a bit chonkier than what you’re picturing. For example here is a recipe I found. Possibly even the recipe that Hinata makes, though it calls for a whole day to marinate rather than just six hours or so.
(Also worth considering is that perhaps Hinata’s fine motor skills still haven’t quite caught up to her intentions, considering she’s still just a kid.)
I don’t think it has to be the skin in this case. 抜けがらみたいな could just refer to the consistency, maybe? Or the texture. Or size…? Honestly not sure.
I checked the preview of the official English translation...
“Sucking on dried daikon radish… is one of my old habits.”
No idea where the “dried” comes from though, what she is eating certainly doesn’t look dry.
She explains the snack more in the following pages. In case anyone wants to know already: she cut the daikon in little pieces and mixed that with honey, then put the mixture into the fridge
Hello, all. I am an absolute beginner in Japanese. Thank you for this amazing book club. I started reading with the club last time with Shikimori’s story. I am finding this one easier. I have the following doubt.
Page 11
風邪は引き始め肝心だからな I am not sure I understand this construction. I get the overall context that Hinata chan remembers her teacher was starting to catch a cold. I specifically did not understand the “だからな” part.
Loved this chapter! The vocab list was incredibly helpful especially for the slang and regional phrases. I got a question about page 10: when Hinata says “風邪はひき始めが肝心だからな” does it mean that
Summary
she made the drink so she wouldnt catch the cold? or was it for her 先生 to drink, but we find out in the next panel that she got better after sleeping for the night?
I read this as basically, “As for colds, since the start of catching it is so important…” (thinking emoji). Basically an incomplete sentence, as she hasn’t yet decided what she’s going to do because of that essential-ness, until she has her brainwave two panels later.
This isn’t said outright in the dialogue exactly, it’s just implied by the context, but yes, she’s making the drink for her sensei since she’s worried about her.
As we find out on page 13 however, there’s nothing wrong with her teacher. It’s a common anime/manga trope that characters sneeze when their name is mentioned, and Hinata is insufficiently genre-savvy and so misdiagnosed this as the start of a cold.
Yeah, she at least had the signs of an actual cold. The point is that she felt better after a good night’s sleep. (It’s not the “sneezing because people are talking about you” trope because (a) she’s coughing, not sneezing, and (b) it’s only that trope when the story shows the person who’s doing the talking.)
Cramming the vocab list the week before reading made it so much faster than last time. I enjoyed this week much more than last week as I can cram the vocab list as a part of my normal study, then when saturday rocks around the chapter is much easier. Mind you I did still need to translate some stuff (mostly particles or structures I was unfamiliar with), but way more streamlined.
Basically all the ones I struggled with a little I worked out eventually and then confirmed by reading the thread here, although one is still vaguely tripping me up but I might be trying to be too literal with it.
quote from my notes:
Though maybe it could be seen more as "When I thought I died, I became a child etc.?
内緒
I feel kinda bad that she didn’t end up giving the daikon to her teacher but it was sweet of her to make it, also the peacefully eating daikon at the end and then thinking about death very mood change. Also the panel of her as an old lady watching her kids to being a kid herself was very good.
