老女的少女ひなたちゃん・Little Granny Girl Hinata-chan 👩‍👧 — Week 9 (Absolute Beginners Book Club)

Welcome to the ninth week of the Little Granny Girl Hinata Chan book club!

Week 9 4th May 2024
End page 94 (end of chapter 5)
End phrase なんかよく()かんね
Pages 15
Last Week Week 8
Next week Week 10
Home Thread 老女的少女ひなたちゃん
Last Panel

Vocabulary

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. 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 image Main character
とよ image Hinata’s past self
文夏 もか image Hinata’s friend and classmate (Note, you’ll often see her name written as モカ)
千春 ちはる image Hinata’s friend and classmate
咲夜 さくや image Aloof classmate
冬馬 とうま image Rowdy classmate, leader of the boys

Discussion Questions

  1. 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!
  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
  3. 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?
  4. Did you feel (まど) was an adequate explanation?
  5. Do you think Hinata had a purpose for being reborn? What do you think it is?
  6. Generally, any thoughts on what Sakuya’s deal is?

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
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  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer reading the book
0 voters

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!

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General club reminder: This week is when the voting for the next book takes place, if you’re interested in having your say, check out the poll:

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Page 87

image

This panel cracked me up the first time. Especially with page 90 later emphasising that Hinata’s bedroom is on the first floor. Just that level of nonchalance “of course I climbed into your room through the window, isn’t it obvious?”

Chapter 4 and 5 thoughts

This is really where we start getting an insight into the fact that we are going to explore a bit of the mystery of the plot, and not just use it as an excuse for comedic slice of life escapades. In a way that makes the tone of this chapter and the first half of chapter 4 quite different to the first 3 chapters, so I wonder how people are finding these kind of scenes?

Series storytelling style commentary, no plot details but playing it safe

In general, the series is going to go back and forth between sort of more emotional/serious chapters like this one and more slice of life episodes basically all the way through. I joined for the grandma slice of life stuff but really it’s the way the larger plot was handled that got me really energised to finish the series.

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Got some new character names in this one - 遥登はると on page 81, サダヲ on page 85, and on page 88, 三芳 is granny!Hinata’s family name.

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Page 93

image
これは何
ひとりまつりー alone festival?

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So I read it the same and just assumed it was a reference I didn’t get.

Decided to look it up and the best I can get is it’s a reference to this manga:

https://anilist.co/manga/155187/Hitori-Matsuri/

Given the similar-ish art style to the poster and the subject matter, it seems like something Hinata would be interested in. It also seems to have been moderately big in Japan in the 80s, it got a tv adaptation, though hasn’t made it to the west at all.

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Discussion Questions

  1. Nothing specifically, just some words I didn’t know but solvable with a handy dandy dictionary
  2. 秘密 - two 必! How fun
  1. Sakuya coming through the window was pretty great and I feel she’ll probably end up being important so I’m looking forward to the next chapters, and also looking forward to Hinata exploring her possible purpose
  2. Absolutely, I didn’t question it any further, makes complete sense
  3. Since she mentioned the festival I assume it’ll be related to that, maybe she’ll go with her friends or something and it’ll fulfil the wish her son/grandson (can’t remember which one it was)'s wish
  4. I like her I think she’s gonna be a moody loner character with a secret heart of gold and a tragic backstory and Hinata gets her to open up and they become besties. I feel she’s trying to guide or connect with Hinata anyways (in her own aloof way)
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Page 83

「無理しなくても。。。」
I was struggling with this form a bit, but I think it’s a partial なくてもいい bit of grammar. So like, when Hinata’s mum says she needs to by the ingredients, Hinata was going to say something like “You don’t have to go out of your way for me.” and got cut off because she has a decent mother who cares about her children.

Page 85

With サダヲ, is ヲ pronounced the same as オ like how を is pronounced like お? Or is the W sound said outloud? I don’t think I’ve seen it used since I first learnt katakana, I almost wasn’t sure what I was looking at.

Page 87

Please can someone help break down the verb endings on 「聞いちゃいないのに」 and 「休んじまうなんて」?

窓? :star: I love her.

Page 90

「聞くだけ聞いていねぐなっちまった」
I’m struggling to understand this. All I’ve got so far is “Only listen, listen and disappear” and weird verb ending that will make everything else make more sense?

Story Comments:

I find it rather curious that Hinata’s brother knew a bit of how to help her with the fever. Her mother didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t learn it from her.

Not-Sakuya is great, I look forward to finding out more about her. Though I have to say if she doesn’t like the name Sakuya perhaps she should let people know what she does want to be called?

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Yeah, it’s a pre-kana-reform さだお, a reasonably common boy’s name.

聞いてしまわない (聞く + ~て + しまう + ~ない) and 休んでしまう (休む + ~て + しまう)

It’s N2 grammar. AだけAてB = do nothing but A, and then B. In this context, 聞く is “ask” rather than “listen”.

I feel it’s not so much that mother doesn’t know what to do, but rather that Hinata suddenly spouted a whole bunch of rather old folk remedies, so she got distracted and stopped to research them.

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I’m still reading, but I gotta wonder. Is tamagozake good? And I assume that’s got alcohol in it, so why isn’t the mother weirded out that her kindergartener child asks for it?

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Considering it’s a folk remedy for a cold, I’m not sure it’s drunk because it tastes good. :stuck_out_tongue: Though, it is made with sugar, so if there’s enough of it…

It’s apparently not unusual to give tamagozake to children - [citation]. It’s different when it’s medicine, I guess?

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A couple of fun personal connections this week:

  • お見舞い (sympathy visit) came up in my WaniKani lesson queue;
  • I’ve had a bit of a cold, and tried making tamagozake … definitely knocked me out likely was the reason for some crazy dreams …
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Next week’s thread is up!

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Just read this chapter! Loved Sakuya coming through the window. I was also interested to see there’s a bit of plot development.

Favorite panel:

image

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