Ch 20 thoughts
comments to @bonenfan5ben :
P 51
変な理論押し付けやがって… 脳みそ筋肉で出来てんじゃねのか
Here’s how I broke this down. I might be wrong, but it fits with the scenes before and after.
変な理論押し付けやがって you’re pushing some weird theories (on me) - by this Stark is referring to the scene before where Eisen told him the warrior who wins is the last man standing. It’s cryptic as it doesn’t tell him how to actually win, hence why I interpret this as Stark muttering this in an annoyed fashion to his memory of Eisen.
脳みそ筋肉で出来てんじゃねのか if he’s calling anyone a meathead it’s a continuation of his previous thought, so directed at his memory of Eisen. But I was wondering what people think of a different interpretation which makes more sense to me: isn’t the brain made of muscle?I
In this interpretation don’t parse 脳みそ筋肉 as one word (meat head) but rather a two words (brain and muscle) with a missing particle between since it’s rougher speech.
So to understand it all you have to consider the next scene. Altogether, this is an insight that Stark had that he uses to win. He considers what he learned from Eisen and realises Linie doesn’t have that ability. He realised that although Linie can perfectly copy Eisen’s movements, he (Stark) also learned from Eisen (brain muscle training). Linie is just a copy, she didn’t learn from Eisen or realise that her hits aren’t hard enough, and therefore she’ll fall into the trap when he exposes his undefended midriff in a close up big stoke attack. But interpreting it as the direct meat head comment also makes sense as part of that insight as by realising the literal sense of Eisen’s words, that he is still standing and not fatally wounded, he doesn’t have anything to be afraid of.
ch 20 furigana
Sometimes these are made up word inspired by German origin words you can look up in this resource (link also in home post) although on this case I didn’t find them.
I don’t know what Belterie might mean so perhaps like Zoltrack it’s made up. Or it’s from a language I don’t know. The second one looks like the German word erfassen which has a sense meaning to record data/ info which makes sense with this “imitation magic” you get from the Kanji
Ch 21
This one was tough, I had to read it a couple times to piece it together. If anyone is still struggling, I’d advise just do your best and move on, reading ch 22 and coming back to 21 as some things will clear up. That said, here are my thoughts before I read ch 22.
overall thoughts
The concepts in this whole chapter seem to depend on this idea that it is so despicable to hide how much magical power you have to trick your opponent that even a demon wouldn’t think of doing it.
Nice twist there that the pride of the demons to show their strength (and assume everyone else does) is their downfall.
It seems beings who use magic can detect each other’s magical ability. And then they generally act accordingly. But the trick Frieren learned from Flamme is to always hide it so her opponents misjudge her strength. I guess that puts past scenes in a different light - I have noticed how Frieren has been drawn to seem so helpless just before she casually blows away a bunch of demons. What I don’t understand is why this is so despicable to demons.
And why do Frieren and Flamme consider it a mockery of magic to hide their true strength? Is it because of all the time and research/work/practice it takes to build it up?
I decided to move on without worrying too much about these questions and that was a good idea
Ch 22
Caught up and boy was it worth it!
