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Ah, the first appearence of an actual military character. Hope all y’all have been studying your military ranks on WaniKani, because you’ll definitely know them aaaall by the time you finish FMA.
A fun episodic adventure, but good god was there a lot of new words for me. Bookwalker scan quality is awful too, making out some of the furigana is pretty rough.
Also a few odd ducks in there too - 雀の涙 (a tiny amount) and 二足のワラジ (to hold two incompatible jobs)
Sometimes Ed’s weird phraseology confuses me too. If anyone could breakdown:
120?
Ed: 納税の義務をおこっておきながら権利ばかり集中するという訳ですね
I don’t understand what the おこっておきながら is doing there. I get the meaning is something like “You can make a claim for the payment of taxes because it’s your rights [as a property owner]” but I can’t parse the actual construction of the first half specifically.
132-ish?
Ed: ツケタ顔並べてごきげんうるわしゅう＜３
I know he’s saying basically “Turn those frowns upside down!” but I don’t really know what 麗しゅう means here or what he did to it even
I was dreading this moment.
I have troubles with them even in my native language (and I think we studied them a bit at school an eternity ago). Guess I’m gonna persevere for HagaRen (and maybe draw a diagram or something).
Fortunately in Japanese it’s not quite as arbitrary as "hmm… does Major outrank Captain or is it the other way around?’ Namely, there’s three tiers of ranks, which from lowest-ranked to highest are 尉, 佐, and 将. Each of these is subdivided into 少, 中, and 大. Since the order of the latter is fairly apparent, you just need to come up with a way to remember the order of the former. My first thought is they’re in alphabetical order, in both Japanese and English (when written in romaji, that is).
Extremely helpful, thanks!
Went to jisho with some of them, and I don’t really want to know what “lieutenant general” is doing just under “general”. Like, shouldn’t it be closer to lieutenant ranks?!
Love this straightforward Japanese approach!
“Lieutenant” modifies “General” here, rather than the reverse. The lieutenant general is the lieutenant of the general, and not the general of the lieutenants. Same with lieutenant colonel for colonel, and lieutenant commander for commander (if we’re venturing into naval ranks). Etymologically, “lieutenant” means “someone who acts in place of their superior when said superior is absent”. “Lieutenant” on its own is lieutenant to the captain.
(Though what bugs me is that Major General and Brigadier General are both lower than Lieutenant General. They really sound like they should be higher than General.)
Here are the ranks in a table with their number of occurrences in the series, so you know which ones you'll see the most if you complete the series.
Rank
Reading
Rank
Occurrences
准尉
じゅん・い
W-1: Warrant Officer
12
少尉
しょう・い
O-1: Second Lieutenant
84
中尉
ちゅう・い
O-2: First Lieutenant
125
大尉
たい・い
O-3: Captain
28
准佐
じゅん・さ
Gundam Rank
0
少佐
しょう・さ
O-4: Major
105
中佐
ちゅう・さ
O-5: Lieutenant Colonel
42
大佐
たい・さ
O-6: Colonel
277
准将
じゅん・しょう
O-7: Brigadier General
30
少将
しょう・しょう
O-8: Major General
90
中将
ちゅう・じょう
O-9: Lieutenant General
36
大将
たい・しょう
O-10: General
6
Note that the count of occurrences is across the whole series. It’s technically possible for a rank to appear a ton in one chapter and never show up anywhere else.
It’s also where Officer Jenny’s name comes from in Pokemon.
Still, where did this 准 tier come from? WaniKani never prepared me for this, aside from 准教授. Though I guess I should have expected it, given Falman’s rank in the English translation…
Now do the enlisted ranks too. (Though I can only call to mind two named characters who are NCOs.)
Oh thanks for that. Is it something more like “They might be preparing to dodge out on their duty of paying taxes, [but] it’s a claim [you have] based solely on your privilege [as a property owner]?”
Ouch this chapter was tough. I think I understood what happened but didn’t understand a lot of what they said
Will have to do a double take and maybe see if I can come up with specific questions.
You scared me with your difficulty warnings but with a ton of lookups and a couple uses of ChatGPT I prevailed.
It helps that the plot of this chapter is fairly straightforward and somewhat predictable. I also think that my videogame experience paid off: the rough language used by the miners and the mellifluous prose with that おる nonsense employed by the 中尉 are both things I encountered in various games.
I love these slapstick exaggerated cells punctuating the action:
