The Japanese equivalent to the Family Guy death pose.
2 Likes
No idea about this pose either 
(had to look it up)
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And thus endeth FMA’s most annoying angst arc. Winry MVP.
Enter Bradley. Viz’s English translation rendered 大総統 as “Führer President”, and so Bradley was thus introduced as “Führer President King Bradley”, and it’s like, how many titles does this guy need? Trying to remember if there’s ever a point at which it’s made clear to English readers that “King” is actually his given name.
Aye, I first learnt about it from the Bocchi the Rock anime (the relevant scene comes from volume two, though, so it won’t be coming up in the book club).
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Wasn’t he briefly shown in last volume’s omake?
ch15
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Oh yes, so he was. Though I’d hesitate to say that he entered at any point. He was just… there. 
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It’s not about how he enters, it’s more about how he leaves, apparently.
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By the way, him bringing a melon is another thing that’s very distinctly Japanese I think.
3 Likes
Chapter 16
Start Date: December 28
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雨が降って来ますな
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Oh so that’s where that reaction image is coming from!
p158
何を今更
Does this mean “I thought you’d never ask” or something like that?
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p158
Yeah, that feels like the general idea. Like, “What’s even the point in asking that at this stage?” or something. Viz translation went with “You know there’s no need to ask.”
Apparently the phrase is also used as a reaction in pixiv comments to mean something like “well, duh”, and the exact phrasing springs from Hawkeye’s line here. Something like the ORLY? meme… which Know Your Meme is telling me pretty much went out of usage in 2006. Ouch.
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I think I’m managing to read alone only because I’m familiar with this series 
Though I found some words from this chapter that I saw earlier elsewhere
p. 160
Master Sifu from Kung-fu panda?! 
p. 158
There’s a song that I like, with this title exacty (公私混同)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VK_Fq-DELc
3 Likes
Yeah, I happened to be in Japan at the time when the first FMA live-action film was in cinemas, which I discovered when I found myself with nothing planned in the evening one day and a cinema in walking distance from my hotel, so I went to see it. And yeah, I basically only was able to follow the plot because I already knew the plot.
3 Likes
Last week for this volume!
外伝 + おまけ
Start Date: January 04
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Yeah, I think knowing the context well really helps. If I see a wall of text with a military explanation, I just skim through it as I remember the general context of the story, and feel too lazy to really understand what’s going on there. With military ranks and some names, I just feel glad I remember most of them from the english version…
General thoughts on Vol 4
- The Al ‘am I a person’ ark: glad it got concluded relatively shortly, in 1-2 ch. I somehow always feel like it’s longer when thinking back to it, I personally find it justified but always a bit of a slog.
- Winry at the Hughes’ house is always a part I enjoy. Such a warm and sweet family. It also shows an aspect I like from FMA, which is seeing the interaction between “secondary” characters and how they all get their own plot: Winry is not there just as an extra to be developed around the brothers, but she gets her own relationships, subplot and character interactions.
- The death of Hughes is always a big one to me. I like how the series depicts the death of characters, the aftermath and how characters react to it.
- One of my favourite parts of chapter 16 is the conversation of Mustang and Armstrong. I love how he obtains so much information from so little of what was said and not said.
- And, as an ending note, we can all agree that Hawkeye has some extreme education methods!
9 Likes
犬肉の料理
I didn’t expect a Japanese manga to feature a joke about Asians eating dogs! I can’t tell if it’s because Japanese people make the same stereotypical jokes about other Asian cultures or if it’s a sort of meta-joke about westerners having this stereotype since the manga seemingly takes place in a western-like place.
4 Likes