Are any of the names at the bottom of 72 noteworthy? Or are they just randos for the sake of worldbuilding?
Also trying to check if I’m following the plot right, on p76 is the 蟲つかいtrying to come up in the ranks by killing クシャナ(?) in order to replace him or is he an assassin?
I can only spot one name at the bottom of page 72, and it’s the name of the character who’s currently speaking, so yes, fairly noteworthy. Are we on the same page?
Kurotowa’s dialogue at the top of page 77 says that Kushana’s imperial watchdogs have a tendency of suffering… accidents, so quite probably the wormhandler was acting on orders, either explict or merely implied.
So dude who doesn’t need an ostrich is Kurotowa right? Then Miss sword breaker is Kushana? Is she a noblewoman or a princess? I think they said something but I didn’t understand that either.
Yes. クロトワとお呼びください - please call me Kurotowa. He’s the topic in this sentence, because he’s spent the last two bubbles establishing his bona fides.
After the fight in the last section, Jihl theorises on page 68 that she’s ヴ王の第四皇女クシャナ - Kushana, the fourth daughter of the Vai Emperor (though it’s more the fourth child, who happens to be a girl - her three older siblings are all brothers).
Spotted another error in the two-volume English edition in said panel, incidentally - somehow “the Vai Emperor” has become “Vai the Emperor”. Only in this panel, though.
But yes, here on page 72, Kurotowa is calling her クシャナ殿下 - 殿下 = Your Highness, Your Imperial Highness, et cetera.
Anyway, I just realized that the club is finally reading this series Hopefully I remember enough to comment without the books
(At least, I do remember the conversation you two are talking about, so that’s good)
Plus in the next two panels after that some soldier is reporting to Kushana that Kurotowa came back out of the pit alive, which strongly suggests the intention was for him not to. Though Kushana seems not to have expected this little murder attempt to actually succeed (やはり) so it may have been intended as something of a warning shot. We don’t see Kurotowa looking scared the way the soldier reports him, which might imply that he put on a bit of an act as he came out of the pit to make himself seem less of a threat.
Man, this was quite a bit slower going than last time (nobles and old men talking to each other… please, give me more children’s speech ), but I think next up is a bit more action again.
Ah, I hadn’t considered it like that yet. I thought that maybe the guy speaking was just fabricating that story to downplay the situation. In any case, Kushana is not buying it
I really liked those panels of the 巨神兵 and of Nausicaa’s underground garden.
I like the brown ink aesthetic for the drawings, but the low contrast small font text isn’t very easy on the eyes (especially when it’s on a non-white background, like the final panel of page 84).
Also p129-130 for the dream sequence I had la-la-lalala-lala playing along in my head
This section starts off very dense. I got through 3 pages in 20 minutes…
In the bottom left panel of page 74, what is 諸族? I think that’s the right kanji, but it doesn’t appear to be a word. Was there some explanation earlier that I’m forgetting or is the meaning supposed to be obvious?
諸 is used as a prefix here, so it’s the various peoples or establishments or whatever of the borderlands. They’re apparently treated as a single unit on maps (like the foldout one in the volume), but they’re not a single country like トルメキア, I assume
Well, on the subject of the map, it also has the similar term 諸侯 (in 土鬼諸侯国) on the left side, which does exist in Jisho, so with that context, one could infer a meaning. The English version translates 辺境諸族 on the map as “Autonomous States of the Periphery” and 土鬼諸侯国 as “The Dorok Principalities” (since the Dorok are essentially a loose federation of separate tribes… though that particular spot of worldbuilding comes later in the manga).
(Finished the reading. I’m a bit amused that Nausicaä’s new scale-mail shirt, which she was instructed to wear at all times, doesn’t even make it to the end of the volume.)
