魔女の宅急便 (Kiki’s Delivery Service) Discussion Thread: Chapter 8

I used @Kyasurin post from 2018 for that fragment, although the answer why keigo isn’t there, only a confirmation that that’s indeed keigo :smiley:

2 Likes

On page 166. (V2), the knowing grandma is talking to Kiki on the phone, and she says:
ぐみの木どおりのににんが四ばんちよ
Did anyone figure it what ににん (or maybe ににんが) means?

My best guess is
ににんが=2人家=a two person house.

Also, on page 169, I think I just found a pun!
へそ曲がり means a contrary person.

1 Like

Well, this’ll be a first. Unless radish gets here in the next twenty minutes or so, I’ll have completed both my reading and rereading before the next week officially starts.

…Yep. Ready for reading once more. So, Koriko’s gulf has a peninsula named Morimo? This author does love her rhyming names.

4 Likes

The more I’ve read of the book the more I enjoy the way that Kiki (and Jiji) get characterized. Especially here in the latter half of the book, it’s good seeing Kiki have her arc from bratty petulant know-it-all to slowly opening up and learning what it means to not just live in a town, but be part of a community. Granny-san has been a welcome change of pace and a nice grounding presence for Kiki.

The last chapter was good to get somebody friendly around Kiki’s age, but considering how Osono and her husband don’t have nearly as large of a role in dialogue compared to the movie, it’s nice to have an older figure support Kiki. Koriko has a more specific identity here through the townspeople that the movie does a great job of transposing into the visuals. I think it’s just my 20+ years of attachment to the movie that had Kiki’s initial petty brattiness as extra-abrasive haha.

2 Likes

If @Radish8 won’t appear tonight, I’m considering hijacking this book club, although I won’t be able to edit the first post of the home thread. :no_mouth:

5 Likes

No protests and 2 likes, so I’m doing it.

Repeat Club Discussion (Week 15) Starts Here!

Chapter 8 Part 2

V1: Pages 189 - 200
V2: Pages 172 - 181

We’re reading to the end of Chapter 8 this week.

10th October 2020

Please briefly check whether questions have already been answered above before posting them, but otherwise don’t hesitate.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m a superhero who’s read it before but is here for chatting
  • I’m dropping this book

0 voters

8 Likes

Finishing up Part 1 and hoo man this dialogue with Granny is a bit rough to get through. It’s not necessarily that she’s tough to understand (though there are quite a lot of vocab words and turns of phrase), it’s more that it’s a bit of an endurance test to read through long stretches of rather stream-of-consciousness dialogue.

In comparison, Chapter 7 flew by because most of it was fairly digestible bits and pieces with Kiki’s inner dialogue and Mimi’s childish conversation. Felt my head mildly spinning from the couple pages about Granny’s son and his boat work.

It’s certainly interesting to see how character personalities shine through in Japanese, all things considered.

5 Likes

I’m still reading along, I promise, though I may be absent from the thread and my usual rereads this week. October is busy for everyone, it seems.

1 Like

Finished the chapter up and had a fun time. Had a few questions but I’ve been bothering Japanese people to explain them to me know lol.

3 Likes

Haha, the week I’m trying to get back to posting on the forums looks like everyone’s busy.

Made some headway on Part 2 after having just finished up Part 1 (WOW PACING WHAT’S THAT) and surprisingly enough these vocab-heavy pages aren’t getting me like they used to. Definitely finding that prose is easier to get into a reading flow for (compared to last chapter with Granny), since the narrator is pretty straightforward and I can easily tap out to check a definition then slip back into the same sentence. I stopped right before dialogue kicked off so that might change soon…

I’m using an English version of the book to check my reading against and there was a curious omission that I noticed.

モリモ半島が、女の人のくちびるのような形でのびています。

Any guess as to why the following line was omitted from the English localization? Is it the phrasing…? I feel like I’ve definitely noticed omissions in a translation before but this is the first time it seems like it’s a whole dang line.

Also, the absolute cake on these sailors.

image

Or it could just be decades of poor posture, idk

1 Like

Woops. No idea how it happened, but I somehow dashed ahead and already read the second half of chapter 8 last week. I assumed we start chapter 9 this week :sweat_smile:
(Plenty of other things to read, though :))

4 Likes

This is a sentence I’ve marked to discuss once I’m doing my re-read, although it’s not like there’s any unknown vocabulary–i just can’t picture what that means. Is the peninsular shaped like a cupid’s bow? Why do they specify “a woman’s lips”? Maybe the translator had the same problem as me, and decided to just skip it.

1 Like

Doesn’t it simply say that the peninsula has (literally: is stretched out in) the shape of a woman’s lips?

1 Like

Yeah I could easily picture it cause the imagery is pretty straightforward, which is exactly why I thought it was odd that the translation didn’t include it.

1 Like

Man, I guess I’m the only person who doesn’t think “a woman’s lips” is a clear, unambiguous, concrete image. Even after drawing what I think she means, it feels weird. Just me, I guess.

5 Likes

Okay I’ll be honest the more we talk about this the more I understand why this might not’ve been translated hahahaha

2 Likes

:rofl: I was actually thinking of the one on the top right :slight_smile: Like, when you take the silhouette of a “lipstick kiss”. Also, the 伸びています feels to me like it extends rather far than wide…

(That’s what I love about books by the way: Everybody can imagine something in their head!)

2 Likes

Did you see my discussion with @ChristopherFritz about removing lines from Kiki’s translation? It was here.
I don’t know which version do you have, but apparently cutting things out without any apparent reason is very popular in 2020 translation :smiley:

2 Likes

Little comment with possible spoiler

Summary

I just imagine to cover the funnel of the ship with a light blue and white はらまき and can’t help thinking it will get dirty very soon!

2 Likes

Interesting, I think I’m actually reading the older version. It omits a tad, but it actually does quite a good job of mostly maintaining the vibe of Kadono-sensei’s writing. In the case of the description of モリモ半島, I can understand the omission as in English it sounds rather odd as a visual allegory.

Now I need to check out the 2020 version to see how bad it is…

1 Like