魔女の宅急便 (Kiki’s Delivery Service) Discussion Thread: Chapter 9

Today I finally found the time to read and could catch up. :sweat_smile:
I’m finding the conversation between the mayor and the時計屋さん really funny. Specially when he wants to send the police car to steal the cog. I think this is one of my favorite chapters.

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I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Japanese onomatopoeias being used as frequently as they are. [コッチン、アッチン、ポッチン] being used to contextually as “the ticking of the clock” is really fun to read.

Also spent today catching up haha! Really quick read all things considered, and yeah I also quite like the last few pages of part 1. Really fun back and forth, and in a way that’s charmingly quaint (very much vibing with the rest of the book). The panic that both of them experience gets pretty funny, especially with 町長さん doing warmups while stressed out.

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Lmao I had to doublecheck that I correctly read the Mayor’s line about people spraining themselves or breaking out into rashes if he clapped to start the race. Good to know I read it right the first time lol

This chapter is pretty snappy with the back and forth, I’m really enjoying it.

You also lose a great line in translation: 「それからまゆを八の字にまげ」legit made me laugh irl

Alright, it’s Friday and I’m ready to get right into discussing the new chapter.

What do you mean, it’s Tuesday?

What do you mean, it’s the same chapter?

I must have fallen behind, for reasons that are wholly unrelated to the video game Paradise Killer.

Anyway, the book must go on. Thankfully, it’s another short week, so I can just go three-ish pages at a time.

  • 小さくおじぎをしてうたうようにいいました - Well, this is cute. I also unconsciously bow/nod when on the phone with people.

  • Even if they don’t have a big marathon, having your clock tower working on the Big Miso Day (Which is how my brain keeps translating 大みそか) seems pretty important. This plan is messed up.

  • Boy, this mayor is a serious drama queen. Further fueling my theory that anybody both younger and more accomplished than me is just the worst.

Alright. 3/10 down. Time to give the next three pages a first read.

I’m definitely not imagining it, I’m running into far fewer sentences that I can’t puzzle out on my own with a dictionary and google. Slowly but surely, all my question bullet points are being replaced with comments. A good thing, too, as there are fewer guiding hands to help pull me out of the grammatical muck at this point in the story.

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I love having you in our book club. Your posts always crack me up.

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Oh, good. I did my math wrong. I had 3 days to read 7 pages, not 2. Means I can procrastinate the triple for another day, yet. So, thoughts from the next two pages:

  • コリコの町から西にむかってお行儀よくならんだ山を三つ飛びこすと、- Welp, streak broken. Right there in the first sentence I come up on something I don’t quite get. Is it saying the mountains are politely lined up to convey that they’re in a neat little line?

  • Always stretch your pinky before doing a pinky promise. Don’t wanna sprain it.

  • おじいさんは笑いながら、自分の小指をキキの前にさしだしました - Please don’t imitate this behavior. This is illegal in 38 States.

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… what? :sweat_smile:

And I do think streak unbroken, your interpretation sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

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行儀よくする - Jisho.org means “to behave well” so I would translate it as “orderly” or “neatly”, I guess. But otherwise, I agree with you and Belerith.

Too lazy to search this in the book atm, but are you sure your IME did not play tricks on you here? :thinking:

:exploding_head: What does it mean?

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It most certainly did. This is a bad holdout from my tendency not to look at the screen when I’m typing. This is fine in english, as I can generally ‘feel’ when I made a typo. It doesn’t work so well with an IME.

Anyway, time to offload the next two pages from my brain so I can finish out the chapter tonight. Let’s reread.

  • Phew. I was worried there. The last page I’d read ended with kiki saying they’ll just go home, but then right as I turn the page Jiji threatens to turn our dear sweet girl into a heartless thief. Well, maybe it wasn’t so dramatic, but I’m glad Kiki didn’t need to learn this particular lesson.

  • あたしは魔女よ。ちゃんとやれるわ - I can’t believe it. I thought it was set dressing when they explained in chapter 2 that the only two pieces of magic Kiki knows are how to fly, and a magic spell that will make any clock work perfectly for 24 hours at the cost of the user’s own life. What a brave girl. I’m almost too scared to turn the page, but I’ll see her noble sacrifice through to the end.

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I can’t tell if you are joking, but did this really happen in chapter 2? What page?

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This didn’t actually happen. :eyes:

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Random thought finishing this chapter. Does the clockmaker realise the clock’s still actually broken, or are they going to have the same panic next year?

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