Left’s sentence structure kept tripping me up, but once I worked out part of it for myself and then looked at the English, it made sense, haha. (like on page 184)
This week’s reading takes us to the twelve-and-a-half minute mark of the anime’s fourth episode, the episode’s eye catch.
Today I learnt that Asa was not calling Godfather Kagemori 親方.
Gabriel’s drawing of Yuru resembles “Kabuki Actor Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei” by Tōshūsai Sharaku, albeit mirrored. Compare. The drawing of Sayu-sama, I’m not so sure of, but I feel like it’s referencing something.
The tower in the third panel of page 182 is Sky Tower Nishotokyo, while the fifth panel is the much more distinctive Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. A straight line joining those two buildings only juuust clips the edge of Saitama Prefecture if extended, in the Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park south of Chichibu, so I guess they’re either not travelling in a straight line, or Arakawa-sensei is trying to obscure where in “Guntama-ken” they’re living. (Fun fact: the Sky Tower lights up at the top at night with lights colour-coded to indicate the next day’s forecast at 9am - in the anime version, it’s purple, indicating clear weather.)
It amuses me that the kanji for Jin’s Tsugai are “janitor”. Contrary to what I said previously, these guys don’t seem to be a reference to any sort of Japanese folklore or other, though there was a manga series called 愛と誠 in the early seventies.
This was my first bookclub and thoroughly enjoyed it. My reading was at bit slow at the start but once I got into a rhythm of reading a bit every day it improved quickly.
How does this compare to other material in the beginners club? I found that once the world was set a bit more I was able to understand most context, though not all individual words or recognise all grammar patterns. I am now on volum 2 and find that way easier as there is less infodumping.
I’m reading ひらやすみ offshoot (previous BBC) alongside and find it much easier because of common setting. トイレ vs 厠 comparison
Also it depends on the pace - chapters with fight scenes go in a flash, but few pages of explanation can take time.
