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I’m reading along
I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this chapter yet
Welp, that was probably the hardest chapter so far for me.
For some reason, the language in the treasure hunting notes really tripped me up. I will have to make an other pass and try to really understand what they say…
This has always been one of my favourite chapters, if not my absolute favourite. The real treasure was the friends we made along the way. I’ve long been wanting to try it for myself - and this, which I recently saw in Richard Ayoade’s Travel Man, seems to come pretty close.
Tragically, nothing like the stairs shown at the climax exists in the real Venice - the whole place is pretty much flat. Also, I’ve always thought it would have been nice if they showed more boxes.
That said, I’ve got one small quibble: the manga says “calle” is an Italian word meaning “alley”, but it’s not - it’s exclusive to Venetan, the language of the region (which, though related to Italian, is a completely separate language) and it just means “street”. It’s also in Spanish, but that’s beside the point. The equivalent Italian word is “via”, while “alley” is “vicolo”.
Side note: the words on the tops of the maps and on the restaurant signs aren’t supposed to be legible, right?
To whoever put カッレ in the spreadsheet (@Belthazar?), how did you determine its meaning? Interestingly, jisho says that カッレ is also the name of a town in Italy.
Also, anyone figure out what 手に入れし者 is supposed to mean on page 80? Is the し some archaic conjugation or something?
Okay, finally finished the chapter. Pretty enjoyable overall, though the letters were definitely a pain to read. A few questions/comments:
On page 81, am I misreading or did Akari really just call herself お姉さん?
Page 88: Poor Aika is so jealous! Gotta love the classic Japanese pouty face.
Page 90-91: Plus Alice’s face the entire time watching Akari and Aika.
Page 100: For double spread pages like this, anyone else wish the book bindings didn’t exist? In order to not destroy my book, I can’t open it up too far, which means I can’t really see the drawing near the bindings (basically all of Akari in this case).
I guess she hasn’t used it before, but she’s using it to show that she likes Alice and wants them to be friends. (Is my best guess.)
On an unrelated topic, does anyone else wonder where on earth they keep the money they need to pay for lunch? Because those dresses don’t come with any obvious pockets.
(Alternately, you can watch the anime - Natural episode 2. That said, they’ve changed most of the start of the story, so I couldn’t say for sure whether the view at the end is the same, and I haven’t got the time right now to dig out the episode and check.)
Alice has a bag. Alternately, it’s the future, so they pay with thumbprints.
Not a bad chapter. They love to go on their little day trips where everything is 摩訶不思議 don’t they?
p.87 I think that’s the first time I’ve seen 馬鹿 written in kanji… just sayin’.