Aria the Masterpiece: Chapter 1 Discussion

[seanblue]

Join the Beginner Book Club here!

Aria the Masterpiece Home Thread

Aria the Masterpiece Chapter 1: 水の惑星

Start Date: June 23rd
Next Chapter: Chapter 2

Vocabulary List

Aria the Masterpiece Volume 1 Vocab

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for content that would be considered a spoiler.
• When asking for help, please mention the page, panel, and speech bubble. Be sure to mention if you are reading a version other than Aria the Masterpiece.
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarassing at first. All of us are here to learn.

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

• I’m reading along
• I’m planning to catch up later
• I’m skipping this book

[Belthazar]

Possibly a question better suited to the next chapter, but how on Earth (or, uh, on Mars) does Akari completely fail to notice that literally everyone is rowing from the back?

[hachiken]

火星猫 = Aqua Cat or Martian Cat? Discuss.

[Belthazar]

Martian Cat. Aside from the given reading being かせいねこ, it fits the precedent of Siamese cats still being called by that name even though Thailand is no longer called “Siam”.

[felix330]

I already quickly read through the first chapter before it officially started and now I’m going through it more slowly to really understand all the grammar points. Mostly everything is easy to understand, at least when using the vocab list. Some sentences in the introduction especially are pretty complicated though, for example:

P7:

極冠部の氷の予想以上の融解で地表の9割以上が海に覆われ今日では水の星として親しまれております

This took me a while to understand, but I’m guessing it means something like:
“When more ice than expected was extracted from the polar caps, the surface was covered 90% by ocean and it is nowadays known as the water planet”
Though I’m not sure about the 親しまれております, maybe something like “affectionately known as” or something?

I also don’t completely understand:

p20:

星間旅行ができるご時世にわざわざ船でうんとこさとやんなきや始まらねぇんだ…

First part is something like “In this time where interstellar travel is possible” but I can’t quite understand the second part.

[Kyasurin]

how on Earth (or, uh, on Mars) does Akari completely fail to notice that literally everyone is rowing from the back?

I’m confused… it looks like the oarlock is at the back, so isn’t that where she is also standing?

火星猫 = Aqua Cat or Martian Cat? Discuss.

It looks suspiciously like a Martian Dropbear to me. Especially after that stunt he pulls after lunch.

[latownsley]

This art is fantastic. Akari is so excited to get here, it’s hard not to be carried along with her.

I did have a few questions though:

p.12 when she’s looking over the water.

さすが憧れの水の都ー。。
I understand the vocabulary, but it’s still unclear to me.
Is it something like "Still yearning for this water capital”？

p.22

街はどこも美観化と合理化が進んでいてスッキリしたもんです。
Completely lost here. Maybe something like “My town is improving everywhere through beautification and rationalization” but I’m not sure how the スッキリ comes in here?

[latownsley]

Also (spoiler ahead):

OMG the Martian Cat is the company president?

[seanblue]

President Aria was just trying to be helpful by carrying Akari’s bag for her.

[seanblue]

@felix330 Don’t forget to post the page numbers for the dialog you’re asking about.

---

Page 7

“When more ice than expected was extracted from the polar caps, the surface was covered 90% by ocean and it is nowadays known as the water planet”
Though I’m not sure about the 親しまれております

I agree with your translation, and I’m also not sure what 親しまれております means here…

---

Page 20

星間旅行ができるご時世にわざわざ船でうんとこさとやんなきゃ始まらねぇんだ… この町はよ

I fixed one typo (やんなきゃ, not やんなきや) that might clear up a little bit, and I added the last part of the speech bubble.

星間: I’m wondering if this actually means “interplanetary”, rather than “interstellar” in this context. The only monolingual definition I found was 「星と星との間。」(not particularly helpful). That same dictionary defines 星 as 「恒星・惑星・彗星・衛星などすべての天体の称」, so I’m pretty sure it can refer to a planet too. Hence interplanetary.
わざわざ: Expressly.
うんとこさ: A lot; plenty. This is a と adverb, which means it needs a と afterward to connect it to the verb.
やんなきゃ: This could be a deformed version of やらなきゃ, meaning “have to do”.
始まらねぇ: Deformed version of 始まらない. Apparently it means “It’s no use” according to jisho. This word in the sentence is still throwing me off, but maybe it’s meant to be read separately from the rest of the sentence.

Essentially, the mailman is highlighting the contrast between how they have interplanetary travel, but still do a lot on boats. I’m bad with actually writing out translations, but maybe something like this:
“In these times where interplanetary travel is possible, we have to do a lot on boats. It’s no use… this town.”

I’m not too sure on that last part.

This kind of relates to the next speech bubble where he says 「まったく不便で不便でならねぇ」. It seems like from the context he would be saying it is inconvenient, but then why ならない in the negative? So I feel like I’m still missing something about this.

[Ioan]

I haven’t read the chapter yet (lmao) but I wanna say something here. 始まらねぇ is not meant to be read separately, it’s supposed to be read conjunctively with やんなきゃ, meaning something like “it’s no use if it’s not done” or “it has to be done otherwise it’s no use”.

So the sentence would be: “In this times where interplanetary travel is possible, you still have to do a lot on boats (in this town), otherwise it’s no use.”

[seanblue]

p.12 when she’s looking over the water.
さすが憧れの水の都ー。。
I understand the vocabulary, but it’s still unclear to me.
Is it something like "Still yearning for this water capital”?

さすが means “as one would expect”. Like if your friend John is really good at basketball and makes a great shot, you might say さすがジョン！. So I think this sentence basically means “As I’d expect from the water capital I’ve been yearning for”. I changed 憧れ to a verb in my translation so it wouldn’t sound as weird.

---

p.22
街はどこも美観化と合理化が進んでいてスッキリしたもんです。
Completely lost here. Maybe something like “My town is improving everywhere through beautification and rationalization” but I’m not sure how the スッキリ comes in here?

スッキリ means “feeling refreshed” if that helps. It could also be the meaning “shapely; neatly; refinedly​” as in the town was always becoming more refined.

Can anyone read the text outside of the speech bubble at the bottom of page 22?

---

@Ioan Awesome, thanks for explaining!

[latownsley]

So I think this sentence basically means “As I’d expect from the water capital I’ve been yearning for”. I changed 憧れ to a verb in my translation so it wouldn’t sound as weird.

That makes so much more sense, hahaha.

Thank you for explaining! <3

[seanblue]

@Naphthalene (or someone else who might know):

We were discussing this in the home thread a little while ago, and I don’t know that we ever figured it out completely. On the very first page, the flight attendant says 「…ご利用いただきまことにありがとうございます。」Even though people understood the meaning, we were trying to figure out how the phrase was constructed. We weren’t sure if いただきありがとうございます was just a set phrase, or if it was a grammar construct. Since you might sometimes see ありがとうございます after て form, I speculated that this might be 連用形, but I wasn’t sure. Any confirmation or explanation would be appreciated.

[tessberg]

i think this is just ご利用いただきます ＋ まことにありがとうございます
apparently you are allowed to chain together sentences with the verb-stem in formal speech, like you normally do it with the te-form.

Tae Kim explains it in the very bottom of the link below
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/formal.html

[Asterlea]

I actually was just reading something about this yesterday: How to say thank you in Japanese. Here’s a bit that’s relevant:

*Thank you for +(giving me/us)+ object

*object (tangible/intangible) + をくれて, etc. + 有り難う/有り難うございます。( =object +wo kurete+ arigatou/arigatougozaimasu.)

*object (tangible/intangible) + を下さって/頂き, etc + 有り難うございました。( = object+ wo kudasatte／itadaki, etc. + arigatou gozaimashita.) past tense

I think it seems like it’s a grammar construct using 連用形, but I’m just learning about that now, so I’m not positive.

Edit: Found another part that’s closer to the phrase in ARIA:

買う ( = kau) to buy → 買い上げする ( = Okaiage suru) to buy out

→お買い上げ頂く ( = Okaiage itadaku) to buy (very formal)

→お買い上げ頂き有り難うございました。

= Okaiage itadaki arigatou gozaimashita.

= Thank you for buying.

Ex. 本製品をお買い上げ頂きまして誠にありがとうございました。

= Honseihin wo okaiage itadakimashite makoto ni arigatou gozaimashita.

= You will see this phrase in any instruction manual for products you’ve bought.

利用する is a する verb like お買い上げする, and both seem to just drop the する and get added to いただき.

[seanblue]

The thing Tae Kim explains at the bottom of that link is 連用形 as @Asterlea and I were referring to.

[conan]

I’m a bit late to start, sorry! But I just wanna quickly pop in to say I found this extremely amusing: 惑星地球化改造 with the katanaka “terraforming” xD

Also, HUGE thank you for that vocab list and everyone contributing! <3 I’ll try to list page numbers for my book (Aqua ed2) when I can

Edit: I think most of the page numbers line up, haha, but I’ll try to still add them in when I remember just in case they start to diverge. I know we’re gonna be hopping around chapters later on.

[conan]

極冠部の氷の予想以上の融解で地表の9割以上が海に覆われ今日では水の星として親しまれております

This took me a while to understand, but I’m guessing it means something like:
“When more ice than expected was extracted from the polar caps, the surface was covered 90% by ocean and it is nowadays known as the water planet”

Where did you get extracted from? I’m not sure if I missed the word or some context. I understood it as “when more ice than expected melted” since 融解 means “melting”.

[seanblue]

Edit: I think most of the page numbers line up, haha, but I’ll try to still add them in when I remember just in case they start to diverge. I know we’re gonna be hopping around chapters later on.

I believe every chapter it shifts by two pages. So it lines up in chapter 1, but it will be off by two pages in chapter 2, and so on. But then when you start Aqua volume 2 with chapter 6 everything will be off. Plus, chapter 9 will be different because that’s actually chapter 10 in Aqua ed 2 (see the schedule in the home thread).