Aria the Masterpiece: Chapter 1 Discussion

I went back and forth on that one a few times in my head and somehow settled on him being satisfied-enough with how things work there.

Your interpretation could very well be the right one, or maybe an “It’s all so very inconvenient, you know?”

Though we know they’re not always reliable, I’ll also check the Tokyopop translation in about an hour.

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It’s not a word per se. 部 just means “part”. They melted the ice from the polar ice caps part of the planet.

More like 'I’ll show you". Or “I’ll show them all! D:<” but that’s out of character and does not match the context :stuck_out_tongue:

Katakana can be used for emphasis (like italic with roman characters).
So, I’m not sure we should read anything into it, but maybe it implies that she has seen a bunch on video?

Basically. Repetition is indeed for emphasis “It’s so inconvenient… so inconvenient…”

Well, “it kept progressing”, but yes. (Past tense, because the verb in the main sentence is past tense)

She is saying that it is unsatisfactory. But obviously it’s a judgment, so it’s just her opinion…

Sorry to keep it short. Time is at a premium right now.

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I think these are the question that are yet to be addressed…

Maybe 部 as “component”. 極冠部の氷 = the ice which comprises the polar ice caps

Emphasis, I reckon. LIke, I’ve never seen one in the flesh before.

Yeah, it’s one of Akari’s little verbal tics. I’d hoped to find a compilation video on YouTube of all the times Akari goes はひ in the anime, but nothing’s turning up. え?ええええ? is her other one.

Yeah. “The towns are (or my town is?) progressing with beautification and rationalisation”

She’s personally unsatisfied. Everything’s so neat and convenient that it feels like something’s missing (and from the manga, it become pretty plain that what’s missing is “interaction with people”).

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Thank you and @Belthazar so much!

Haha, yep, I just wanted to check it was that meaning of the verb, as quite a lot of options came up when I looked it up.

Ah, I knew it could be used for emphasis like italics, but for some reason my brain didn’t extend that to using it for furigana :+1:

Oh, interesting, thank you both. I wanted to pick apart which it was because it felt important to the story whether she was saying “I personally don’t really like the way cities have become” or “I think there’s something wrong with how the cities are [that extends beyond my personal preference, even if it’s just my opinion]”.

I’d like to see some pictures of cities on Earth in the manga :thinking:

I’m really excited to read the rest now! I hope I don’t enjoy it too much, my poor bank balance…

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You… could… pace yourself? (says the person who already finished the book).

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JLPT N4 over, I have finally time to start Aria !

It’s actually my first manga, so I have some general questions :
1)The furigana are often too small for me, and I can’t decipher at all some unknown kanji. So I end up scanning every page before reading, it’s so much more comfortable on a big screen. :yum: I wonder how do Japanese kids learning kanji when they have to look up those tiny squiggle, it’s barely readable…
2) It seems that this manga never use any 「。」to finish sentence. How do we tell sentences apart ?
3) 「・」is used for linking words ?
4) The word wrapping in general seems completely random… Is there any rules ? Sometimes it cut before particule, sometimes after, sometimes in the middle of a word, sometimes some column are super short and other long, it seems freeform and decided by the drawer ?
5) Sometimes there is space in the middle of sentence, I’m not sure what it means, some kind of pause in speech maybe ? For example, page 20 bubble on the bottom right, there is a space after ご時世に, does it mean something ?

Page 4 : top right bubble
本日は太陽系航宙社東京=ネオ・ヴェネツィア便をご利用いただき。
No question, thanks to this topic, I understood いただき is masu-fom of いただきく and masu-form is same as Te-form in formal speech, I had no idea !!

Page 7: top right panel
What’s the intent exactly with furigana which doesn’t match at all the kanji ? It happen many time.
For example in this panel the text say 惑星地球化改造 but furigana say テラフォーミング. Does it mean that we have to imagine the announce actually said テラフォーミング, but as this katakana word may not be understood by all japanese reader they had to put the explanation in kanji ?

Page 7: top left panel
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。
There is a good discussion already in this topic that explained almost everything, except for the very end ております. Is this a grammar point ? I know only 降りる “getting off / descend” and it doesn’t seem to match

Page 7 : middle left panel
目的地ネオ・ヴェネツィア上空に達します
We will reach our destination… I don’t understand 上空, is ヴェネツィア上空 the name of the airport ? Or maybe ヴェネツィア上空 is a district in neo venice ?

Page 8 : bottom right
なってみせましょう「水先案内人」!
Let’s become and show ? Some kind of idiom ?

Page 14 top right
火星猫 生で初めて見ちゃった
After looking up, it seems that chatta is a familiar contraction ot てしまった, … but why using てしまった in the first place ? The meaning seems to be “it’s the first time of my life I see one”, what nuance teshimau bring here ?

Page 19 Middle left panel
私さっきの場所で待ち合わしてて。
I can’t follow the gammar… what’s going on with 待ち合わしてて ? Is it some conjugation of 待ち合わせる ?
Panel just under :
止まってくれた
Does it mean “it stopped for me” ? She think the boat just stopped because she mentioned she was waiting for someone (and so would like to return to the ground) ?

Page 20: Bottom right
はじまれぇんだ
What’s this :scream: Some kind of contraction for something ? How do we pronounce little ぇ ? Same for bubble on the left ならねぇ

page 21 top panel
ても不思議と落ち着くんだよ
不思議 = wonder 落ち着く = to calm down. Result ???
Also why is there is a と after fushigi ?

Page 22 top left
買い物も仕事もこことは違って全部家でできるし便利ですよ
ここと : is the と here to mark the point of comparison ? shopping and work are different from here ?

Page 22 bottom right
私わがまま言っていますよね?
Why is she apologizing for being selfish ? If I understand correctly just before she just said that those pristine and convenient terran city are somehow unsatisfying ?

Page 30
あんたな漕ぎ方ができるんだ間違いね
I don’t understand this sentence… you can do such rowing… まちがいね ? You are mistaken ?

Page 39 :bottom left
Another creative furigana ? Why is 新人 furigana あなた !?


Phew… Going through one chapter took me the entire afternoon ^^
Many thanks for the people who filled the vocabulary list, it would have been extremely hard without it !

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Magnifying glass. Electron microscope?

My guess? Experience enough to be able to work out what comes in the context.

For the most part, at the end of a speech bubble.

Words in katakana, yes. For example, you might write “Michael Jackson” as マイケル・ジャクソン.

No doubt there are rules. Ours is not to reason why.

I had not noticed that. I’m thinking it’s essentially a comma.

Basically yes. Same as ウンディーネ and ゴンドラ and so forth.

It’s ~ておる. Formal way of saying ~ている (it’s the ship’s crew speaking here, so they’re being formal).

Neo Venezia is the name of the city. As for 上空, have you been checking out the vocab sheet? It means “airspace”. The airport is named マルコポーロ.

I’ll definitely become! Discussion further up.

It’s the “completely” meaning here, emphasising that it’s the first one she’s ever seen.

It’s 待ち合わして + いて + implied main clause “so please take me back there” or something.

Yep, she thought he stopped for her (because she just asked him to stop).

ねぇ = rough, slangy ない, so 始まらねぇ = 始まらない and so forth. It’s prounced like ねえ but you trail off a bit.

“It’s strangely calming”. と is also a way of forming nouns and clauses into adverbs, though that’s kinda intermediate-level grammar.

Yep. Xと違う = different from X. “Unlike here, you can do all your work and shopping from home, and it’s convenient”

It’s a continuation of his previous idea on the page before - “You’ll become a fine Undine, missy” (next bubble) “If you can row like that, there’s no doubt about it”. 間違いねー = 間違いない = I have no doubt; You can depend on it; It’s a safe bet​

Because it’s “you” with a sub-meaning of “all new employees”. Spoiler: Probably because Akari is literally the only employee.

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Wow, thank you so much !!

I didn’t know about this grammar ! Thanks.

I did looked up the word sheet, but tthe definition was a bit vague “the sky” or “upper air​”, I didn’t connect the dot.

… And now, I realize the search function of the forum is broken for japanese… :stuck_out_tongue: Pasting なってみせましょう in the search bar yielded nothing… Thanks !

Ah, yes !! Contraction of いて ! It’s definitively the kind of stuff that are skimmed in textbook, I have to get used to it…

Right. I didn’t know this grammar point at all. Very interesting, another use of と.

Make sense, if was confused by the casual speech 間違いねー, as you said it’s actually the negative form.

Wait, you mean the character actually say あなた (you) to akari, but for us, as reader, we get some additional sub-meaning to foreshadow stuff ?? That’s really cool !

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It’s a really cool way to give the readers extra information. The author can tell you that Earth is now called Manhome without needing a whole bunch of exposition, just by putting マンホーム above 地球.

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Yep, I find that it’s completely incapable of picking up Japanese or numerals, which makes it extremely difficult to find previous discussions in the thread (that’s why I’ve been putting page references in words as well as numerals).

If you’re coming to the chapter after there’s already been some amount of discussion on the thread, I find the best thing is to read the chapter lightly as a first attempt and to give yourself context, then just read the whole thread through before having another, deeper attempt.

This has already been explained, but just wanted to elaborate that in this context it really ties into the sci-fi theme. The author can use kanji to indicate what they’re talking about (and maybe that’s even how this society still writes it) - like 地球 kind of refers to ‘the concept of Earth’ - while using the furigana to tell you what it’s called.

I think a related feature is that children’s speech is often written with fewer kanji, to kind of indicate their level of kanji knowledge, if that makes sense? So speech bubbles seem to reflect how the character would visualise what they’re saying, while furigana tells the reader how to read it.

You also see the furigana thing used in contexts where a character is saying one thing but thinking another, to give another example (like “certainly, my lord” when actually they’re thinking “sure, you idiot”).

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I just want to say thanks for taking the time to ask all these questions @Arzar33! Some of these were things I was wondering about but figured I got the gist enough that I didn’t want to take the effort to type out questions for clarification, others I thought I understood and turns out I didn’t. So yeah, I learned a lot from your taking the time to ask and wanted to say thank you!

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I have just two more questions from this chapter if anyone can help :see_no_evil:


Page 24 / Twenty Four

Top panel, left-hand dialogue bubble

… please help. I think it’s sort of saying… “this town’s image is modelled a bit like an idol business” but I’m so confused by the direct object, the use of the relative clause for the idol bit, just everything really…


Middle panel, middle dialogue bubble

女性は
"Undine"に
なるしかないじゃ
ないですか

I’d just appreciate a sanity check because of the negatives and しかない being new to me - she’s saying something like “Isn’t it the case that women have no choice but to become undines (if they want to pilot a boat)?”, right?


Late as usual, but… I like it! I started to enjoy the actual story much more in chapter 2, because this chapter was setting the scene so much, but it was still good. The art is really fantastic, as you said (though I thought she looked kind of noodley at the top of page 27, haha, but the surrounding panels were awesome).

I thought the postman’s speech at the bottom of page 23 was hilariously expositional, but it was so intense that I found it funny and forgave it. Looking forward to the rest!

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Right bubble:

しかし水洗案内人になる試験は難しいってよく聞くぞ

Left bubble:

この街のイメージを代表するアイドル業みたいなもんだもんだからなあ

I quoted the right bubble as well because I’m pretty sure the left bubble is directly referring back to the right bubble. I think the mailman is speculating about why the Undine test might be hard and I’m pretty sure the もん here is referring back to Undine.

この街のイメージ = This town’s image
この街のイメージを代表する = To represent this town’s image
アイドル業みたいなもん = Thing like the idol business (now I’m wondering if they have idols on Aqua or just see videos from Earth)
だからなあ = because

この街のイメージを代表するアイドル業みたいなもんだもんだからなあ
It (the difficulty of the Undine test) is because the Undine are like an idol business representing this town.


After like the tenth time reading that sentence and trying to come up with a coherent translation it all started to blur together. So hopefully my explanation is at least mostly accurate.

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Yep, that’s exactly right. Xしか~ない = nothing but X.

As with pretty much any manga, the art actually gets better as Amano-sensei gets into the feel of things. Reading over this now, I’ve noticed there’s a few things which become familiar in later chapters have yet to make an appearence so far. She never gets any better at drawing cats, though. :stuck_out_tongue:

Amano-sensei actually visited Venice in person to get reference images for Aria.

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I literally would never have made this connection or understood this sentence myself - thank you so much :bowing_woman:

Are you insulting アリア社長 ?!

Thanks for the confirmation on しかない

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Page 24
Just wanted to chip in with my own translations for the top 2 boxes

Top right: Nevertheless, I often hear that the exam to become an undine is challenging
Top left: Probably because it’s the iconic job which symbolises the image of this town
Next box down
Akari: But I really want to row a gondola. I mean, there’s nothing else a woman can become apart from an undine, is there?
Postie: Well, that’s because all the other rowing occupations are male specialities.

Super late catching up here~

I’m a bit confused by a sentence on page 8

ずつとずつと憧れてたんです

Does this mean “little by little, I was attracted to it”?
I’m trying to figure out what’s happening to the verb here. is ~てた te-form with -た for the past or something? I’m assuming ~んです is explanatory tone?

The font is a little bit weird - it’s ずっとずっと I’ve aaaalways been attracted to it.

憧れてた = 憧れていた = 憧れている in past form

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ohhh that makes SO much more sense, thank you!

How’s the catch-up going? :slightly_smiling_face: