The chapter concludes on top of the hill where all trainees are granted their first promotion. According to the story, that’s a pretty famous spot: tourists seems to know it, everyone in town seems to recognise it, all in all it sounds like something really relevant, but still it’s supposed to be secret to all the apprentices? And Akari doesn’t know about it? doesn’t this sounds a little crazy? Am I missing/mistranslating something?
Probably it’s not the purpose of this setting to be entirely logic and consistent, so I can’t be mad at the author, but I can’t stop feeling that the premise is a little bit silly (in a fun way).
EDIT: sorry @Radish8, I replied to your post by mistake >.<
I’m slightly confused by the 問われる part, but I think that’s from a misleading jisho definition. I think the intended jisho definition is “to call into question; to doubt; to question” (which it notes is usually in passive, like it is here). But I think of these English definitions as having a negative nuance, like you’ve already made a mistake so your abilities are being called into question. However, I don’t see anything here indicating that Alicia is talking about a rower making a mistake. She’s just explaining how this area has a large volume of boats and frequent oncoming traffic.
The definition on Goo says:
人の能力や物事の価値などを改めて試す。
Assuming I’m interpretting the 改めて試す part correctly, it seems like the definition is saying that a person’s abilities are tested (or perhaps confirmed) over and over (I’m using passive in my translation). In which case, Alicia wouldn’t be saying that the rower’s abilities are called into question, but rather that the rower’s abilities a tested over and over.
Does that match with everyone else’s interpretation?
On pages 162 and 166, the old man says だかん. Is that a dialectal version of だから?
Only experimented gondoliers (? that’s the French word, not sure about English) know that it’s the trial run. For tourists, it’s just a nice spot/view. Still, hard to believe that no one ever spilled the secret in all those years…
I’d say she’s vaguely heard of the location, but was unaware that it’s a test for Pairs. Very well-kept secret, I guess? Honestly, I’m less surprised that Akari hasn’t heard of it, considering she only arrived a couple of months ago, while Aika, who was born on Aqua, somehow similarly remained in the dark. Though that Akari hasn’t heard of a lock is a whole different matter…
Yep. Which kinda works with “to question” - bringing up “to doubt” as well kinda colours the English translation, but if you just stick with “to question”, the question in question is “can she do it?”
I just deleted it and replaced it with a definition of まあ. But yeah, people really should not be adding entries they aren’t sure of… I put that in the editing guidelines for a reason…
I saw one once and I think it did take about a half hour to fill. It probably varies greatly depending on the size of the lock and the size of the boats.
I had never heard of it before seeing it a handful of years ago, and I didn’t know what it was called until an hour ago.
@PamputSeems likely that Pairs would know of the spot as a tourist attraction, but not know that it’s the test for becoming a Single. Obviously that would have to be a well kept secret, but still. Though really it wouldn’t matter if the occasional Pair found out; it’s not like they’d be able to go there to practice the test.
Based on the “Oh, erm” translation, my guess is he was going about his usual duties, but was overcome with admiration and became unable to string a coherent sentence together when asked a direct question.
Not that plausible scenarios appear to be a major feature of this storyline.
While poking through a few episodes of the anime that I have on hand, I randomly came across another example of Akari using the spiral symbol that appears on page 170. Pretty sure she’s expressing relief, here.
This question isn’t specific to this chapter, but is there a reason 街 is used instead of 町 throughout Aria? Its primary meaning doesn’t seem to be ‘town’ itself, but it comes up as an alternative kanji to use for the various words which use 町, so I’m unclear whether there’s just a different nuance or whether it’s a sort of sci-fi thing…?
Woah, I’ve been following along in the shadows, reading a little bit every day, but this time I just ended up reading the whole chapter in one sitting. Even though I obviously didn’t get 100%, it feels great to be able to read native material at an enjoyable pace. The vocab sheets help so so much with that.
I really enjoyed the chapter. I seem to be the only person who didn’t see it coming. I guess I thought it was still too soon for her? And that people in that area are just weirdly supportive of random strangers in training? lmao
No, I was also surprised! It seems like she’s only been an apprentice for about 5 seconds, and we haven’t really seen her training much, so…I guess she must have been practicing a lot when we weren’t looking? xD And I was under the impression that Aika had been around for longer than Akari, so I wouldn’t have expected them to be taking the test so close to one another. Maybe Aika’s version of Alicia (whoever that might be) isn’t as chill and made her train for a longer time before she could take it. Anyway…the 頑張ってs totally did not tip me off, because being supportive of random strangers in training strikes me as a pretty Japanese thing to do xD
Here’s an explanation (in Japanese, though).
The main point is that 町 is a neutral, global term (so the whole town), while 街 represents a specific place in town.
According to http://chigai-encyclopedia.com/machi/
街 - place where people gather, used to describe a busy district within a city
町 - more administrative, location where people live, used with place names
Ah, okay, I think between you and @Kyasurin that makes a lot more sense, thanks ^^ I knew that 街 sort of meant ‘district’ more, but then using 街中 to mean ‘all throughout town’ anyway seemed a bit incongruous.
@windupbird@Sylph I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one I just thought they were all being supportive because it was a really difficult route and she was an apprentice; it didn’t even occur to me that the test would just be ‘navigate this route’ - I understand that we’ve seen lots of lapses where she’s been training, so that didn’t feel off to me, but I feel kind of bad for Aika having her thunder stolen a little!
I kind of assumed that must be the case, but even just in terms of story development, it seems fast to have her taking the test already (I mean, this is only the first volume, and how many volumes are there after this?) Although I’m also completely unfamiliar with the series/story, so I guess I also thought that her journey to becoming an Undine was going to be a bigger/more important story arc than perhaps it actually is in the grand scheme of things. I assume they’re just trying to get through this training part relatively quickly to get to the “real action,” so to speak. (Or she’s just going to be a 半人前 for most of the rest of the series) Still, if it were an anime, I’d imagine some sort of training montage, and we get almost nothing of her rowing after her first not-so-good training session. xD Looking back, there are a few panels where she’s rowing, but I guess that was a bit subtle for me lol.
I don’t know why I’m still going on about this, feel free to ignore me xD
Thirteen in the original print. Six and a half more volumes of the Masterpiece edition, though.
Funnily enough, it is an anime, and the anime opens with her already a Single. For that matter, so does the Aria manga - and when it was first released in English, they originally started with Aria, not Aqua. It took years for Aqua to be released in English - ADV dropped the licence, and when Tokyopop picked it up, they decided to start from Aqua instead - and for most of that time, I was unaware Aqua even existed. In my experience, Akari had always been a Single.
Story development is a good point. I find it also strange that she gets there just after Aika, when Aika was a lot more experienced than her. (Well, Akari has a few hundred hours in the simulator, if I remember correctly? But then again, she was training wrong…)
Also, it could be exponential difficulty, (like the JLPT :p). Maybe you need to put ten times as much efforts to go from single to undine than from double to single?
doesn’t this sounds a little crazy? Am I missing/mistranslating something? 
