Aria the Masterpiece: Chapter 51 Discussion

[Naphthalene]

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Aria the Masterpiece Chapter 51: パリーナ

Start Date: August 31st
Previous Chapter: Chapter 50
Next Chapter: Chapter 52

Vocabulary List

Aria the Masterpiece Volume 5 Vocab

Discussion Rules

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[Naphthalene]

New volume, new 4コマ漫画

[Kyasurin]

Poor Woody!

[hachiken]

でっかいアリスちゃんですね。

[seanblue]

You need to change the cover. Poor Athena!

[Naphthalene]

Aaaah forgot.

Uh, tomorrow though. I’m way past bedtime. I shouldn’t be here at all

[Belthazar]

I’ll read this in the morning (because right now it’s 1:30 am) but for now, lemme just re-post my favourite panels from this chapter.

[hachiken]

So Aria can draw super cute pictures. What an artist! p.21

After reading this chapter I found an interesting article here:

These colourful poles are an underestimated landmark of Venice

Although from reading it it seems to suggest they don’t last as long as is suggested by the chapter.

[Belthazar]

I wonder if this is a theme going on - the palina that was already there when Alicia joined the company has been replaced during Akari’s tenure, just the same as the training gondola from last volume…

Heh. Casanova’s song making another cameo on page 17. It really got stuck in Akari’s head, didn’t it?

Check out Aria on pages 26-27.

One curious and possibly not relevant side note: in the anime version of this chapter, just as here in the manga, Akari’s new palina is installed behind the Aria Company building. In subsequent episodes, however, it always appears in front of the building, next to the passenger boarding ramp. Though, I’m pretty sure she also paints it before they install it, too. How’s she supposed to reach the top of the palina when it’s upright?

Although from reading it it seems to suggest they don’t last as long as is suggested by the chapter.

You mean, like this?

I saw lots of palina and dama during my visit, but I don’t recall seeing any bricola. Or at least, bricola as depicted in the manga. Googling suggests that dama are simply a type of bricola specifically located at crossroads (or… crosscanals?) - that is to say, bricola are anything that’s comprised of three or more palina bound together (they don’t need to be the monstrosities-with-numbers as drawn here).

[hachiken]

You mean

Assumptions and suppositions about poles

Well, about the age of the poles where the gondolas are tied up, the article says the wooden ones are replaced at least every 20 years. If I read the chapter correctly the previous pole was put there by Alicia’s predecessor. Assuming Alicia is 10 years older than Akari and joined Aria company at the same age as Akari and Alicia’s predecessor (granny’s first apprentice) put it there 10 years before that, then the 20 years thing is reasonable. For some reason, when I read the chapter I imagined the pole was put there 30+ years ago.

[Belthazar]

Assuming Alicia is 10 years older than Akari

Alicia is three years older than Akari.

We’ll get to it eventually, but the last chapter in this Masterpiece volume (アクアマリン) explicitly places the founding of Aria Company in the year 2281 (and somehow I’ve literally never noticed that before in all of my previous readings). In the first chapter, the date on Akari’s laptop was 2301, or twenty years precisely. Though, that was… what, four Earth years ago? I’ve lost count of how many summers we’ve seen.

[Ditto20]

All this business with various things being replaced and the talk about things changing kind of makes it feel like the author was planning to end the series soon-ish(or well, about two volumes worth of chapters later, probably) while writing this At least those are the kinds of things often talked about near the end of similar stories

Best part of this chapter though: Aria’s Pictures, by far. And actually giving some info on stuff related to the actual gondola-rowing, which I feel like it hasn’t happened for a while(though to be fair, I guess there’s a limited amount of information to give in the first place so I guess it has to spread out )

[Belthazar]

All this business with various things being replaced and the talk about things changing kind of makes it feel like the author was planning to end the series soon-ish(or well, about two volumes worth of chapters later, probably) while writing this At least those are the kinds of things often talked about near the end of similar stories

Well, four volumes worth of chapters. That said “life goes on, and things change” has been a theme in this manga since at least as far back as Masterpiece volume four - Navigation 36, when the Three Fairies reminisce about how they were once as close as the main characters are now. And maybe there are other examples that I can’t really call to mind right now.

[seanblue]

Alicia is three years older than Akari.

Earth years or Mars years?

[Belthazar]

I’m fairly sure it’s Earth years, for… future chapter reasons.

Not actually a plot spoiler, but this was learned from reading ahead, so I’ma spoiler it anyway: one upcoming chapter gives Alice’s age as fourteen, and she’s also a middle school student. In another chapter, Akira explains in detail about how the Undines tend to work off the Earth calendar simply because they deal with so many tourists from Earth. Uh, Manhome.

[Arzar33]

I finally caught up with Aria !! So happy

One year ago, I tried to read Aria and failed. I was not ready for native manga. But this year I studied Japanese really hard. Picked up again Aria about 3 months ago and it’s such a pleasure now. Every other day I love reading a chapter at night, in bed, just before falling asleep, and melt in the 素敵ness and 摩訶不思議ness.

Anyway, this chapter was really nice, I liked learning new info about actual gondola rowing for a change. But Amano-sensei and her love for alternate kanji… 目が醒めました and 遺す took me by surprise And speaking of rare kanji, 澪 is also really up there, according to jisho it’s used only for two words 澪標 (used in this chapter) and 澪 (mio, water chanel)

A little question. Bottom of page 34

I don’t get Akari and Alicia reaction. They got suddenly both so surprised / shocked. I thought maybe it’s because both talked at the same time and said the same thing, or something like that, but the sentence before seems to be just said by Akari.

ずっと先の未来にこの彩色パリーナに逢いにくると今日の私達３人に逢えるってことですよね。
“in the far-away future, when you/we’ll come to meet this colored palina , you/we will meet today’s three of us.”

Or they just got very emotional ?

[hachiken]

Welcome on board!!

でっかい素敵らしいですね。

[Belthazar]

Or they just got very emotional ?

Yeah, I think it’s more that the full impact of what Akari was saying suddenly struck them. But yeah, I don’t think I’d respond like that personally.

Actually, I’d be Aika in this situation. 恥ずかしいセリフ禁止！！

[Kyasurin]

お帰り！