I just skimmed the sample on bookwalker to see how hard it is. And promptly I was unsure with a sentence. On page 22 (if I see that correctly) Ryuuk says:
要らなきゃ他の人間に回せ、その時はおまえのデスノートの関する記憶だけ消させてもらう。
I seem to have a slight problem deciphering who is doing the thing. (I put spoilers just to be sure):
So the topic of the first part is light right?:
If you don’t need it (the book) you can circulate it to another human.
The problem is the second part. Since it is morau.
“At that time your memories related to the death note ‘will let erase’”
Is Ryuuk empathizing with light here so he takes his point of view and can use morau? Even though they just met? I’m sure Ryuuk is not the one who gets his memories erased. Could someone put the sentence with に and が/は so I can better decern why the auther chose this grammar?
I’d translate this sentence like this: “If you don’t want it [the Death Note], pass it on to another human. At that time, I’ll erase your memories of the Death Note.”
I’d say もらう is there in the meaning of Ryuku taking Light’s memories from him/
“I’ll take your memories”
Hmm I mean yeah that’s the gist of the meaning of the sentence but I feel like it doesn’t capture the nuance.
The 消す is in causative form so I don’t really think its an action performed by ryuuk himself and more something he/the book lets light do to ease the transition…
I’m not struggling with the meaning per se. It’s more a “why the hell did they write it in this form” kind of question
I think this (and then this) older post has a pretty nice explanation about this. So it is basically “I’ll erase your memories”, but sort of more polite.
Just to be pedantic and erase all of my doubts. Given what you and ekg said your interpretation is basically a viewpoint switch. In the first part: 要らなきゃ他の人間に回せ Its light who does the action of circulating/transfering the book
and in the second part: その時はおまえのデスノートの関する記憶だけ消させてもらう We switch to ryuuk who does the erasing to light with this sasete morau meaning he “recives the permission” from light (not literally that’s just the politness part you linked to)
Not sure why I’m having so many problems getting this sentence dissected…
Maybe its just because I was thaught abrupt viewpoint switching is bad style in japanese
Since the manga has furigana your wanikani level is not that important for this book club.
The most important part will be your grammar level and vocabulary skill. (aiming for N4 and the basic vocabulary helps a lot)
If this is your first japanese media produced for japanese readers that you read it will be hard and more like a puzzle than actual reading. But it will be hard whenever you begin. So the most important part is to enjoy the material to be able to endure the work
Additionally, since it is a book club you can feel free to ask questions whenever you are stuck or don’t understand a particular sentence (see my previous post here). There is also a vocabulary list which is updated by users when they had to look up any words デスノート ・ Death Note Vocabulary - Google Sheets
I’m not really sure what you mean by viewpoint switch.
It’s Light who would do the action of passing on the book, yeah, but Ryuuk is still the one who tells him to do that. It’s kind of the nature of a command that it refers to someone else doing something, no?
Oh, is that maybe the issue? Did you maybe confuse the imperative (回せ) with a normal sentence connecting form (回し)?
If not then I’m not really sure what you mean, but I’ve also never really heard of view point switches as a concept, so maybe someone else has a better idea
Ohhhh -.-. I thought it was 回せて potential form for some reason (I see now this makes 0.000 sense) with the te dropped. but it is just the command form 回せ…
Silly me, now I totally get the sentence. Many thanks for having the patience and clearing up my confusion.
I don’t even understand how I got confused there in the first place
Fascinating how much one can forget simply by being on a break from japanese for 1 1/2 years …
That’s a stylistic element you often find in japanese media. The correct reading for the kanji is the one from the dictionary. 下界 also means human world/earth but has the connotation of “the world under the heavens”. That it is below the realm of where the shinigami are currently at.
In the vocabulary list there is also 横 as an example. With the reading ねんね which is also not a reading of the kanji and not exactly what it means.
It is often used as a second channel of information. You can think of it like the characters say the stuff in furigana but with just げかい they could mean any “realm below” and the Kanji make more clear which realm is actually meant.
Omg thank you, and thanks to @Marillanne for asking this.
I’d come across them in Demon Slayer and initially thought maybe they were a printing or type setting error but that seemed unlikely, then I saw them again.
I remember trying to puzzle them out for a while and even googling to no avail.
I eventually guessed maybe they were about emphasis but it was just a stab in the dark, and they were so infrequent that it confused me, awesome to finally know their name!
It’s fascinating how differently some mangaka’s use dakuten. Some use a LOT, some almost never.
I haven’t reflected before about these two mangaka writing Death Note, so it’s a bit interesting to take not now.
Also a head’s up for people. There some F-bombing going on in the link shared by @omk3 It’s a great explanation I’ve read before, but just wanted to put it out there for people who are sensitive to that sort of thing.
“hey hey, look what I’ve done!” XD
