Home
I almost thought I wouldn’t get to read any of GREEN today, since just after I sat down to read it, the neighbor started mowing his lawn and I couldn’t focus. Then when I could, my mind was too much on 2.43 to do anything but read that, but then I ended up finishing the subchapter and needing something to take my mind off stuff that happens later in the series, so I did get to after all! I read Seed 5. lol in the character intro at the beginning of the volume, Makoto is described as: 農業を愛する純朴な青年。
Some commentary:
Oh my god, so Wako never told her parents where she was disappearing to every weekend, so this time they handcuffed her to her bed, but she ended up breaking the chain and running off anyway! So yeah we briefly meet her parents and her little brother Kei-chan. Anyway, she’s running late, and when she finally arrives at the farm, she throws herself into Makoto’s arms and asks if he was worried about her. Nope, not particularly. Not even a little bit? Not especially… lol he’s a farming-baka and he can’t lie.
We also learn that Makoto’s father is an inept doctor at a Tōkyō hospital. And apparently Makoto had told Wako that he was a salaryman—he earns a salary, so technically, he is a salaryman! Then we soon meet his older sister Sayuri, who’s come to bring him home to make him take over for their father, so was just on the news for forgetting a needle inside a patient he’d operated on. Makoto runs off with Wako, and instead of giving chase, Sayuri goes and reports him missing! She also offers a monetary reward of an unspecified amount for whoever can bring him to the Ono house, so everyone in the village is like, I wonder how much the reward is. 1 mil yen? I heard it was 10 mil. I heard it was 100 mil! 100 mil yen?! We gotta go catch him! lmao
Well, they manage to find someone to help them get away and put them up while they lay low for a while, Makoto assures Wako that he has no intention of leaving the farm or becoming a doctor (and he teases her and uses examining her tonsils as an excuse to kiss her), and Sayuri eats their grandmother out of house and home waiting for Makoto to turn up lol
I read 5 pages of 2.43, finishing ch 1-2 and getting me to pg 49! Skimming ahead, it looks like the next subchapter (ONE AND ONLY POSITION) is when we get to meet the rest of the team, and the 4th (RIVAL’S SHADOW) is the first mention of Seiin.
Rambling, of course:
A friend pointed out today, after I’d messaged her about how being real short as a kid and then growing to be real tall in HS is something else Subaru and Chika have in common, that that could mean that Oda’s “unfounded” optimism about growing 30 cm in HS and becoming a super ace wasn’t actually so unfounded. Granted, this is the first day of school that he says this, so he may not know yet that Subaru has reached or surpassed 180 cm already, but he does absolutely know of Subaru, who is a wing spiker like him and in MS was his team’s ace despite not being all that much taller than Oda. Subaru was never described as 小柄 as Oda is (163 cm as a third-year in HS, and likely at least a little bit shorter in MS), just as “not 大柄” and “not by any means blessed with height,” but he was still definitely short for an athlete, and short for a spiker, and yet he was still the foremost spiker in Fukui MS volleyball. And if he can have that, why not Oda? Ah, I’m sad now.
Ochi does know! Or at least some. In the scene where Subaru tries to convince him not to leave the team, he tells him that when their teams faced each other in the Winter Tournament second year of MS, there was one time where he’d thought he’d succeeded in getting a clean spike over, but Ochi picked it up with a flying receive. He still remembers that play in his dreams even now. Ochi’s surprised that his playing left an impression on Subaru in middle school. So yeah, he may not know that Subaru specifically wanted him at Fukuhou, but he does know that Subaru, the player he looks up to most in their age group, took notice of him!
lol I love how Subaru gets Ochi to stop crying by going, “Well why don’t you give being manager a try? You’ll definitely get to go to Nationals that way!” all cheerful-like. Ochi’s just like, “Eh, what.” Just totally flabbergasts him. (……えーと……？ なんだその、オレ理論……
)
「ぐずぐず言ってえんと、腹くくっておまえの三年間、おれに預けろ。おれがおまえを春高のセンターコートのマネージャーにしてやる。想像してみろや、春高のセンターコートのベンチスタッフやぞ？ 絶対目立つし、かっこいいぞ？」
brb, I’m trying not to cry knowing that they never end up making it. They never get to stand on that brilliant, orange center court. “けど、三村なら——三村がいれば、行けるのかもしれない,” except he can’t carry them there, they always end up falling short before the semifinals, and in their third year they don’t even make it that far, Seiin takes the representative spot from them. And now I’m thinking about how Subaru takes everyone’s—the team’s, the parents’, the coach’s—hopes and expectations onto his own shoulders, and instead of crushing him like it may anyone else, it only serves to motivate him, but in their third year when it’s their final chance and he can’t even get them as far as HaruKou, never mind that orange center court, it must surely crush him then. F*ck. I gotta go be emo for a bit.
At least this ain’t gonna lay me out flat for literally two full hours like thinking about the friggin;;; “Fundamentally I’m someone who acts with ulterior motives.” “Ulterior motives?” “It’s all right if you don’t understand.” exchange between Aoki and Oda in the first book (I don’t have access to it rn so I can’t put the original lines, unfortunately, they’re better) the first time I actually properly thought about it. Why is Aoki like this. He makes me insane. He makes me utterly feral. He’s so—!!! (Granted, part of that was also from me imagining Oda confessing in college by basically turning that ulterior motives line back on him [well, the version in Funimation’s subtitles, at least, since I hadn’t read the novel yet at that point] and Aoki echoing, “Ulterior motives?” like Oda did except his confusion being tinged with a lot of hoping and still not quite daring to hope, but mostly it was just Aoki and his stupid utterly-devoted-to-Oda self. Like seriously, he doesn’t care about anyone else, he doesn’t do anything he isn’t required to if it doesn’t serve him in some way, but he will do literally anything for Oda. And I mean literally. I hate him. Not really. He’s my fave. I gotta draw him again sometime.)
I read ch 21-45 of コナの大冒険, finishing the story!
Spoiler
I’m really proud of Kona for attacking that snake in ch 38. Even if he did leap on them on instinct and had unbalanced them and thrown them off the tree before realizing what he was doing, it was still really brave. He could have easily continued to sit there watching in terror, hoping the snake wouldn’t see him and decide to make him their next meal. That wasn’t pitiful at all.
I’m excited to start the sequel, but I think I’ll read at least some of their other intermediate stuff first as they recommend. Though, well, I guess that’s just 奥日光 and 三途の川, as I’m not interested in thrillers/horror. I’m also interested in a few of the easier stories they have, so, well, we’ll see what I start next.
Some vocab of note:
大人びる (おとなびる) [一, intransitive] to look/sound/behave grown-up; to be adult-like; to mature
腹を括る (はらをくくる) [expression, ラ五] to prepare oneself for the worst; to strengthen one’s resolve; to accept one’s fate; to prepare oneself. I found this one without the を. I don’t know if it’s common practice, but this author at least seems to like dropping particles from expressions.
破顔一笑 (はがんいっしょう) [noun, 四字熟語] smiling broadly. This reminds me of another phrase meaning the same that was used with Subaru that, when I drew it into Google Translate so that I could look it up more easily on imiwa, came up as “breaking the liking” (although this is “face-breaking,” but still) which is—
相好を崩す (そうごうをくずす) [expression, サ五] to smile broadly; to grin widely
玉座 (ぎょくざ) [noun] throne
魅力 (みりょく) [noun] charm; fascination; glamor; attraction; appeal
一目惚れ (ひとめぼれ) [noun] love at first sight; being taken with someone at the first meeting
金一封 (きんいっぷう) [noun] gift of money (contained in an envelope); money reward (for services rendered)
I haaaate writing in books. Can’t do it myself, and if we were ever forced to annotate for school assignments, I always got rid of the volume afterwards. If I’m buying used, I much prefer to do it in person where I can check the books over to make sure there aren’t any marks, as well as stains or any other damage. If I have to buy used online, I only go for ones in like-new/excellent condition. Cracked spines are fine. Means the book is loved if it’s read so often. Marked-up pages? Disrespectful.
I could add a third book, but I feel like I would be spreading myself rather thin then 
Ahhh I don’t know! It feels off to read ahead as I’m usually just behind on the book clubs 
. Like, I don’t know every word I come across in Spanish, my native language. And in English I come across words that I don’t know fairly frequently, but I think the main difference is that my English level is high enough to know when a word is important or if it seems more filler; I know which words are worth checking and which “overlooking”, or which ones I can just passively assimilate, or guess the nuance, and so on. I definitely can’t do that in Japanese yet, so every. single. word. seems super important and must look it up 
. I don’t think this level of scrutiny is negative though, on the contrary, I think it gives you more language control over time, but yeah it gets absolutely exhausting and you have to unplug your brain at some point.
kitty
I also got better at how to use the different functions of 
You’re convincing me to read it instead of おじさまと猫 lol
it can be both!! It’s all progress 
love seeing your thoughts on ギブン, I might have to see about reading the manga sometime 
