Ah, nice - this is one of those ones where I could work out the answer in English fairly easily, but had no idea of the answer in Japanese…
And welcome to the topic.
Ohhh, now I understand the clue. “O is to N as ___ is to 窒素”
It’s an approximately-equal-to sign - according to Wikipedia, that’s the version most commonly used in Japan, Taiwan and Korea. Whether it’s actually performing that function here is another matter, though.
Why? I don’t get it…
Yeah, I like that one. One thing I’ve learnt from this book is that if there’s a fish involved in the clue, the answer is probably a pun of some description.
Generally if you’re confident in an answer that contradicts someone else’s uncertain guess, it’s worth sticking to your guns. That said, why シンガリ in particuar? Seems to me there’s several words that’ll fit there. We might need to get more cross clues.
Previous puzzles have shown us that if the word has ー, you use ー. Which is nice, because it gives you a massive hint for the cross word - it’s almost certainly a word that’s normally in katakana as well. Previous puzzles have also shown us that the ー need not represent the same vowel in both words.
38-down ラード (now that I understand what the clue means)
30-down クルミ
36-down エサ
36-across エキ
39-down クッキー?
35-across カド
21-across チャルメラ (had to research that one)
My guess is it’s referencing 蜘蛛の糸 by 芥川龍之介, a story about お釈迦様 who hangs a thread down into hell (糸をたらす), but I am not sure what the first “___して” is supposed to mean. Maybe 意図して as a pun?
Mainly because it is kun’yomi of one kanji, and it’s a word that is in my Anki deck for some reason, but it could be any of the others as well I suppose…
So, apparently, prior to fertilisation, the interior of an ostrich egg is one single cell, making it the largest in the world. So the answer to 1-across is サイボウ
15-down, I get the answer, but I don’t quite see the logic of the clue: tumeric in Japanese is ウコン, and 右近の橘 is the tachibana tree that stands to the west of the southern stairs of the Hall for State Ceremonies in Heian Palace, and it’s like… why? Why do I care about that tree, and why was that extra step necessary for the clue? Anyway, 15-down is ウコン
16-across コカツ
30-across クマ
33-down エダマメ
34-across ダシ (I’ve pulled one of those in the Kawagoe Matsuri )
37-down イシ, I guess.
24-across コウエウ
Makes 24-down コツ
14-across コト (春の海 is a song that’s played on shakuhachi and koto)
14-down コドモ
5-across オオドウグ
17-down コウトウ
22-down グウワ
23-across ウツツ
Think 2-across is ムネ, because 胸が痛む and 胸が騒ぐ and 胸が膨らませる are all expressions (though that third one’s not in Jisho)
I guess 1-down is サムライ? Only word that really fits. I guess “The Seven Samurai” and “The Last Samurai” are both movie titles?
18-across ウンモ, because クラゲ can be written 水母, and ウンモ is 雲母.
7-across キャスト (a pun. katakana is used both for casting a fishing line and the actors in a play, movie, etc.)
11-down オモチャ？ (Omocha no cha-cha-cha is a classic kids song in Japanese. fits with キャスト)
12-across becomes モモ (seems vaguely familiar, that sentence that’s just one long string of も？)
31-down ガシツ
32-across シカク (it’s a word-association game - 触覚＞視覚、三角＞四角、暗殺＞刺客, all of those are read as しかく), so I guess クッキー was correct for 39 down.
35-down カイカ (ditto - 桜の＞開花、文明＞開化、段階の下＞階下)
Which makes 27-across チガイ… I don’t get it.
Thanks for making that answer grid, @Heiopei. Any chance you could include the super secret magic word down the side?
