I take the critical hit here to be that he landed a powerful blow by him saying exactly what Takagi wanted to hear (and tried to get him to repeat), even if he did try to walk it back afterward.
She knows he embarrasses easily (that’s half the fun for her, after all) and he doesn’t typically speak his feelings, but she wasn’t ready for it when he accidentally said he wanted to be with her.
As for the final line, I read that as Takagi saying the critical (hit) is こわい/scary, because of how powerful it was. Essentially, “Critical is scary, isn’t it?” (It doesn’t help that she dropped the particle, but I’d say you can imagine either は or が after クリティカル.
I feel like it was a sigh of relief that she didn’t show her weakness in front of him.
This would all go a lot smoother if they would express their feelings, but we wouldn’t have any manga then hahaha
I caught up! Just in time for the end of the volume lol
Some random thoughts
In ホラー it just ending with Takagi and Nishikata having a phone conversation was cute - also feels like the mangaka wanted to flex some different creative muscles with that horror drawing haha
Also Nishikata really just blurted out his feelings for Takagi without realising huh
Not sure of this sentence
ピーマン→ green pepper
いっぱい → a lot
出てくる → not sure what it does in context, does this means that Takagi-chan (don’t know her name ) will get a lot of green peppers? (As for “to come out” of the box)
“A lot of green peppers may also かも come out 出てくる (of the package)”
?
I also have no idea what this means
Edit: apparently おじいちゃん had shipped greens so the presence of ピーマン makes more sense now
1.13.1.2
Don’t get what this sentence mean, what verb is いったら here? I’d hazard 言う
What does 中学生っていったら mean?
I guess the second part is “… already not less that 10 years before” but I’m not sure about something. Junior high school starts at 14 years if I’m not wrong, but this speech bubble points to the young Takagi, how is this possible that she says this talking about the past (10年前)
(former) Takagi-san was trying to tell her daughter that opening the box is dangerous (it requires the box cutter), but since the girl wasn’t deterred, (former) Takagi-san tells her that a bunch of peppers may come out. It’s pretty notorious for young kids to not like peppers at all, so it was just done to try and scare the girl from wanting to open the box, basically. Parenting trick.
As for the other panel:
The speech bubble is just shaped in a misleading way. It’s the older Takagi-san speaking and reminiscing still. I think the reasoning for it being pointed to a younger Takagi-san in the panel is because it’s supposed to be like her picturing herself as that young still, but I’m not 100% on that. Either way, it’s not like an actual memory or anything. It’s the modern-day (former) Takagi-san speaking.
The first part is:
“When (たら) we were called “middle school students” (中学生っていう (but obviously in て form to connect to たら),”
More naturally, “When we were middle school students,”
Full sentence reads to me as, “It’s already (been) more than 10 years ago when we were called middle school students.”
Or, natural English phrasing, “It’s already been ten years since we were in middle school.”
) will get a lot of green peppers? (As for “to come out” of the box)
