Simple and common. I feel like I see it every day while reading.
I read the ってやつあった as essentially “someone said”, where やつ is the speaker, and あった is past tense of ある saying there exists such a person (who said it).
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Ah right, there exists a person who got his dream true (mutual love).
Now, why あった, not ある?
This interpretation makes やつ someone else in the past
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Oh ok so in this expression it happens that the と becomes って and the 言って falls? I was reading its bunpro grammar point and I understood this way
I haven’t understood your (or @ChristopherFritz ‘s) interpretation of that sentence yet, tho
In what sense やつ is the speaker?
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I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean 
who is this one in the past, and how does it links to the rest of the sentence?
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Now, I am not sure whether it means to use the eraser until it turns to fully dust? Maybe you are right.
About やつ, I think it is never first-person. Can be either 2nd or 3rd.
Yes, 成る.
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I thought about it and came up with another conclusion:
両想いになれる could become mutual love (who? The zero ga, the subject intended in the previous sentence - the people whose name is written on the eraser)
って quoting ‘someone said’
やつ this guy who said it
あった existed
やつあった someone said
So:
If you write the name of the person you like on the eraser and use it till it’s consumed, this person could become mutual love (don’t know how to say it in eglish) - someone said (don’t know how to translate the nuance given by よね)
Am I right?
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A feminine non-question sentence ending? There might be an explanation in Tae Kim.
I looked up - Sentence Ending Particles: ね, よ, and よね
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Just checked, nice article!
Looks like it tends toward the meaning of ね particle since in the end it’s always kind of seeking confirmation, but with a bit more of assertiveness or proposing iformations
Also on Tae Kim is a bit more synthetic but well explained
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I think the やつ here is not the “guy” definition but the “thing”.
There was a thing (like a rumor or something) about …
Edit: and って is probably という? Like blablaという噂あったよね
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Sounds even better this way.
‘someone said’ was feeling a bit difficult for me to put into やつあった
‘There was this rumor’ sounds better but then why the past tense?
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Now it becomes linguistic (in both English and Japanese) question. Indeed, many languages don’t have past tense.
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Looking at this:
I think the やつ is actually おまじない (good luck charm or spell)
According to the article, for the complete spell you also need to hide the name, nobody should notice it until the eraser is gone 
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if it helps… in general ある is used for non living things … いる is used for people (and zombies…yes seriously) … keep that in mind 
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I mean, even in English, we would probably use the past tense if not talking about something that’s currently an active trend. From the context, I get the sense this is a rumor that has existed for quite some time, and maybe there was a fad for a bit for people to do that prior (but not so much now). I get this sense from the following panels when Nishikata reacts to it.
“Speaking of which, there was this thing (rumor/charm/whatever) that said…” feels perfectly normal to me.
Also, yes やつ is an object in this case. It can’t be a person specifically because ある is used over いる. Using ある for a person intentionally would have very rude implications. (Besides which, やつ itself is on the derogatory side for a person, unless you are really familiar, by my understanding).
Edit: Also, for what it’s worth, this panel I remember distinctly as the panel that I struggled the most with in volume 1 back when I first read this. It felt like an absolute monster with the amount of text back then. 
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Right! This was an important point for the entire matter, I should’ve thought about it!
Now that I think of it, in Italian there is the same thing.
“There was this rumor/ whatever, some time ago…”
Ok, so we can all agree on the fact that やつ in this case is just おまじない ? Also, I searched on internet and can’t think of a better way to translate it other than ‘good luck charm’ which fits horribly in the context
Makes me feel better to know 
at this early stage I’m finding quite difficult things to comprehend (and I’m happy this way, of course, because I’m having fun too) but at times I ask myself, am I doing it right? Am I retard? but then again, I suppose this in normal in the world of native material… if a manga is not specifically thought for kids of 4-10yo I’ll expect every sort of thing such as what I’m encountering and nothing less
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Box 5, page 7
I’m having some small problems at interpreting it
あったね → past tense of ある with the ね particle that follows.
I wasn’t sure why this is here in the middle of the sentence but after some research I found out that ね particle is also used in the middle of the sentence before a pause like friendly asking not to be interrupted because your speech isn’t over yet, but I’m not sure this is the case.
そんなの → I guess this means ‘such a thing’ and there is something dropped after the の because just by itself そんな means ‘like that’. So I guess ‘そんなのこと’ ?
あー、あったねそんなの → Ah, there was such a thing (or ‘ah, existed, such a thing’)
Second part (the one giving me problems)
今考えるとホント子供だよなー
I have no clue how this sentence is structured, but if I had to make an attempt
今 now
考える to think, like reasoning on something (contrasting to 思う)
と quoting the concept of “ thinking (such a thing that is what takagi was talking about) now (at that age) “
ホントこどもだ is real kid
→ only a real kid would think (that what you said is true), right…?
Whole sentence
“ Ah, there was such a thing. But now thinking it is childish, isn’t int?
Looking forward to your corrections!
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I’m not sure if I’d say that やつ is really standing in for anything specific. A rumor, a good luck charm, a fad, etc. It’s just a “thing”. That’s all やつ means. “There was a thing that said…”
It’s vague to just say thing, but it works fine in English, too. We would know from that phrasing that it doesn’t matter to the speaker if the thing was a rumor, an article, or whatever, because what’s important is what it said, not necessarily what it was. (If the listener felt it important to know where it was said, they would ask for clarification). Does that make sense? So I wouldn’t stress too much about “good luck charm” not fitting well with the past-tense phrasing. Just know that something existed which said the spiel about the eraser.
の can also just be a general stand-in for something that’s already come up previously in the conversation on its own (in this case, that long sentence Takagi-san just said) without having to connect to something else like こと. “Such a thing” is the correct interpretation, though. の is just “thing” on its own in this case, because it’s a stand-in for a continuing topic.
Another example to maybe make this more clear:
Person A: どんな本が好きですか？
“What kind of books do you like?”
Person B: 面白いのが好きです。
“I like interesting ones.”
You could repeat the “books,” but even in English, we tend to replace a known topic with some kind of stand-in, be it “ones,” “thing,” or what have you. 
So, 考える is to think, but one of the potential nuances is “to think that; to believe; to hold that point of view,” and that nuance is what’s happening here. I think you’ve got that, but I just want to clarify that to be sure.
I think this と is actually the conditional と, not the quotation particle. The nuance of using と as a conditional, is that the result is basically guaranteed or generally accepted as true.
There’s nothing to indicate “only” (though perhaps it’s somewhat implied) gramatically, so I would leave that out, personally.
You’ve definitely got the overall understanding of what Nishikata is getting at, I would just be careful with wording here. “Childish” would be phrased differently in Japanese, (you’ll see it here shortly), and seeing the と as conditional gets me this wording instead:
“Yeah (long あー can be an affirmation), there was such a thing. If (one) believes that now, (they) are really a kid!”
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This totally makes sense. It’s just that as a beginner I try to find an extra clear logic behind everything but it’s not always the case, as in this instance
Clear! The examples helped 
Oh ok, this explains a lot of things. I remember the conditional と from a CD lesson so I know what you’re talking about
This sounds goooood finally it makes sense!!! Thank you a lot for the help 
Edit: while I was waiting for an answer here I also asked a partial interpretation on hellotalk. One native told me that 子供 here is 子供っぽい with the last part dropped, and that this is normal in japanese… I didn’t know that such words could get contracted this way 
the more I know, the more I feel like I know nothing
He also told me that with “あー、あったねそんなの” nishikata is making an agreement with her previous utterance, and, translated the sentence 今考えるとホント子供だよなー
As ‘looking back, that was so childish’
Now, I don’t see where is this ‘looking back’
Is it possible that he reinterpreted it?
The only translation I can think of is
“Now, if you think it, you’re very childishよなー”
@anon99047008
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Hmm. I wouldn’t have guessed it being 子供っぽい with the っぽい dropped just because Nishikata uses that exact word in a following panel. It also feels weird dropping it because っぽい is specifically added to turn a noun into an adjective similar to -ish, but if that’s what a native thinks, I hesitate to argue with it too much.
“To reflect on” is also a possible nuance of 考える, so that’s also totally possible, and makes perfect sense.
One of the things about Japanese is there often isn’t one “correct” translation just because there is so many potential interpretations.
I think the “looking back on it now” works well, but I honestly would have expected it to be in て form for that interpretation, personally. Again, though, if that’s what a native thinks, I hesitate to disagree with them. Edit: Actually, it not being in て form just means I change the wording slightly, “If I reflect on it now; If I look back on it now” retains the same meaning without the grammar feeling weird.
Either way, the takeaway is that you should take their word over mine. They know the language far better than I ever will. 
Edit again: Sorry, this is a mess as I’m thinking about it.
If I were to follow that interpretation, I would have to change the wording just a bit more… That interpretation you mentioned is translating 子供だよな as though it were in past tense, but it’s not in past tense. That would be 子供だったよなー.
So I would tweak the interpretation slightly to reflect grammar:
“If I reflect on it now, it’s really childish.”
But it does make perfect sense (even if dropping the っぽい feels weird to me, I’ll take the native’s word that it happens.)
Side-note: they changed the reacts again. I wonder if it’s permanent this time or another oopsie.
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Are we sure that there’s no chance he misinterpreted? For what it’s worth, he didn’t see the sequent box where the word 子供 is repeated by itself.
I know, he’s a native but if you asked a similar question about italian to some of my friends, they would be in trouble answering
Ok this definitely makes sense, I was going crazy on it
I have to ask, at the moment I’m feeling a bit disoriented. I mean, till now there was no concept I couldn’t interpret, but the more I go on the more I find these kind of very difficult sentences.
Will I be able to grasp these meanings intuitively with experience?
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