I honestly just took this が to be the vocabulary が meaning “but” or “however”. In that case, we can simply take it to connect two (short) sentences 言っている and いい, which would give us something like “you’re saying that, but it is good” or “though you’re saying that, it is good”, which to me feels like he’s thinking “whatever you’re saying, it doesn’t matter”. In that case I’d probably translate it more naturally as something like “it doesn’t matter what you’re saying”, although I’m translating quite loosely at that point 
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I really enjoyed this chapter!
I think my favourite new vocab word from this week is 三日坊主. “A monk for three days” is a funny way to describe somebody who can’t stick to something. 
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Just chiming in to say I have spent the better part of an hour and a half trying to search for that 「とう!」and I cannot find anything that would make sense, so I’m leaning pretty heavily towards it just being a noise to spook him, unless somebody else can come up with an explanation. 
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I feel like I’ve seen/heard 「とう！」 used in other contexts but I’m not sure where exactly. I believe it has a very similar feeling to earlier on the page when she poked him in the arm and said 「えい。」 The way that I see it is that it’s just sort of a sound that’s thrown out when you’re doing/preparing to do some sort of action (in this case potentially poking Nishikata in the arm again).
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Ah, this makes the most sense, thanks. Funny how once more we have four simple words, meanings well known, and yet I can be unsure of the exact meaning. At this point I think my mind sees 言う and kind of freezes. This may be why this sentence also gave me some trouble:
「なんで言わなくていいことを言うのさ高木さん！！！」
It means “Why do you say things that are good (better) unsaid, Takagi!” , doesn’t it?
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Yep, i think so too.
More about the が
Hmmm… I thought it was just the plain subject marker, but now I am not sure anymore 
The “but” translation seems to work too.
But I also feel like I have seen this kind of sentence often in contexts where it wouldn’t work.
Especially with 見る. When I hear 見るがいい, I see it being translated as “watch me”
I think it can be translated into imperative, because it’s like you are making a suggestion of some sort. “This is good” → “Do this”, but I could be off.
Anyway, I found these:
Hinative
The first answer is
見るがいい」の意味は「見た方がいい」です (…)
They then explain the nuance that makes it sound like an order.
In our case we have 言っている as verb, so I believe it is literally “saying is good”, but with the context “continue saying these things” or something of the sort.
I also found this on stackexchange
There the whole がいい is explained more. In our case it would be the dictionary-form + がいい.
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Still more on が
I had seen the stackexchange link, but Hinative takes too much effort for me to try and understand. But now I wonder whether the fact that it’s 言っている and not just 言う makes a difference - can it still be used as imperative? And how about the way it’s spoken? Is there usually a natural pause after the が when it means but? I had a look at the relevant episode on animelon just to hear the phrase spoken, and, while I’m not at all experienced in listening, it does sound to me like the subject marker が。But maybe there wouldn’t be a pause in any case? The phrase is translated “Go ahead. Make fun, Takagi-san” there, by the way.
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I’ve never thought of のほうが that way…neat!
It might be a sort of cliche, something that people just say without giving it too much thought, like “Go on, Takagi-san, make my day…” it’s not really a thing people say much any more, but it exists in the cultural consciousness.
I am not reading this for a deep dive into the grammar, just trying to get the gist.
Looks at abandoned book club books…shh!
I read it as a super drawn out えと, which doesn’t really have an English equivalent. Maybe like, “Oh? Hm!”
Also, hi! I have mostly been lurking and mostly skimming the chapters because I have a ton of work these days, but I finally had some free time to get caught up!
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The reason I thought it couldn’t be the subject marker is because you usually see it used with nouns. If you were to use it with a verb I’d expect to see something like の or こと in between to nominalize the verb first, hence why I went to the only other が that came to mind and would grammatically fit, which was the word が. Although since it’s casual conversation they might have just dropped some part of the sentence, so figuring out what it might have said probably involves a bit of guesswork
Even on this link they do seem to agree that a nominalizer would have to be used, unless you’re using some old-sounding Japanese. I think it’d be odd for Nishikata to suddenly switch to old Japanese, which is why I’m shying away from interpreting this as an imperative. I think it’d be a more likely option in something like a fantasy manga where characters have a tendency to use such patterns a lot more. Then again, maybe he switched because he wanted to sound dramatic? So it’s still not impossible
Funny how the short sentences always end up being the hardest I think it’s hard to get an exact grammatical breakdown here though, depending on how you read the sentence you can get multiple interpretations, but they all end up with him expressing roughly the same idea.
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That’s how I thought about it.
right?? When i first read it, I didn’t even think twice about it, but once I went “wait… what grammar structure even is this??” it turned into a nightmare
It is a lot of fun reading other interpretations too, since we all agreed on the overall meaning anyways. I didn’t even think of the “however” が had you not brought it up.
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Don’t have much time this week, so I’m taking things leisurely.
p3
オレには今日、作戦があるのさ！
Difference between には and は: Acts like に, but adds topic emphasis as though italizing the word. Reference
p5
味わいたく
- 味わう “to experience / to go through”
- い form to attach verb stems
- たく “would like to…”
ひゃく。。。ごじゅう。。。
Damn ._. I need a moment to appreciate Nishikata’s determination.
p7
えい．うわぁああ！
I relate to Takagi so much xD I too wouldn’t be able to resist poking someone who worked out to the point of muscle pains :3
厳しくいく
- 厳しい “strict / rigid / severe”
- く form for adverbs
- いく “to go / going to”
とう。ヒッ
- Q: Nishikata’s ヒッ sounds like ヒッタイ, as though he was so tense he was ready to react in pain even though Takagi didn’t touch him. I’m still not sure what Tagaki meant with とう here. Just a random onomatopoeia?
だまされたー。よっぽどひどいんだね筋肉痛
“Got you. Must be very intense, your muscle pain.”
- Q: I’m not sure of the above. The syntax here has “muscle pain” at the end of the sentence after だね, which reads as though she’s first making a first sentence “Must be really awful”, and then just adding “muscle pain” at the end for emphasis.
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Two more pages down (finished up to page 13).
page 12
「そういえば… どこかでそんなコトを聞いた覚えが…」
Now that she mentions it… I remember hearing about that from somewhere before…
I think there’s probably a ある missing from the end of the sentence that is implied.
page 13
「デマなの！？ なんで言わなくていいことを言うのさ高木さん！！！」
A false rumor!? Why do you say unnecessary things like that Takagi-san!!!
So, the way that I broke down 言わなくていいこと was
言わない＝ not say
言わなくて＝ not say (て-form)
言わなくて（も）いい＝ fine not to say (I think the も was omitted but I’m not entirely sure if the も is strictly even necessary)
言わなくていいこと＝ things that are fine not to say
Putting that all together would be [why] [things that are fine not to say] を [say], or “why do you say things that are better left unsaid”.
「ムシしないでよ！！」
Don’t just ignore me!!
From what I could find, the ムシ is actually 無視 which means “disregard; ignore”. I think the spreadsheet had it written as むしろ which is probably why I didn’t see it when I checked.
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Both of the suggested answers you gave for your questions seem to be the group consensus at the moment. Certainly the とう doesn’t have any other satisfactory explanation (potentially linked to her えい noise she first makes when prodding him as suggested above.)
The other is to clarify subject in case it was unclear from context (wouldn’t it be nice if they did that more often sometimes… 
). I initially thought it was reverse order, but I think I need to do more research on that to figure out what exactly is defined as reverse order.
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It is still quite early Wednesday, but here is the gentle reminder that it is now Wednesday… I’m not the yelling type.
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Finished! This chapter I think was probably a bit harder than the others just due to the amount of internal monologue Nishikata had throughout it.
page 16
「もー、なんなんだよいつもいつもー。」
Jeez, will you give it a rest already.
なんなん＝ incessant talking
いつもいつも＝ 24/7; all the time
Basically, he’s saying she talks too much all the time (probably in reference to her teasing), but more just as an exasperation because he’s obviously embarrassed.
「反応おもしろいからだってば。」
It’s because I get a funny reaction out of you.
I think the ってば at the end is like the “I told you this already” kind of ってば but I’m not sure; that’s usually used more for when you’re annoyed at somebody (which Takagi doesn’t seem to be here).
The final blurb about Nishikata deciding to continue his training even if Takagi doesn’t tease him definitely got a smile out of me.
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Page 8. It felt so long. This guy's internal monologues are piece of art indeed.
で、なんでいきなり筋肉痛なの？
And why do you suddenly have muscle pain?
いや、昨日から筋トレを始めてね。
Well, because yesterday I started weight training…
へぇー、三日坊主にならないといいね。
Hmm, don’t drop it after three days, ok? (Don’t become a monk for three days)
ふっ。。。言っているがいい、高木さんめ。
Gee, good for you to say, Takagi-san! (Not sure about grammar at all, particle が is “but” in this case?)
この筋トレという苦行から解放される時。。。
This weight training is a penance till the moment of release…
それすなわちオレが高木さんにからかわれなくなった証なのだ。
That is until I can say for sure that I’m not teased by Takagi-san.
見ていろ高木さん、
You’’ll see, Takagi-san
オレは腕立てをしたくないから、からかわれないように全力で頑張るぞ。。。！！
Since I do not want to do push-ups, I’ll try my best to not be teased!
Thank you very much! Gentle or not, reminders add some pressure.
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Just finished the chapter! It started going a lot faster after I got past Nishikata’s internal monologues. Poor awkward Nishikata. That would be me when I was in middle school.
I’m getting slightly better at getting the meaning from sentences, but I’m still wrong a lot. There’s probably more posts I need to go back through to make sure I understand correctly. Thanks again to everybody asking and answering questions, or even just posting your thoughts!
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I’m catching up now and on reading page 3 there’s one passage I can’t work out:
「１５０回。。。初回にしてはハードな気が。。。」
I went to bunpro and found that Noun+にする means to decide on something and then I found that Verb/Adj/Noun + ようなきがする means roughly “have a feeling that”, so I guess the sentence is roughly “Deciding to do it for the first time, I have the feeling it will be hard.” But it’s not a complete match with the grammar points I found, e.g. ハードな気が。。。 instead of ハードのような気がする as bunpro would suggest; here I’m guessing that the “…” in the end after が just leaves the する-part out, but how about the “missing” 「のよう」?
I’m not completely sure why it’s て-form for 「初回にして」either…
Maybe not a concrete question, but if someone could help me break down this sentence and let me know if I’m on the wrong path it would be much appreciated 
PS. How do I make those nice “folders/tabs” that people use when asking questions on a specific page (next to a small black triangle so that when clicking on it the tab opens with the text (not sure if I’m making myself clear hehe…))?
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I think you may be overthinking it. 初回に would be similar to 初に (for the first time), or 初めに (to begin with). する here is pretty straightforward and means doing the pushups. It’s in the て form so that it can be used as the topic of the sentence (doing, not do). There may be another する missing at the end, yes. So what he’s saying is “Doing (so many) at the first time, I feel it’s (going to be) hard.”
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woo hoo … finished ch5 before the ch5 post @Phryne was ready… enjoy the vocab sheet is populated now
filling in the vocab sheet is part of my motivation to read… hopefully not too selfish hehe
…this was a fun read 
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