This one finally actually showed up in my local Kinokuniya, so as soon as I have a chance to drop by, maybe I’ll actually join in.
My thoughts on page 21
They go from あつあつの夏 to さむさむの冬 to ふむふむのさゆ。
ふむふむ can mean “murmur” - this sounds a bit like ムルミーミョ, her first attempt at saying El Nino.
Still not sure about ふむふむのさゆ - maybe “murmuring hot water” (さゆ=hot water)
I couldn’t see anyone call El Nino エルミーニョ on a web search, it’s エルニーニョ in Jisho/Wikipedia. Maybe a typo? Maybe them still pronouncing it wrong?
I couldn’t make the connection to the Ratatouille phenomenon! Maybe a mispronounciation of La Nina? (that’s a bit of a stretch)
Was I the only person who didn’t spot the large mushroom growing out of Shimeji’s head the whole chapter!
Bottom of page 26
そういえばク日だったね今…
Perhaps ク is 九 - nine is an unlucky number in Japan. Perhaps a day with a 9 in it is unlucky?
Jokes Explained
I think you skipped a step-- あつあつのなつ becomes なつなつのあつ which to me seems like a goofy but comprehensible play on words. Then Majime uses the same pattern of syllable swaps to go from さむさむの冬 to ふむふむのさゆ which sounds absurd, which is why Shijima gets confused.
The joke with ムルミーミョ is that Majime starts off with a slight mispronunciation of El Niño, then Shijima corrects her (albeit a bit unconfidently, mispronouncing it slightly herself), then Majime says わかった! And somehow manages to move to an egregious mispronunciation.
I love all the quirky ideas in this manga. This was one of my favourites, especially しりとり!
Bottom of page 34
ちなみにしめじちゃんのこの うなっとしたのはどういう感情なんでしょう…?
What is うなっとした?
- ゾウ
- アリクイ
- バク
0 voters
I am not very confident, but I understood this to be:
うな = eel (the eel she’s created as part of her “communication” and is shown above her head in that panel)
っと = the quotation particle? Not sure why it has a っ, maybe just to emphasize the previous うな
した = past tense of する, in this case refering to Shimeji-chan performing the creation of the eel.
“So the fact that Shimeji-chan has made this ‘eel’, what kind of emotion would it be?”
Chapter 24 - April 9th
- I’m reading along
- I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
0 voters
I think this is probably 7月, since it’s the middle of summer and all. You can see that the side strokes of the kanji extend a bit past the bottom horizontal stroke, making it look a bit more like 月 than 日.
Well pages 46 and 47 might hold the record for longest time spent on two pages of a manga for me. It’s a good thing we all love language here, right?
I think Shijima’s got a future as a lyricist. モサモサモササウルス is a banger.
I couldn’t make sense of the poem in the second panel of page 46 and at first thought it was nonsense. In fact it’s the Iroha, a Japanese poem written probably in the Heian era, which is a perfect pangram, i.e. uses each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Perhaps if it wasn’t handwritten it would have been easier to spot the unusual ゐ (wi) and ゑ(we) archaic hiragana. Wikipedia gives a breakdown of the translation.
With the amount of times people complain about 友人 being a vocabulary word early in Wanikani, it’s always nice when it comes up in a manga (page 44). It appears to have a more formal feel than using 友達 here.
Something weird happens to Shijima at the bottom of the first page, I assume she is just shaking because she is nervous to be approached by someone she doesn’t well.
Loved it!
Chapter 25 - April 16th
And you’ll be pleased to know it’s a much easier read than last week…
- I’m reading along
- I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
0 voters
Alrighty, I’ve finally managed to snag a copy. You haven’t finished the whole volume already, right?
Just gotta find some time to catch up…
Chapter 26 - April 23rd
- I’m reading along
- I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
0 voters
I sat down to start getting caught up on this… at which point, I realised I never actually read volume two. So I’ma get caught up on that first.
So all this time spent waiting for volume 3 to arrive…
Chapter 27 - April 30th
- I’m reading along
- I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
- I just realised I haven’t read volume 2 yet…
0 voters
Some flash backs to chapter 7! I wonder if anyone is really selling あじやき since volume one came out?
What’s the kanji I can’t identify on page 87?
芽生えた?
Minimum character count
That’s the one, thank you. Didn’t know 芽生える but that’s a nice word - to bud, to sprout.
Chapter 28 - May 7th
- I’m reading along
- I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
0 voters
That was an interesting chapter. Gotta be happy with a cheeky appearance by チト and ユーリ!
I remember someone commenting on the mysterious stones in the very first week. I wonder how much we are going to find out…