Week 1 ギャルと恐竜 ・ Gal and Dino 🦕 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

:sauropod: Welcome to Week 1 of ギャルと恐竜 ・ Gal and Dino :nail_polish:

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Week 1 13 Dec 2025
Start Page 3
End Page 7
Next week Week 2
Home Thread Here

Page numbers are the ones printed on the bottom of the pages. These may differ from the numbering in digital versions.

Final Panel

:mag_right: Vocabulary

Vocabulary spreadsheet

Characters

Japanese English role photo
かえで Kaede main character
恐竜 Kyoryu main character - a dinosaur who Kaede finds in her apartment

:speech_balloon: Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

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This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

:white_question_mark: Discussion questions

What would you have done if you had a morning like Kaedes?

:fire: Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?
  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this point yet
  • I’ve already read this previously, but I’m here for the discussion
  • I’m reading this after the book club has finished
  • I’ve stopped reading this book
0 voters
13 Likes

もう、第一話を全部読んじゃった!

really love the diction in this so far!! “やば”, “ちょっとどいて” and “勢いで” are really fun.

11 Likes

ギャル Girl represent!! I’m so excited! I recently deep dived into the history of that fashion sub culture!

Would someone be able to help me with this text and what the translation would be to English? This was the only word bubble I really struggled with.

I think it says something along the lines of drinking with vigor? But I see 部屋 mentioned and I know that means room? So is it drinking a lot and somehow ended up back at home without knowing how?

This would be bottom left page 3 (digital copy)

6 Likes
page 3

Yep, the key is the bubble that comes before: 「完全に忘れてた」I completely forgot

Then the last part of the bubble you’re asking about is 入れちゃったんだっけ

If we isolate 入れちゃった that’s a contraction of 入れてしまった

〜てしまう is a grammar point meaning ‘to do completely,’ and can also carry a meaning of regret.

So she’s saying she did so much drinking she even forgot coming home.

13 Likes

I’m totally not sure, but here’s my guess:

yesterday i really was so drunk that I brought home a …

9 Likes

Ahh thank you! I was very close with the meaning!! Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I was struggling with the 入れちゃったんだっけ part. I haven’t come across this yet. :slight_smile:

6 Likes

I think 入れちゃったんだっけ is a little different nuance than what @soggyboy suggests: 入れる is “to put in” as opposed to 入る “to enter”, so it’s more likely to me that rather than completely forgetting coming home what she really forgot is bringing back somebody and the fun part of the sentence structure is that we have to go to the next page to figure that out!

14 Likes

I can see that being the answer here as well since the next pan over is bold text of her new roommate.

6 Likes

Actually I think you’re right here, I read it really quickly and didn’t look that closely at 入れる (いれる)vs 入る (はいる)

12 Likes

Fun start! I admit I couldn’t resist the temptation read ahead a bit, but I’ll stick to the week 1 pages in my comments.

Best bits

The “I can’t deal with this right now, I need to go to work” face on page 4 - we’ve all been there. 悩まない

What would I have done?

Got way too excited and completely forgotten about work. It’s a DINOSAUR in my room.

New words for me
  • 化粧 / けしょう - makeup
  • 恐竜 / きょうりゅう - dinosaur
Confusing bits

Actually nothing this first few pages! There was one in the second half of chapter - but we can get into that next week.

13 Likes

Ok, very hyped to try this out. This is my first bookclub and I hope I’ll manage through. Bought the e-book on bookwalker and having a little bit of trouble reading the tiny furigana on my tiny laptop and I can’t seem to figure out how to zoom in!
Oh well, some thoughts on the first half of the chapter!

Second character

What even is this character?? After the first う, is that a り?わ?け?after looking at it longer, it’s a わ, the broken line threw me off.

入る

Is there a difference between the いる and the はいる reading for the kanji? Just wondering…

Last panel page 5

Was pretty proud that apart from the last kanji there (触る), i could understand the whole thing. But just to be sure…She ist allowing the dinosaur to touch the stuff in her room, right? Right?
Edit:ok she actually is not allwing him to do it, i guess… i think, the slanginess and not knowing which ンsand なs have grammar meaning or are just flavour will be difficult for me.

ピ~~~

It took me quite while to recognize that character to be the reason for the awakening!

Hopefully I stay motivated throughout!

13 Likes

I read the whole volume yesterday but now I’m gonna be rereading along with the weekly schedule ^^

To be honest going into it I thought that Dino would talk but it’s actually more funny this way.

unbothered and at peace

but really, u wake up and see this wyd?

he's so CUTE mouth AGAPE like who me


:pleading_face:

I wonder what his skin feels like. Do you think he’s warm. He looks so huggable…

ps funny to think about how dinosaurs actually have feathers so he’s like something else really. like the platonic ideal of a dinosaur spawned from a 6 year old’s head in the 90s

13 Likes

It’s actually いれる(入れる) vs はいる(入る), where the former is transitive (to insert something [into something else]) and the latter is intransitive (to enter something)

10 Likes
page 3

酔った勢いで

勢い here is I’d say closest to the third translation in JMDict: impetus, momentum, course of events.
酔った modifies 勢い, so that becomes “the momentum of being drunk”, or you could say “got carried away while drinking”.

Page 5 features possibly my favorite line/panel in the whole volume:

page 5


Somehow it’s both ironic and profound at the same time.

14 Likes

I guess first, I’m going to apologize. This is my first time actually trying to read native material, so I may be over doing it! So I have a little notebook! And torturing myself by trying to read twice, first is completely blind! Where no dictionary or help, just…what can i remember or figure out by context! If anyone’s curious, I’ll gladly share what notes I made on that reading.

Good news is, I got basically the vibe of what was going on, even if I missed perhaps the funniest bits.

But some bits I still don’t fully get, and I’m pretty sure it’s just I don’t get the grammar tenses.

The Confusions!

So like 行こうっと. I get 行こう, but not “っと” in fact I’m not even sure it isn’t “つと”, i have a bit of a hard time telling the difference in sizes of characters. My guess is it’s just a conjugation version I don’t know, but ultimately the same as 行こう.

モノ took me a longtime what it was trying to tell me, I think I understood “部屋のモノ” To mean, my room, but not 100%.

(An aside, on my first read, I got the sense she was saying something like don’t touch my stuff. And it was!)

No idea what the onomatopoeia on page 7 is doing, but I get the sense I never will.

The Good!

I am very amused how the dread i sensed in her waking up is more “I got blackout drunk” and less “I brought home a dinosaur”, just completely non-plussed by a dinosaur. Going about her morning like nothing is weird about this.

The Bad!

Still deeply confused on grammar in some ways. I’ve definitely just stared at the に’s and で’s and go, “I know you mean something, but I’m not smart enough to remember which version of particle you mean.” And pretty much just after I know the vocab pieces, kinda just frame the sentence in a way that makes sense to me.

all this to say I’m very happy with being able to just sit down and figure this out.

12 Likes

First image: The dog enters the cage
Second image: [the girl] puts the dog in the cage

12 Likes
page one

うわっ

It’s an exclamation, you can think of the small ttsu っ on its own as a ‘stop’ to the sound, like someone is cutting off their voice or being cut off (as opposed to うわあああああ)

page five

部屋のモノ勝手に触んなよ

部屋のもの

The things of my room = my room’s things = my things

勝手に

as one pleases/without asking

触んなよ

This is like a slurring/shortening of 触るな *

Don’t touch!

All together: Don’t go touching the things in my room!

*Thanks Tobias!

12 Likes

I might be wrong, but I thought that because this is 入れる in the active form, it would instead be “[the girl] puts the dog in the cage” (with typical pro-drop), whereas “the dog is put into the cage” would be 犬がケージに入れられる?

7 Likes
Page 5

I think it’s shortening 触るな: Verb + な (Prohibitive)

(If it was 触らない the sentence would just be a factual “You don’t […]” instead of the prohibitive “Don’t […]”.)

12 Likes

First time posting on a book club. Here’s some of my translations attempts:

Page 3

やば… / This is bad…

完全に忘れてた / I forgot completely

昨日酔った勢いで部屋に入れちゃったんだっけ / Yesterday, I remember i drank and with the vigor (from drinking i suppose) i entered my room (after reading throught the thread i noticed it-s いれる and not はいる so this would mean something like she brought into her home)

Page 4

恐竜 / Dinosaur…

ん。。。 / hmm…

Page 5

バイト行こうっと / I gues i’ll go to my part-time

ギャルは悩まない / The gal didn’t get worried (she’s a mood, i like her)

ちょっとどいて / Step aside a bit (on te-form it’s kinda a request)

化粧するから / (because) I’ll apply my makeup

なんだよ / what?

よしっ / OK! (or all right!)

ちょっと出るけど部屋のモノ勝手に触んなよ / I’ll go out for a while, but, don’t touch the things on the room freely (or selfishly)

Page 6

いってきまーす / Am leaving (I’ll go and come back)

恐竜も悩まない / The dinosaur doesn’t get worried either

Summary

So i think i got the grip of it. It’s very fun to see how neither of them really care about the situation they are in, i think the long buble on the page 3 was the hardest part of it.

This is kinda off-topic but i really felt difficulty identifying the characters on this font:

image

Specifically the じ and the し looks weird when it’s so simplified

13 Likes