Characters
Many characters have katakana names that derive from German words.
Japanese
German
English
フリーレン
Frieren
Freeze
ヒンメル
Himmel
Sky or heaven
アイゼン
Eisen
Iron
ハイター
Heiter
Cheerful
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.
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.
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).
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!
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I’m planning to read but haven’t started yet/may start late
I’ve already read previously but I’m here for the discussion
And we’re off. Yay!
About that video that Jintor posted: I am so not used to Japanese anime theme songs, yet. Just… weird.
Might have some language questions about this week yet, I’ll post them later. For now, going in without knowing much about the story, it was a nice introduction. Got across the characters’ pretty quickly.
Page 14:
空気を読みたまえ。“Read the room, Flieren.” LOL
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Possible spoilers for the rest of the book:
The title of the book, 葬送のフリーレン, was not included in the vocab sheet. I hesitated a bit to add it. On the one hand, it is in the title (and sets the mood for what’s to come). On the other hand, is it considered a spoiler?
The setting of the story is probably the cause of this confusion. Not sure if describing the setting is spoilers but:
Light spoilers for the setting of the story
The story starts at the end of a previous adventure that involved the character Frieren and others. This may seem odd to begin with, but it’s relevant to the story
regardless, if anyone gets this same feeling, don’t worry just keep reading. (after confirming you have the right volume, chapter number, and are reading right to left)
Why even bother with significant meanings in titles, right
Though I think it’s a tricky one to really translate right. Fan translations used “Frieren at the funeral” which is pretty good I guess? Not sure if that really covers it though.
I might be missing something (the double meaning that Jintor referenced? I’m not sure I got that), but I took the English title to refer to both 1. the group’s life after their adventure, and 2. Flieren, beyond their journey’s end (i.e. funeral).
Finished the reading. I confess I was caught a bit by surprised that it starts on Friday rather than Saturday, even though the date’s been in the thread title the whole time. I’ve made a few tweaks to the vocab sheet, mostly switching definitions for the number-two option when appropriate.
Kinda feel like one page later would have been a more natural stopping point. That’s where the time-skip montage starts.
One question, though: given the use of German words in this series, is the furigana on page 13 半世紀 meant to be a German word, or is just just “era” in English? Not knowing any German besides “ja” and “wunderbar”, I poked Google for a bit until it coughed up “ehre”, which means “honour”, but that doesn’t entirely seem relevant here.
Perhaps, but there’s another meaning that’s completely lost here, though that one won’t be relevant until the end of the second volume.
Frieren, with an R. As it’s written on the front cover.
You know, I guess I may as well go through again as well since I need to add the vocab from the later chapters to my stupid dumb spreadsheets/anki anyway at some point
I pondered if it might be a German word functioning as a proper noun (like the Perseids meteor shower in English, for example) rather than something that translates directly to “half-century”, but it’d need to be a German word that’s at least somewhat thematically relevant. Mostly because エーラ doesn’t really seem to be in common usage in Japanese. (Viz just went with “era”, either way.)
Ocurred to me to check the Frieren German glossary that someone posted in the home thread, and that suggests that it’s ära.
It also lists that “ehre” will turn up at some point, though that’s rendered エーレ.
I haven’t tackled the first chapter yet but given all the character names and many other terms in this series that are derived from German, I would also guess that the エーラ in this case is supposed to represent the German “Ära”=era without going the extra mile to use “halbes Jahrhundert” or as @yamitenshi said “Halbjahrhundert” to relay the Japanese word 半世紀 (はんせいき)=half century.
Haven’t really mentioned this as it wasn’t relevant until now but I am a German native speaker though my “mother tongue” is another language and I might be able to provide help when it comes to further German terms or names starting from week two onwards when I have more time to follow the club more closely.
Sorry! Hosting my first club… The date was a bit of a fortuitous accident that I just went with, as I didn’t think I would manage to post as consistently on Saturdays as Fridays. Also, it felt like posting Friday meant regardless of what time I post, everyone around the world has the whole of Saturday and Sunday to comment.
