Yeah, I agree. I figured it could indicate what is considered to be the most “proper” speech. Dropping particles may be common, but it may not always be considered professional to do so, even in speech.
Like how in English schools, teachers will correct things that are commonly said but not considered “correct”. In my experience, I was told to stop saying “can’t” and say “cannot” a lot. Or things like
student: Can I go to the restroom?
teacher: I don’t know, can you?
So the context of her being a teacher + talking about good communication skills, I could see why the author may have wanted to highlight the missing particle in that situation. Not that it’s inappropriate (because, like you said, they are certainly not in a classroom setting haha), but that it’s funny given the context of who is saying what.
Edit in response to your edit! Yeah, using (?) instead of ◯ is weird. I can’t wrap my head around that. コミュ力 doesn’t seem like an unusual word, so I’m not sure why she would be doubting it.
That was short and sweet! So as far as I can see the two new girls look exactly like Chito and Yūri from girl’s last tour. Actually the Yūri look alike turns out not to be a new character but we already saw her briefly working in the コンビニ in the first volume. Apart from their physical appearances (and their close friendship) I didn’t see anything else that connected them to Chito and Yūri, although I’m still only on volume 2 of that manga so there might be a connection to later events.
I also noticed if you look really carefully at volume 1
Chito and Yūri were hiding right there on the very first page:
I read it after seeing your comment and I still struggled with the page’s order
All the new characters seem really fun, and I know I’ve said this before but I really do need to read Girls’ last tour. I laughed at loud with some of the panels, I missed this unique sense of humor.
I love Shimeji’s gentle sadness, and how her life is brightened by Majime…
I love the little side panel at the bottom of page 41 when the mum is kicked out the room!
Page 37
Does anyone understand what is going on in this sentence from Shimeji?
行きたくないし行きたくなくもない…
For context, Majime just asked Shimeji to come and visit her house, and Shimeji gave a half-hearted response. Majime asks, “Don’t you want to come?” and this sentence is Shimeji’s response.
I’m guessing it means something like, “I don’t want to come, but I don’t not want to come” - a reluctant agreement, but Majime seems very happy with the reply anyway!
Page 39 - top left panel
What does サラカラ mean in the handwritten text - 髪長くてサラカラー
Those were my same questions from this chapter. I can answer the second one:
It’s サラサラ, meaning silky or smooth. It’s just that the second サ looks a lot like a カ, but if you look very closely you can see that the character has been written using 3 strokes.
I’m still trying to make sense of the first question so any help on that would be appreciated!
I actually spent like 15 minutes typing out a breakdown of this sentence yesterday until I reached a point where I thought I had it figured out, so I’m gonna try:
For me the key to this phrase was the previous panel - "え…どうしよう” “来るのいや?”, so I interpreted the し as marking that this phrase is expanding on her どうしよう.
And coming from Shimeji, a vague “well I’m not completely opposed” is a huge step up from volume 1 when she directly shot down Majime several times, so I get her reaction
Firstly, does anyone know what that 借りていきなよ form is? I looked it up and found this, and by what I gathered I guess it’s the ます stem form of 借りていく+なさい, which would make sense. But since it’s all written in Japanese I didn’t understand most of the WordReference discussion.
And then, in the thoughts bubbles:
まじめちゃんにとってぬいくるみはどれくらい"友達"で、友達はどれくらい"ぬいぐるみ"なんだろう少し気になった。。。
My attempt at translation/what I understood was: “I wondered to what extend did Majime thought of her plushies as friends, and how many of her friends were plushies… it kind of bothered me a little”. But it’s all based in context, I don’t get the parts I put in bold letters
いきな = dialectic 行きなさい (as per the thread you linked)
I think you’ve almost got it
Summary
どれくらい is “how much”. “to what extent” is a pretty good translation here.
the second bold bit is just the first clause but reversed:
[ぬいぐるみ]は[どれくらい][“友達”]-> to what extent plushies are friends
[友達]は[どれくらい][“ぬいぐるみ”]なんだろう → to what extent friends are plushies
I think なんだろう is a contraction of なのだろうか which is something like
I wonder"
when you put it all together, you get something like
According to Majime, to what extent plushies were friends, to what extent friends were plushies, I wonder
or more naturally
I wonder to what extent Majime thought of her plushies, and what extent she thought of her friends as plushies
Thank you! Regarding that last sentence, literal meaning aside, what do you guys think Shimeji was bothered about? At first I thought she was jealous of Majime’s “friends”, but after understanding the whole sentence maybe she is worried about Majime seeing her as a plushy? And that’s why she suddenly remembers the time she visited a girl who told her she was like a doll?