Happiness Week 4 - Absolute Beginners Book Club

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

Happiness Book Club - Week 4

Chapter 2 (part 2) ・ Pages 59-86

Start Date: March 26th
Week 3: Link
Week 5: Link
Home page: Link

We’re reading volume 1 of this manga as part of the Absolute Beginner Book Club.

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Vocabulary Sheet

Building the vocab spreadsheet for the book is a joint project and everyone is welcome to contribute. Please read the instructions on the first page if you are doing this for the first time.

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: texthere
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked
  • Join the conversation — it’s fun!
Page numbers for ebook readers

The page numbers quoted by ebook readers often don’t match the print version of the book. This is usually because they count the front cover and inside front cover as pages 1 and 2.

We’ll be using the original page numbering from the print version. These will be found on the bottom corner of some (but not all) pages in the digital version.

Often subtracting 2 from the “ebook reader page” will give the equivalent “print version page” but you’ll need to check your edition.

Participation poll

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ふふ… I love it!

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Now the story’s ramping up!!!

I really liked page 77. That was so deserved and satisfying. To hell with yuuki!
I hope MC gets as strong as that vampire girl and really just goes ballistic on these bullies!

Btw are キモい and きんも (page 69 : ) related in any way? They sound very similar, are both slang, and mean practically the same thing too.

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This says that they are the same, きんも is a changed version

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So his thirst for blood finally came out. If he can smell period blood, I think it’s going to be a really hard time for him. Unless maybe if he drinks some blood, his thirst will be quenched for a while and easier to deal with?
Also that guy definitely deserved a punch for being a bully, but not necessarily for standing up for the girl getting her leg (period blood) sniffed.
I hope the main character can get it together so he won’t keep coming off as kinda creepy to the girls…
And if not, I see him as having to leave school/home/regular life and be with others like him now or something (living mainly in the night?).

Questions
So the word なめる（舐める？）came up twice.
The first time when the bully said
“なめてんのか！？”
did this have more of the meaning of “Are you making fun of us?” / maybe “are you messing around”?
And the other time when the main character kept repeating when seeing blood was the “I want to taste it” version?

New words for me

不平等
発情
はりきって（張り切って？）
めまい
凝視
なめる (two new meanings)

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Damn, that’s a lot of pages, let’s see how I manage

Here I go translating again

p59:

Morning!
Morn’

Huhhh…

Okazaki-kun!

Uhm…
Are you alright?

Now the main protag looks just as dreadful as the sushi last week.

p60:

Ah… Nunota-kun
Good morning

I heard… were you really attacked at night on the streets? (bit of a liberal translation)*
And even got brought to a hospital? Are you alright?

Ah… yes… something like that
But I’m fine already. The wound wasn’t a big deal.

I see…
I’m glad. I was worried you know.

I don’t understand. Why is life this unfair?
We need to live our lives obeying everyone and not causing any trouble for this
Yeah

  • I assume だって hear is the hearsay meaning, “they say you were attacked at night”
    Everybody gangsta till Nunoka starts saying 3 lines a textbox

p61:

Oh!
Okazaki~!

You survived!
I thought you were dead

They say you were attacked!
Quite amusing

めっちゃうける (if that’s what it is even) is translated as “very funny” by deepl, that’s where my translation stems from, but I’m not sure if that’s correct

p62:

ah…
haha

So, about that. What kind of bastard attacked you?
Tell me, tell me

No, it’s not like that
It was a girl

Bwahahahahah, a girl??
Seriously? Bwahahaha

p63:

Yuuki! (Weird kanji I haven’t ever seen → prolly a name)
Morning!
What’s so funny?

Hey Nao! You’ll never believe it (Liberal translation)
Huh? What?
This guy was attacked by a girl and he needed to be hospitalized afterwards!

Eh? Really? Bwahahahahaha
So lame! Bwahahahaha

p64:

Huh?

What…
Is this smell?

I need to tell this to everybody!
Ahahahaha

tsk

p65:

They are just dogs in heat only thinking about doing it
This is why they should just die!

Right, Okazaki-kun?

Okazaki-kun?
What’s wrong?

Eh?
A… ahh… I’m fine

It’s best to not give a crap about what those idiots say
Ah… ye…

Seems like this is the personality trait of Nunoka:
*someone does something*
“I hope they die”

p66:

And… here…
We’ll use the same formula as last time

Do you remember?

p67:

huhhh…

huh
huh
Man, I feel terrible

Should I go home early?
But…

Makoto?!
What happened? Are you alright?

p68:

Really??

Eh… that’s possible??
Seems like it

p69: (nice)

Again…
This smell…

Did you see that guy just now?
Gross

That’s a superpower… not a good one, but a superpower

p70:

Oh Okazaki~!

Okazaki! Hurry up and come here!

p71: (still so many left, not even halfway there…)

Yes?

What do you think?
You’ve forgotten your duty. Go and buy us some bread *
What? Didn’t you hear me?
For me it will be a curry bread…

  • This gets translated as “You skipped out so go and get some bread”. Not sure how this came out, would be glad if somebody explained it.

p72:

Eh… what are you douing?
Sorry, I don’t feel great

Get yourself together

p73:

Blood
Eh??? What?
Why are you staring at Nao’s legs, you brat?

p74:

Oii, Okazaki! Are you kidding me?
OI!

Stand up already *

  • Not sure about this

p75:

Shut up

e…
EHH?

p78:

Ah
My nose
Ahhhh

I think he’s trying to say “nose”, but because said nose is broken, he mispronounces it, though correct me if I’m wrong

p79:

What?
Did I just hit him?

I did?

Yuuki, are you alright?
It’s broken! It’s broken!

Eh, what?
What happened?

p80:

I want to taste it

p81:

I want to taste it x 9

p82:

No!

Okazaki-kun!

p83:

Okazaki-kun!

p85:

This is wrong

This is wrong, this isn’t me

This isn’t me

Man, that was a fun one, it’s always great when you can understand a sentence after reading it. I have some question in that wall of text of a translation. I would be happy if someone could answer them.

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きんもー is new to me, actually.

I haven’t seen before that vampires started by smelling アレ.

This one isn’t exactly new to me, but this vocab is indeed pretty recent. 嘗めるを英語で訳す - goo辞書 英和和英

I don’t feel MC is quite strong yet. (Just a normal punch? Otherwise, it will be severe skull fracture or kill the 勇樹 guy.) But for the vampire girl to jump from height isn’t normal either.

Actually, I have finished the volume, but I’ll be sure not to spoil the fun, haha.

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です、と言って

I assume this one is めっちゃSUPER・受ける. That is, very ウケ.

This one is 買って来い (Go buy) , but before that, I am only 75% sure that it is 張り切って. (The Okazaki guy is just too happy-go-lucky.)

For the whole sentence, you can try typing out in https://ichi.moe/, or even directly in Jisho.

Stand up, you brat? I might get this one wrong as well.

I forgot I got confused about this one every time. I think it is 赤っ、赤muffled…鼻はな (muffled)が…あ…

I couldn’t guesses the 鼻はな (muffled) , really.

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I never realized that なめる (to look down on (someone); to make fun of; to put down; to treat with contempt; to underestimate) and なめる (to lick) took the same kanji (舐める) but looking it up just now, it looks like it does.

So yeah, the first definition refers to the first example “Are you making fun of me?!” and the second definition refers to the second example “I want to lick/taste (the blood).”

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Reread this chapter for this week. Somehow last time I flew over it, it felt like after his “sense of smell” awakened every girl was having her period at the same time but after rereading it’s actually just two instances…

What I found interesting is that 菜緒 refered to herself by her name on page 73. In my understanding that is a very childish thing to do and since they are already in Highshool it seems a little out of place. But maybe she’s just one of the “cutesy” types.

Now that he is showing first signs of Vampirism lets see how long he still can stand in the sun and resist his blood sucking urges.

Yeah it’s two loosely coupled sentences. サボっていた分 is his part while he was away from shool. That’s where the “skipped out” in the official translation comes from. The 張り切って describes in which way he should do the following action.
So more literally maybe something along the lines of “For your part (that you missed) by having been away, go and buy some bread and put some spirit in it!”
That’s my take on that.

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p60
This is how I broke down this sentence:
俺たちは大人しく誰にも迷惑かけずに生きてるだけなのにさ…ねえ？

Summary

俺たち - We

は - topic marking particle

大人しく - 大人しい (mild, meek, obedient) changed into its adjective form = meekly, obediently

誰にも - no-one

迷惑 - trouble

かけずに - かける = to cause (someone inconvenience, trouble, etc.) (Jisho meaning number 8). Turned into the “zu” form + に (this construction means “without doing something” - JLPT sensei grammar link) - together with previous word means “without causing trouble”

生きてる - are living (contraction of 生きている)

だけ - only

なのに - のに means although/even though. Grammatically needs な in front of it here.

さ - masculine sentence ending particle - indicates assertion

ねえ - right?

A large chunk of this sentence is implied (in brackets):

Even though we only live meekly, not causing anyone trouble (things happen to us like getting bullied at school and being attacked in the street), right?

p63

Yes this is the name of the boy who was laughing at them on the previous page - 勇樹. The kanji are courage and wood (both in wanikani). Jisho says when read with this reading it’s a female given name or a surname - so perhaps his surname. It comes up again on page 79.

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Only a few hard sentences this week but was able to get by with some DeepL, the vocab sheet for a few expressions, and the translations here for the last two sentences I wasn’t sure about!

I’m enjoying the more adult themes and very excited to watch his descent into becoming a vampire 同じに成る but hoping we can move past school bullying and the sexist “lol he got he got beat up by a girl” sooner rather than later!

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Anyone else struggling with the digital page numbers a bit? I keep reading ahead accidently

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Check ahead before starting to read. You can then check which page you will need to stop on and read up to that.

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Ok but… if mere droplets of blood caused such an intense reaction, what happens if Okazaki injures himself? Can’t he like infinitely drink and circulate his own blood? :joy:

Kudos to Okazaki for being able to hold the temptation towards the end, but I imagine it’ll only get harder to resist the more deprived of blood he becomes, ugh. I’m interested to find out where he’ll eventually get his first source of his very much needed blood.

Yeah! I think you’re right, and what @polv interpreted is likely it. It can be further confirmed by his subsequent line「折おれだ」which by right should be「折おれた」, so it seems the last syllabus of whatever words he was saying is a bit off due to the broken nose and the pain probably, hah.

立たてよ as in “Stand up!” in the imperative form. And I’m guessing オラ might be something similar to オラオラ used to roughly order someone around although I can’t be too sure. Have only been mostly seeing こら myself.

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Page numbers are different on digital version compared to what’s listed which is paper version.

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Thanks for the explanations and added nuance for this week’s pages! I’m happy about how smooth my reading experience was this time, but some of the slang is harder to parse.

It’s funny, most vampire stories I’ve read tend to not bring up the topic of periods and how they would affect a vampire. I’m not sure how I feel about it being such a big deal here. Maybe I dislike it because I’ve always had a fear of people being able to tell when I’m on mine, lol.
That punch was so satisfying, though. Yuuki has had it coming for a looong time.

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I have final exams next week, so I’m reading this as fast as I can.

I have one question :smile:

  1. p.61 what does おそわれた mean? I’m not able to find the exact kanji anywhere.

I feel like the MC’s friend has quite the grudge. If I interpreted p. 60 bubble 9 correctly, he believes that it isn’t fair for those who get bullied to end up in bad scenarios when the bullies are right there. I’m thinking if he gets turned into a vampire, he’ll actively look for the bullies and kill them.

And is the reason why the MC is acting weird with specific girls… is it because they’re on their monthly code red? :thinking:

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This is the passive of 襲う. The kanji is on Wanikani.

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