耳をすませば 📚 | Week 4 Discussion

[ChristopherFritz]

Chapter 2 (second half)

Start Date: 2022-09-30T15:00:00Z
Last Week: Chapter 2 (first half)
Next Week: Chapter 3 (first half)

耳をすませば Home Thread

Pages

This week we’re reading pages 78–97, as per numbering in the physical re-release.

If you have the original release, post a photo of (part of) a page with a number, and I can see if it matches the re-release or not.

For digital readers, this week is pages 74–93. However, your reader software’s internal page counter may list this week as pages 75–94 (due to counting the cover page).

This week’s reading ends when you see this kitty at the bottom of the page:

If you reach a page that looks like it was originally released in color, that’s the start of next week!

Note: I made a tiny error and added an extra page last week. The final page was a scene change, which should have been the start of this week. As punishment for this error, I plan to go out and collect 100 overdue library books this weekend.

Vocabulary List

耳をすませば Vocabulary

Please read the editing guidelines in the first sheet before adding any words!

Discussion Guidelines

• Please blur out major events in the current week’s pages, and any content from later in the book/series, like this: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]

• When asking for help, please mention the page number (or % for eBooks).

• To you lurkers out there: join the conversation, it’s fun!

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll:

• I’m reading along
• I’m planning to catch up later
• I’m skipping this book

If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

[MissDagger]

Story discussion, spoilers from this week (and previous ones)

So, of course, the mysterious Seeji that Shizuku have been interested in turns out to be that annoying guy. (Knowing storytelling techniques and the fact that no unnecessary characters have been introduced (well… maybe the teacher and/or dad, they haven’t added much), I had kinda guessed.)

And there are two cats? Luna and Moon/Muun.

Seeji really went out to be annoying at the library, although considering Shizuku beat him to the book he meant to borrow, maybe partially understandable.

Also, apparently that meeting between the friend and her crush was not about her crush pumping her for Shizuku’s feelings as I thought, but it didn’t go well anyway.

A few more lookups this week (just like last actually). I also needed to look up ておく because I couldn’t figure out exactly what it meant in one place, but it can apparently mean “go ahead and do something”, and I am guessing with the nuance of keep doing that thing? In this case, it was to stop thinking about something (and keep not thinking about it?); page 90 in the (re-released) physical book.

[saraqael]

Discussion and Spoilers

@MissDagger

And there are two cats? Luna and Moon/Muun.

Oohhh that makes more sense. I thought that was the same cat because it looked identical and “luna” = “moon” in latin. But I guess they just wanted to confuse us. Either way they’re so cuuuute

Btw is my understanding correct that Shizuru’s sister is dating Kouji and Shizuru is interested in his brother Seiji? I wonder if that can go well…

@MissDagger

I also needed to look up ておく

Hmm… I haven’t found that on page 90. Where is it used?

[MissDagger]

Spoiler reply

If you look at the last page of this week’s reading, you’ll see Kouji with a cat on his head and Seiji with a cat at his feet, so I assumed.

Shizuku’s older sister could definitely be dating Kouji, and if so… yeah, interesting stuff will happen I’m sure. xD

ておく is often smushed together like this とく in casual speech. And in this instance, it was conjugated to とこう, aka ておこう. With the verb it was this: やめとこう.

[saraqael]

Ahh! I was wondering what that construction was. Thank you for clarifying. At one point I actually found 言っとくけど (= for your information) as a set phrase on Jisho which is why I didn‘t assume that it was a general grammar point. But its meaning makes a lot more sense when thinking of that っとく as っておく. I really should learn grammar more often. Actually, this was even just an N4 grammar point

[valvictorine]

Question about p. 83 (digital) / p. 86 (physical)

What does サギ in サギのような天気 refer to? The definition I found is “heron” – is this an expression similar to “It’s raining cats and dogs”? I tried searching for it, but it didn’t turn up any results. I feel like I’m missing something very obvious here.

[pm215]

p86, guesses

The following is all rather unsupported guesswork:

I wonder if this サギ is maybe not the heron, but 詐欺 == fraud, in what wwwjdic puts as “making promises without keeping them” sense – i.e. the weather looked like it was promising to be sunny all day, but then wasn’t, leaving you feeling tricked. I base this guess on the fact that while I was googling around I found the phrase “降る降る詐欺” which seems to be a complaint in the opposite direction, where the weather forecast keeps saying “it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain”, and then it doesn’t.

Otherwise it might be like the English expression “nice weather for ducks”; but I like my other theory better.

[Micki]

I think サギ here is a word that would usually be written in hiragana (or kanji), but has been written in katakana for emphasis. If you put it into jisho in katakana you don’t see the intended meaning. However if you put it into jisho in hiragana then 詐欺 comes up which means “fraud; swindle; graft; cheating; trick; scam​“. I think that’s the right meaning here.

[valvictorine]

That makes a lot more sense. Thanks both!

[pm215]

@pm215

while I was googling around I found the phrase “降る降る詐欺” which seems to be a complaint in the opposite direction, where the weather forecast keeps saying “it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain”, and then it doesn’t.

…and I belatedly realized that that is probably a play on words based on オレオレ詐欺, the phone scam where the fraudster phones an elderly person claiming to be their son/grandson who needs money in a hurry to get out of trouble.

[MaraVos]

I had one big question in this week’s reading …

page 81-82

Tensawa the younger sees that Sizuku has the book he wanted and glares at her, then … hides the book he got instead? Which Sizuku points out she already saw.

And then suddenly she launches them into some kind of debate about fairies versus sorcerers? I don’t fully understand her statement that starts the fight (“even if fairies are bad that doesn’t mean sorcerers are good?” maybe) and then I continue to not understand every subsequent statement until the argument devolves into personal attacks with Tensawa saying her glasses look like grandma glasses.

If anyone can enlighten me it would be much appreciated.

[pm215]

p81-82

Earlier in the manga Amasawa teases Shizuku for reading a book about fairies. So now having bumped into her unexpectedly he tries to hide that the book he has is about wizards, because that’s exactly the kind of fantasy/fairytale stuff he was teasing her for liking. But he’s too slow, which is why Shizuku grins and says she saw the book, no point in hiding it. The rest of the conversation is a silly kids’ argument where Amasawa tries to justify why his book is fine and Shizuku’s was worth making fun of; since he doesn’t have a leg to stand on he ends up ducking out of it by switching to making fun of her glasses instead.

[pm215]

Oh, yeah, you asked about the opening line specifically.

p81-82

I’d translate it as “Oh, so fairies are bad but wizards are fine, then?” , which is Shizuku kicking the argument off by pointing out Amasawa’s hypocrisy.

[MaraVos]

Thank you, thank you! I’d actually completely forgotten that he made fun of her fairy book earlier in the story.

[MissDagger]

Thanks @MaraVos and @pm215! I was actually a bit confused by that conversation too, and couldn’t quite follow it. But I didn’t think to ask, instead I just glossed over it. But now I reread it and could follow the back and forth!