神さまがまちガえる | Volume 2 Discussion

Volume 2 Discussion Thread

Start Date: 28th January
Previous: Volume 1
Next: Volume 3

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神さまがまちガえる Home Thread


Where to Purchase

Physical: Amazon | CDJapan
Digital: Kindle | Bookwalker


Reading Schedule

Start Date Chapter Page Numbers Page Count
January 28th 6 - 姫崎邸ダンジョン 3 - 38 36
February 4th 7 - 放課後エクスペリメント 39 - 68 30
February 11th 8 - 夜更かしは3文の聴 69 - 96 28
February 18th 9 - 春のまれびと 97 - 140 44
February 25th 10 - 家路 141 - 174 34

Vocabulary List

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!


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6 - 姫崎邸ダンジョン

Start Date: January 28th

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0 voters

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また会いましたね

皆さん 頑張りましょうか

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I’m glad you decided to go for a chapter a week! :smiley:

Page 7

ツチノコがごみ??らします 必ずネット
What are the ?? on the trash sign?

Page 18

Kon: 隅のほう…っぽい方向から埋めていこう
“Let’s fill it up… sort of into the direction of the corner”? I guess he might be talking about filling in the map?

Page 23

Kon: まぁ部屋とまともに繋がってない廊下なんて意味ないけど
Does Kon mean that there’s no point in having the normal second floor corridor if it’s not connected to the normal second floor rooms? And まともに is “normally”?

Page 27

Kon: いくら広くても探索していけば いずれは全部回り切れると当たり前に思ってたけど ひょうとしたらこの空間に限りなんて無いのかも だとしたらどうしようも…
“Even if it got more spacious by any amount, if we’re searching, I thought naturally “Sooner or later we will have covered everything”, but if perhaps this space doesn’t have something like a limit. In that case, what should we do…”
…is that close enough? This one was really hard and only got a bit clearer while typing it out.

I’m still a bit shaky on この空間に限りなんて無いのかも.

  • Is this really “not something like a limit to this space”? Shouldn’t it be この空間が instead of に in this case? What’s the に doing?
  • What’s the のかも? Explanatory の + perhaps?
Page 28

Maruko: 落ち着けよ 想像なんていくらでも悪い方に行っちゃうぞ
“Stay calm, no matter how many bad ways something like the imagination goes”?
“Stay calm, something like the imagination goes in as many bad ways as it likes”?

Page 29

Why does Maruko call Iyoda “Iyoda-chan”?

Page 33/8

A page 8 question that I can only ask now. So…
Fujita: 今回も見てもらって…
…I guess that sentence was missing an いる, yeah? I was thinking about that when I read page 8 and had several theories what was omitted (casual てください, or a て-connection to another sentence which she never says because she gets cut off), but I guess with what we know now an いる makes the most sense.

Page 36

Iyoda: 散らかしていいな料理するか…
Is that “Is it okay to cook while leaving stuff scattered around?”


Chapter notes

Page 14… Akira actually has eyes!!

Apparently our princess has no unlock protection on her phone, huh.

That was definitely a fun bug! I really like labyrinths with interesting topography, and this had a similar feeling.

I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t experiment a bit more before splitting up and heading out. Stuff like… is the inner space of the house just sort of compressed, but still euclidean, or does walking through doors in a circle get you somewhere entirely else? And is the layout fixed, or do the rooms change when you close and re-open the doors, or when you don’t observe them? To me that feels like the stuff you want to find out early when you’re either together with other people or at least when there are still people outside who can get more help if you don’t come out.

I’m a little bit disappointed that it turned out to be so simple as “Well, she just wasn’t at home”, but I kinda expected that.

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page 7

first ? is を, second is 荒 (the word being 荒らす, I believe it’s the “to invade/to break into” meaning, as in the tsuchinoko has been breaking into the garbage lol)

So the sentence is: ツチノコがごみ荒らします

page 18

That’s what I thought he meant too, but tbh I was a little confused by this sentence too.

Haven’t read far enough to answer the rest

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Various answers

My understanding is that Kon’s plan is to start (から) from a corner-like point in the house ( 隅のほうっぽい e.g., like a room that’s in an edge of the house) and then fill the map progressively (埋めていこう). His hesitation in 隅のほう…っぽい comes from the fact that the house layout given the bug is unknown, so it’s hard to tell which room is actually in the corner of the map.

Yes, I believe that’s the idea he’s trying to express. My understanding is that part of their search also involves finding their own rooms so that they can sleep in them when the time comes, so getting to the second floor hallway but that hallway not being connected to the actual rooms they want to use is not very useful.

まともに I’d say it means “properly” in this case. The corridor not properly leading to the rooms.

I agree with your interpretation.

この空間 限りなてんない would be a bit strange I think - this would make 空間 the subject of the verb, the verb being 無い (not exist). So this would imply that “this space doesn’t exist”, making it ambiguous if the limit or the space is the one that doesn’t exist.

この空間 限りなてんない - One of the many uses of に is to indicate the location where something exists (or not exist). An example from the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar: ここに電話がある => “A telephone exists here”. Basically the same is happening in the sentence in the manga: “in this space, limit doesn’t exists”

And yes, I believe that’s an explanatory-tone の at the end of the sentence.

想像なんていくらでも悪い方に行っちゃうぞ

想像なんて => something like imagination
いくらでも => any number of / any amount of
悪い方に => in a bad direction
行っちゃうぞ => go (in a regrettable or negative way)

“Imagination will (unfortunately) go in any number of bad directions”
So basically the sentence states that if you start imagining bad scenarios, you’ll find infinite number of them.

I can’t quite remember the descriptions of who was younger and older here, so not really sure…

Hmmm can’t say I’m certain, but my gut feeling is that this is used as “and (stuff)”. So there are other things implied (things being stuff Kasane does to help her out, including help with the bug today).

I have the impression it’s rare for a sentence to end in て-form and imply an いる. It’d be very simple, if the speaker wanted to abbreviate, to just say -てる, so it feels off to just end the sentence there when you just need a single extra kana to finish it. Might be just that I’m having trouble remembering any scenario where I ran into a ている abbreviated as て.

Btw, you are missing a ら there:
散らかしていい な 料理するか…

This changes the meaning to “If it’s okay to make a mess, I (might as well) cook”. I guess he means that since that kitchen is going to disappear anyway after the bug ends, he can just make a mess and not go through the trouble of cleaning up.

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Thanks for the answers, you two!

Replies to answers

Haha. Typical tsuchinoko problems :laughing:

Ah, I was actually thinking of は, sorry! Like 私は犬がない, using この空間は to express that the space does not have a limit.

But yeah, using に to denote in which location there is no limit makes a ton of sense, thanks!

I think I remember that Kon remarked on Maruko being the oldest of the tenants despite not looking like it. But I was more wondering about… is -chan also used for younger men? Iyoda is male, right?

Ah, hm. I was mostly thinking it would be -てる because it implies she is doing the helping her out right now. (And that being cut off.) But I guess the て(and stuff) leaves the tense open, so that could work too.

Gotcha! And the か is something like “might as well”, I see. Do you maybe know any grammar sources for that? I’ve been looking for a bit, and I can’t find it in The Dictionary, The Handbook or in any of my other usual pages, and Google didn’t help either.

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Pg. 29

-chan can be used for males, though it tends towards being used for females. Technically, all honorifics are gender-neutral, by my understanding, there is just trends in how they are used.

I’ve seen -chan used for males in a couple of different circumstances, usually ones that imply intimacy. Though, there is also the Yakuza series and Majima constantly calling the MC “Kiryu-chan” which is used for a bit of comedic effect.

In this case, I imagine it’s supposed to show Maruko’s kinda “motherly” nature. But I could be misreading the intent behind the use.

Iyoda is definitely male, though.

Pg. 36

I don’t actually have any sources outside of just pointing out that か is often used to inject just a bit of doubt/uncertainty into the sentence, so it becoming like a “I suppose I could; I might as well” feels like it makes sense… I will do some digging to see if I can find something more concrete for you.

Actually, maybe reframing the translation would be a better way to go about it.

“Since it’s okay to make a mess, shall I cook?..”

With an invitation to another person, you would probably use the negative form to form the “shall”, since that’s more indirect, but since he is just speaking to himself, it feels okay to just be a direct question.

English would probably phrase it differently, more along the lines of the “might as well”, but I think just shifting gears and viewing it as a question to himself makes this make sense and doesn’t require as much twisting to get there.

That’s just kind of an off the cuff thought while I continue to look anyway, though. :stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes
yeah it's this bug....

Summary

I was thinking yikes…what if the mess instead of going away just ends up back in the kitchen…with 3 kitchens…yikes 3x the mess hahaha

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My apologies, my brain sometimes completely switches between translating everything literally to making a lot of adjustments for more natural English.

As @MrGeneric mentioned, か is the interrogative particle, so 料理するか would just be “Do I cook?”. In this particular context though, we have 散らかしていいなら, which specifies a certain condition that makes cooking a possibility - that’s why “might as well (given this condition)” fits as a translation.

Definitely “might as well” is not a perfect translation (it sounds more assertive than the sentence is in japanese, probably), and is by no means an “official” meaning for か you’d find in a dictionary.

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Page 29: Maruko-san using Iyoda-chan. Well, I don’t see how this could be a spoiler, because it was in the first book. But if I remember right, Maruko-san is the oldest (not including the landlord). She’s a salaryman, I think or at least has a regular office job. In fact, I thought she was quite a bit older.

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I made notes about each character as I read, because it helps me get established. (And they did introduce a lot of characters at the beginning of book 1.) I’m buried in a remodel, so when I see the first book again…

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7 - 放課後エクスペリメント

Start Date: Feb 04th

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  • I’m planning to catch up later
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Fun chapter so far!

Here’s a batch of questions for the first part ~

Page 40

Teacher: こうしたバグの残留はまれにあることですが 文化財に起きるのはすごい確率ですね

“Such remains of bugs are a rare thing, but it happening to cultural assets is very likely.”
…is the best I could make of 起きるのはすごい確率, but I don’t see why that would be very likely to happen to cultural assets, so I’m not sure it’s right? She even ends the sentence with a ね…

Page 46

In the chat: 命を大事にしないやつは〇ね

…what’s the 〇 here? Is it a censored word? Is it a 0 to express something like worthlessness?

Also: アホ発見 is great :smiley:

Page 47

Classmate: ヒュソってなった / or maybe ヒュン?

Is that something like “It made wooosh”? I can’t find it anywhere.

Page 57

Swimmer: もういつ終わってもおかしくないぞ

I guess that’s something like “It wouldn’t be strange if it ended any minute now”? (Or, less literal “It will probably end any minute now.”)

What’s the いつ there? Jisho says “when; at what time; how soon”, and I don’t understand why it’s a question word. I would’ve expected something like もうすぐ instead.

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Answer Page 40

I’m pretty sure the すごい確率 in this case actually means that is a supppppper low probability. That would align with common sense, since obviously there aren’t that many cultural assets

Answer Page 47

Looking at his expression it seems like it is similar to “sweaty palms” in english, but that is more a guess. When searching online I found this: 恐怖で男の股間がヒュンとなる感覚 何が起きている?泌尿器科医の答えは: J-CAST ニュース【全文表示】

Answer Page 57

Have a look at 疑問詞 + 〜ても(temo)【JLPT N4の文法 Grammar】 | 日本語の例文 that explains it pretty well.

the いつ終わっても can be split up into いつ~ても and the verb and if you only look at the いつ~ても you can already kind of see いつでも which means any any time and this grammar point also means no matter when/what time

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Some questions/comments:

Page 40 answer/comment

The teacher says:

こうしたバグの残留はまれにあることですが、文化財に起きるのはすごい確率ですね

@TobiasW, @Shadowlauch I definitely took すごい確率 as meaning “an abnormally high probability”. Given the が conjunction, I don’t see how it could mean a low probability. It doesn’t mean it’s very likely though, just that it’s すごい compared to normal (すごい = びっくりするほど程度がはなはだしい). If normally it’s 0.000001% and for cultural assets it’s 0.0005%, that is an extremely large difference despite it still being unlikely.

That said, if my interpretation is correct, this seems like a pretty fallacious argument to me. Isn’t it more likely just that a bug sticking around on a cultural asset is much more likely to be widely noticed/publicized than (to use an example from this chapter) a pencil no longer working permanently because it can’t break?

Page 46 answer

It could be 死ね is being censored.

Page 47 answer

“Woosh” does seem to be one of the meanings.

Here’s my go to for looking up onomatopoeia: Search @ The JADED Network

Page 51 comment/question

They mention that they are using regular せっけん, but doesn’t that specifically refer to bar soap? Or can it refer to liquid soap too? I’m asking because if it’s bar soap, it shouldn’t be able to create bubbles for the same reason the chalk can write on the blackboard – it needs to “break” in order to generate bubbles. (For what it’s worth, google images shows primarily bar soap, but looking it up in a monolingual dictionary was unhelpful because the definition is insanely technical.) Maybe I’m just trying too hard to understand these bugs though. :upside_down_face:

General chapter comments

Interesting bug and chapter. I do wonder if the secondary bug stuff will end up being important or if this is the kind of manga that will never go anywhere story-wise (not that I mind so long as it’s entertaining). I guess it’s good to know that no one died from walking in the sky when that bug ended!

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Page 40 discussion

The が does not necessarily have to show an opposite. Like in english you could also say “A is super rare, but B is even more so” and that is the way I took this. Basically her saying “It is super rare for things to remain after the bug ends, but for a cultural asset to be involved the probability is minute”. The すごい definition would also fit since it does not really innately give a direction just that it is extreme.

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I see your point, but I’m not convinced. I know が doesn’t have to be used contrastively, but that’s still the more common usage, and I don’t see a reason not to interpret it that way here.

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Thanks for the answers, you two!

…and huh, I swear I looked on thejadednetwork and didn’t find it. Guess I only looked up the one I spelled wrong after all.

Page 40 discussion

Could the first part of the sentence maybe be interpreted like “Such remains of bugs are things that exist, but the chance of it happening to cultural assets is extremely low, isn’t it.”? If so, that seems like it would fit both the が and the “low probability”.

If on the other hand it actually is a high probability: Yeah, it seems weird. But considering that the nature of the bugs being very handwavy in general and so not completely explained to us… maybe it just is the case that things that are famous, have lots of eyes on them etc. are more likely to be hit by this “bug remains” phenomena.

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Page 40 discussion

I originally interpreted the first half as “residual bugs like this are rare”, but I suppose it’s more like “residual bugs like this do rarely exist”. In which case I guess the second half could be indicating that the chances of this happening with cultural assets is low? I don’t know. I still think it could be that despite residual bugs like this (rarely) existing, the probably of it happening with cultural assets is high(er than normal).

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