Oof. Chapter 3 is proving far more tricky than chapter 2. I’ve been working on the vocab sheet for an hour, and I’m still only six pages in. Solid chunks of exposition, complete with run-on sentences, in である form. And boy does the writing often get quite teensy.
Think I’ve understood it with much detailed analysis and reassembly, but I’m still not clear on the box in the lower-right panel of page 30. Specifically, I can’t quite pin down precisely which definitions of 想い and 接する are in play here.
接する I’m less sure on. One of the definitions in jisho is “to touch; to come in contact with; to border on; to adjoin; to be adjacent; to be close”. If this can apply to non-physical things as well, it could work here.
So:
そんな小鞠を蛍は可愛い先輩だという想いで接していた
That kind of Komari, to Hotaru, was bordering on the feeling of “cute senpai”
Or something like that. As I said, not too sure on that. But maybe it’s on the right track.
She was interacting with her with the feeling (/while considering) that she was a cute senpai.
(I.e. that feeling is present whenever she interact with komari; the example sentence was “interacting with people with a smile”)
Edit: nevermind, since that sentence is in the past tense, that makes no sense. I guess you’re interpretation is the correct one.
Edit2: Asked a native, and actually interact is the correct interpretation here.
I find that both @seanblue’s & @Naphthalene’s translations are plausible. (I know, it doesn’t really help, right?)
I guess the gist is that at some point Hotaru’s feelings go from just thinking Komari to be cute (because she’s so small) to having more of a crush on her. Is that right?
You motivated me to ask a native about it, and “interact” is the correct interpretation.
I mean, I guess? It seems pretty platonic to me (as it should be, considering their age), but Hotaru is definitely getting the pink-colored shades when she thinks about her.
Hotaru is also like 10 years old. I’d definitely go with “friend crush” or perhaps “unhealthy obsession” haha. And by the way, you haven’t seen anything yet when it comes to Hotaru’s obsession with Komari.
I can’t tell if having two chapters in a week is succeeding in spreading out the conversation… Or if it’s failing because people are too busy to read a second chapter.
I always mark myself as reading along when I create the thread(s), even if I won’t read the chapter until later in the week. Maybe some other people are doing that as well.
People read along without posting all the time though, so that’s not unusual. I wish more people would actively participate, but there will always be people who just like to lurk.
I think two chapters a week is fine, since the chapters are short and all.
Also, compared to よつばと! Vol. 5, I’d say around 50 replies per chapter is pretty good.
Probably because のんのんびより is harder and also has more people reading.