マリア様がみてる 1 Discussion Thread (Maria-sama/Marimite Informal book club) - Now Reading

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Welcome to the Class-S (and Related) club’s reading of マリア様がみてる 1

あらすじ

第1巻の内容紹介: 純粋培養(ばいよう)の乙女たちが集う、私立リリアン女学園。清く正しい学園生活を受け継いでいくため、高等部には「姉妹(ｽｰﾙ)」と呼ばれるシステムが存在していた。ロザリオを授受する儀式を行って姉妹となることを誓うと、姉である先輩が後輩の妹を指導するのである。高等部に進学して、まだ姉を持っていなかった祐巳(ゆみ)は、憧れの『紅薔薇のつぼみ(ﾛｻ･ｷﾈﾝｼｽ･ｱﾝ･ﾌﾞｩﾄﾝ)』である二年生の祥子(さちこ)から、突然「姉妹宣言」をされるが!?

English Summary

[DeepL Translation - needs review] Volume 1 Introduction: Lillian Girls’ Academy is a private school for purely cultured maidens. In order to carry on the pure and correct school life, a system called “sisters (suru)” exists in the upper school. After the students pledged to become sisters through a ceremony in which they received a rosary, the older sisters would mentor the younger sisters. Yumi, who had not yet had an older sister when she entered the upper secondary school, was suddenly declared a “sister” by Sachiko, a sophomore who is the “Rosa Kinensis en bouton” of her dreams.

Content Warnings

Book 1: none that I can think of, tho I’m not at the very end yet

There’s no set schedule. Tho I’ll try to work out a general “end time”, to indicate when the club will move on to the next round of voting/book (still figuring this out, cuz I’m new to the whole informal thing).

Feel free to ask questions, share thoughts, etc, just post chapter (and maybe sections) or pg numbers, and keep things under [details] or [spoiler] tags, unless they’re general enough that they wouldn’t be a spoiler even for ppl just starting out.

I’ll probably add a chart of the character names, titles, and relationships, as they are at the beginning of the book, under a details tag here. The ensemble cast kinda gets thrown at you all at once, early on - so it can be a bit much to absorb.

Anyway, looking forward to reading/discussing this with everyone!!

Useful Charts or Other Info

Rose System (from Wikipeda)

Much of the story of Maria-sama ga Miteru revolves around the Yamayuri Council (山百合会, Yamayurikai, lit. “Mountain Lily Council”), which acts as the student council. The Yamayuri Council meets in a building called the Rose Mansion (薔薇の館, Bara no Yakata). It is located within the school and consists of two stories, including a meeting room on the second. The Yamayuri Council itself consists of three offices, named after roses: Persian yellow rose (ロサ・フェティダ, Rosa foetida), Himalayan rose (ロサ・ギガンティア, Rosa gigantia), and Chinese rose (ロサ・キネンシス, Rosa chinensis).[3][12] These are also referred to by their colors; the Yellow Rose (黄薔薇, Kibara) is Rosa foetida, the White Rose (白薔薇, Shirobara) is Rosa gigantea, and the Red Rose (紅薔薇, Benibara) is Rosa chinensis.

Due to the high importance the three Rose families have in the development of the student activities within school, those who become petites sœurs of any of the mentioned families receive a functional “inheritance” through the grandes sœurs teachings, to adopt a position given certain circumstances. In this way, patrons are recognized through the generations of the members of the Rose families. Still, after graduating, the grandes sœurs of the Yamayuri Council may continue with a fair participation in the events concerning their families, as shown in the novels.[13]

A Rose (薔薇, Bara), or Rosa (ロサ), is one of three senior members of the Yamayuri Council. It is also possible to generally speak of all the members of the Yamayuri Council as roses. A Rose makes the critical decisions within this group since she controls the student council. Candidates for the position, which lasts through the school year, are chosen through an election. Any student can run to become a Rose, although the position is usually given to the en boutons, the Roses’ petite sœurs.

The petite sœur of a Rosa is called an en bouton (アン・ブゥトン, an būton), otherwise known as a “rosebud” (薔薇のつぼみ, bara no tsubomi). En bouton is French for “in bud”—as used in the example Rosa Chinensis en bouton—and is unofficially considered part of the Yamayuri Council, as is the petite sœur of the en bouton, if she has one. The en boutons must be in a lower year than their Rosa, and generally, the en boutons execute the plans discussed by the Roses like assistants. Although the Rosa positions of the Yamayuri Council are traditionally passed to the en bouton on the graduation of the current holder, they are nonetheless elected offices that anyone may run for.

The petite sœur of the en bouton is called en bouton petite sœur (アン・ブゥトン・プティ・スール, an būton puti sūru)—as used in the example Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite sœur—and is otherwise known as the “younger sister of a rose bud” (薔薇のつぼみの妹, bara no tsubomi no imōto). She must be in a lower year than her en bouton and performs small duties, such as attending to the Roses’ en boutons, cleaning the Rose Mansion, and making tea and snacks for the Yamayuri Council. This lasts a school year; the following year, when their en bouton is elected as Rosa, the petite sœurs automatically become en boutons.

Yamayuri Council's titles and sœur relationships, at beginning of Book 1
Foetida Chinensis Gigantea
Rosa ~ Eriko Torii (third year) Yōko Mizuno (third year) Sei Satō (third year)
Rosa ~ en bouton Rei Hasekura (second year) Sachiko Ogasawara (second year) Shimako Tōdō (first year)
Rosa ~ en bouton petite sœur Yoshino Shimazu (first year) None None
Character names (kanji, kana, titles)
Kanji Kana Year Role
福沢 祐巳 ふくざわ ゆみ 1年 主人公
武島 蔦子 たけしま つたこ 1年 Photoboy
水野 蓉子 みずの ようこ 3年 Rosa Kinensis
小笠原 祥子 おがさわら さちこ 2年 Kinesis bouton
佐藤 聖 さとう せい 3年 Rosa Gigantia
藤堂 志摩子 とうどう しまこ 1年 Gigantia Bouton
鳥居 江利子 とりい えりこ 3年 Rosa Fetida
支倉 令 はせくら れい 2年 Fetida bouton
島津 由乃 しまづ よしの 1年 Fetida petite soure
桂 かつら 1年 Yumi classmate
Anime subtitles

First 3 episodes = LN 1

https://jimaku.cc/entry/971 - not the best selection tho

Maria-sama ga Miteru - Japanese subtitles - kitsunekko.net - should have S1

Note: the zip for season 1 actually only includes subs for 1-5 and 11. the other subs seem to be chinese. S2 doesn’t have Japanese apparently

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I’ll interpret that as the BC having started.

Prolog/Introduction

So, the students are liked to flowers that are commercially produced in an artificial isolated environment and then send of? I wonder if I misunderstood this a little. And I wonder how much the school setting is being romanticized vs being seen critically, maybe even hostile.

I’m unclear if 箱入りで出荷されり just means shipped in boxes, or if this is related to 箱入り娘, which apparently refers to a girl that has a sheltered life.

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prologue/intro

I interpreted it as both. They’re being cultivated/prepared for life, but at the same time are a bit sheltered as a result (something I’d take for granted, without the description anyway)

I think shipped off just means “sent out into the world/college” in a general way. But I never really thought of the commercial aspect of greenhouses before (as silly of me as that may seem)

It did seem like it might be a light social critique of how the world outside the school perceives them, rather than critiquing the school itself.

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Introduction

Well, the JP<->JP dictionary of 出荷 seems compatible with a simple “send off”. But also says something like “especially goods on a marketplace”. And the JP<>EN also gives related terms like shipping label and same day delivery.

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Vocab: 淑女

The first few sentences have the word 淑女. I’ve learned this from jpdb. Probably from the 本好きの下剋上 deck. Though I don’t remember having seen this in the wild before. I remember this well because on jpdb this confusingly has two translations. 1. lady 2. (female) pervert. Two very different and opposing meanings. Now, the iOS dictionary lacks the second meaning. But the Takoboto app has the second meaning with the very helpful note “Internet slang”. So, マリア様がみてる has helped me settle this long standing confusion.

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This looks like it’s a deficiency in jpdb. Both that and takoboto (and almost every other free JE dictionary app or website) use the same underlying dictionary data from the EDICT project, but jpdb seems to be discarding the tags that provide information about field of use etc. For another example try 天照大神 – this is noted in EDICT with the “Shinto” tag, and takoboto and jisho.org will tell you that, but jpdb does not.

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Jpdb has other deficiencies as well. E.g. if a book specifies furigana to differentiate meanings, jpdb ignores them and adds the first not yet used EDICT entry as meaning.

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Yes, that one annoys me too – and also in the example sentences it doesn’t keep the original way the word was written.

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Could you give an example? That seems like it would be hard for jpdb to parse in the first place

I’m confused what you mean about using the first unused EDICT entry. A lot of my multiple-meanings words only use a few of the definitions, depending on what’s relevant for the book/deck (which I’ve always wondered how they determine)

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Incidentally that’s one of my Due words for book 3, and I haven’t actually learned it yet. Maybe now it will stick better :slight_smile:

Btw on the topic of dictionary apps, I sometimes use this one for JP-JP - since it pulls up goo.ne.jp, Weblio, Wikipedia, images, synonyms, etc

Goo.ne.jp uses an updated digital version of 大辞泉, which I assume is unrelated to EDICT - so it might be a useful alternative reference. Idk what Weblio uses

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E.g. the kanji 人 has four entries in edict, if the book already has the meaning ひと (1st entry in edict), then the book uses 人 with furigana じん (3rd entry in edict), jpdb would add the meaning of にん, as it is 2nd entry in edict. The furigana gets ignored.

This example does not make sense in a real book, but there are kanji/words where it does. It‘s just to clarify what I meant.

This usually does not happen often, in the only book I used jpdb 狼と香辛料 1, jpdb had about 10 of such errors.

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Yes, 大辞泉 is a commercial JJ dictionary (published by 小学館); it’s pretty good if you’re OK with Japanese only definitions. Weblio does lookups of multiple other dictionaries including 大辞泉, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc, some of which are more useful than others.

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I have mixed feelings on 大辞泉 (I find the 1995 version on the Kindle app hard to parse, and some of their definitions aren’t always useful, but the presentation on goo.ne helps). That’s cool about Weblio

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I have to admit I was counting on this club starting next year :sweat_smile: I’m in the middle of other 2 books but I will shift my focus here.

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Eh. I think I’m the only one who has started. I’m planning on going slow. And we don’t have to all start at the same time.

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If you want, but no rush either. I haven’t really properly “started”, but I’ve also been reading the book for the last 4 months :sweat_smile:

I will try to add some thoughts on various sections soon-ish tho… which may turn into January for all I know :thinking:

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I read the … first part of the first chapter. The first scene I guess you could say? And a bit afterwards this part confused me

quote from that bit

「暗い顔してご登校。私はまた、電車で痴漢ちかんにでもあったのかと思った」

「痴漢の方がましだったかも」

「どうして」

「後をひかない」

「祐巳さん、さては痴漢にあったことないな」

「私、バス通学だもの」

The bolded part I don’t understand at all, and the rest is like, I understand all the words there but since I didn’t understand the bolded with, confused on how it follows and what is meant.

This dialogue was a bit shocking after the very opening where such emphasis is upon being a prim and proper lady, I didn’t expect the sudden topic change :sweat_smile:

While reading it took me too long to realize we started off with the very iconic ribbon scene. I never saw the marimite anime, so I forgot for a bit this is where it originated .I only saw it in references.

I have to look up more words than the other books I’m reading but that’s to be expected considering the level difference. I read around this level before, so it’s not undoable, but it will be slower. That’s why I wanted to get started right away, especially if I want to keep up with the beginner light novel club later on as well, I’d like a headstart here :sweat_smile:

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I think the best equivalent here would probably be: (a molester) I wouldn’t care about; or more edict-like: (a molester) has no lingering effect (on my mood), which would mean here, I‘d say: would not make me make a 暗い顔.

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I wasn’t familiar with the expression 後を引く and my pop up dictionary didn’t pick it up, now it makes more sense.

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Just putting these here for later (since this is the section I’m in right now)

Thoughts towards end of penultimate section/part 5 (definitely don't read prematurely, cuz major spoilers)

Wow the whole twist with Suguru was fascinating!!

Grandpa arranges marriage between cousins. Suguru is gay. Sachiko likes Suguru, and then finds out about the marriage arrangement. Thinking she wants nothing to do with him anyway (since she hates guys), Suguru tells her he’s gay, but they should get married for convenience (and they can both find their own partners, she can have her own kid who inherits, and who he’ll be loving to b/c they’re related). She thinks this is a ridiculous mockery of everyone involved, they avoid each other for 1.5 years. Then she tells him they should call it off, and he is upset over this! The old-fashioned grandfather could just adopt Suguru but he wants to leave everything to Sachiko b/c he really loves his only granddaughter, and wants he to be the heir, or something like that.

Then Yumi and Sachiko are flipped wrt the rosary, since Yumi finally understands everything, and feels like she can actually offer something to Sachiko, rather than just being forced to accept Sachiko’s desires. (I know that will flip back soon enough, but I’m reading that portion next week)

Sachiko’s perception of this whole situation, and tolerance for it, is really fascinating to watch as well. It seems like she has to hold a lot in wrt her family. So I can kind of understand her being so generally terse and obtuse, and uptight, slightly better maybe.

As an aside Suguru (at least in the anime) actually goes on to become one of my favorite characters much later on, despite having the most awful of first impressions. (but the awful first impression thing is true of like 80% of the characters in the series anyway, lol)

thoughts on the end

The end was sweet. I like that they became sisters from a place of (more) equal footing - and appreciate that that was important to Sachiko. Also so impressed with Sachiko for going through with the play like that, after everything; and same for Yumi. It’s interesting b/c the anime skipped over the play altogether, and I’m not sure if it really went into the whole thing with Suguru being gay (my comprehension wasn’t so solid when I was watching that). Ganbatte Yumi :slight_smile:

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