Read through chapter 5; big thought for this one: I wonder why touching the collateral book was described as 危険/dangerous? I suppose it could have been in reference to “touch this noble’s property and he’ll chop off your hand”, but the shopkeepers’ reactions seemed a little too extreme for that. Granted, Myne was being a little weird asking to sniff the book, but that seems unrelated. Turns out books in this world all have teeth and will chomp on your hand if you’re not careful, haha.
I’m trying to decide what my current theory is; presumably touching the book without the right qualifications could harm you in some capacity. Maybe books, given that they’re rare and valuable, have some sort of anti-theft magic attached? Didn’t sound like there was a (commercially available, at least) printing press available, so book production would all be done by hand. And if this world does have magic, then it feels like a logical step to imbue the book with magic as you write/copy it.
If there’s no magic in the world… Then I’m not sure. I guess I would fall back onto the “don’t touch this important person’s property”, but I feel like Myne hasn’t noticed a strong enough presence of soldiers policing the town to indicate a really harshly-regulated area.
That’s probably the easiest explanation. Just seemed like a weird moment to me.
Quick question in chapter 6: after Myne washes her hair with the shampoo and Tuuli asks her what she’s done, Myne responds, 「簡易ちゃんリンシャン」. What is she saying here? 簡易 seems fairly straightforward (convenient, easy), but how is ちゃんリンシャン supposed to parse?
リンシャン = リンス + シャンプー, conditioner and shampoo
She mentioned she had the “recipe” from her moms crafting phase so I’ve always just assumed 簡易+ちゃん is the cute name of whatever crafting/natural recipe book thing it came from, something like “Easy girl shampoo and conditioner!”
I have no idea what that is actually localized to in English so maybe someone else can enlighten us
That too, but it gives rhythm to the word (since it rhymes with シャン)
簡易 and リン do not exactly rhyme but you still have an い and a ん sound in them both.
Just for fun, the Korean version slightly changed the name to have it make sense in Korean but sound similar to the Japanese and it also explains what it means in parenthesis:
ちゃん changes to han/한 from 한 번 “at once”, and the parenthesis explains basically that it is shampoo that solves all hair issues at once, from cleaning to conditioning! (Note: Not a literal translation)
If the Japanese version had something like that we wouldn’t all be so confused.
Japanese are so used to shortening stuff, they probably know this or can infer it. Whereas in translation you have to keep in mind who you are translating for and whether something is clear. Footnotes/explanation like these are actually not really good translation practice (though it makes sense here).
Fwiw, only the first volume’s audiobook does this weird grouping of the chapters. The others are all one audio chapter per actual chapter, just like you’d expect.
Oh also I finished the reading yesterday and forgot to say anything
Didn’t sound like there was a (commercially available, at least) printing press available, so book production would all be done by hand. And if this world does have magic, then it feels like a logical step to imbue the book with magic as you write/copy it.
it is
