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Afterword

Good evening, I’m Wataru Working.

Before you know it, the season has completely turned to early summer, and it’s gotten all hot. But there’s still the occasional day when it suddenly gets chilly, and every single time, at this time of year, it’s like I have no clothes to wear.

When they can’t make it clear if it’s going to be hot or cold, you ultimately want to choose the option of not leaving the house, but since I’m a corporate slave, that is not to be so.

And so every day I think, Is this outfit okay…? Tell me, Piiko! as I choose clothes to wear and head to work.

Well, there is no absolute correct answer when it comes to selecting clothes, but still, it seems there are still wrong answers. This is also true when it comes to weather or temperature, like I mentioned earlier, but aside from that, there are also standards for business manners and dress codes for stores. Fundamentally, it’s also true for the way people see you, too.

When you’re very unsure in your fashion sense, even just walking around town, you get weirdly anxious like, Just now, that person looked at my clothes and laughed… A-and that person… And the sun is laughing, too… And the puppies are laughing! Luulululu luu   and I think such mental suffering is possible. Or not.

The objective angle aside, there’s also those moments when you yourself are not really satisfied with how you’ve dressed.

Following that nagging sense that something is wrong with him, being at the mercy of options of right/wrong and subjective/objective, at the end of it all…what should he wear?

And so on that note, this has been My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, Vol. 11.

And below, the acknowledgments.

Holy Ponkan . You pulled another god move! The cover is Gahama-san again after so long—it’s lovely! It’s whoa. So cuuute. Poggers. Thank you as always!

To my editor, Hoshino. Ga-ha-ha! Ohhh, I’m real sorry, man! Ga-ha-ha! Um, I really am sorry for having caused you trouble. Thank you very much. Hey, I can get the next one in on time easy, ga-ha-ha!

To everyone involved with the media franchise: I’m very sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you with the TV anime and other things. I’ll continue to do my best in the future, so I’ll be looking forward to working with you moving forward as well. Thank you very much.

To all my readers: As usual, it’s been a string of mistakes and spinning around in circles and continuously wandering off course, but finally, we’re at Volume 11. I think this story may finally be reaching the climax. I’d be really glad if you could support me to the very end of the end of the end, and the anime and manga as well. Thank you very much.

Now then, I’ve run out of pages here, so I’ll lay down my pen for the time being.

Next time, let’s meet in Volume 12 of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected.

On a certain day in May, while drinking MAX Coffee no matter what,

Wataru Watari

 

 

Translation Notes

 

Chapter 1 … Once he’s aware that winter has begun, it has already passed.

1 “According to the lunar calendar, the day of Keichitsu was less than a month away.” Keichitsu is in mid-March, the day in the Chinese calendar when the sun’s celestial longitude is exactly 345 degrees. It’s a day when hibernating insects are thought to emerge from the ground.

2 “There is also the example of flowers and storms; life is naught but farewells.” This is from a poem by the famous Chinese poet Li Bai called “Offering a Drink” that was rather poetically and liberally translated into Japanese.

3 “…is she as swift as the Shimakaze?” The Shimakaze was a real Japanese navy vessel, but this is almost definitely referring to Kantai Collection, of which Watari is a big fan. The card for Shimakaze includes the quote “swift as the Shimakaze” (shimakaze means “island wind”). This is a reference to fuurinkazan, motto of the warlord Shingen Takeda, adopted from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It goes, “As swift as wind, as gentle as forest, as fierce as fire, as unshakable as a mountain.”

4 “…I wasn’t sure if Isshiki’s presence here meant membership…some people even build a collection!” The original text here read, “[Yukinoshita] was offering her surprisingly legitimate hospitality. There are so many types of hospitality in the world, it makes you want to make a collection!” The pun is on kantai (hospitality) and kantai (navy fleet), referencing the game Kantai Collection.

5 “The Heart-Pounding  All-Girls Witch Trial in Absentia! With added snitching!” This fake title is a reference to Doki! Marugoto Mizugi! Onna Darake no Suiei Taikai (Heart-pounding! All-swimsuits! The all-girls swimming show), a spin-off of the Swimming Show idol pop star variety show that began in 1970, with swimming as a theme.

6 “…for when I’m making obligatory chocolate.” The tradition in Japan on Valentine’s Day is that girls give guys chocolate, but there are two types. The first type is meant to convey a crush, while the second kind is given out of social obligation.

7 “The end of a lemon is the closest I’ll ever get to sucking the golden teat anyway…” The Japanese wordplay here involves the idiom “suck the sweet juices,” which means “to make money without working.” Hikki follows up by saying, “It’s always nothing but bitter juices.” Yukinoshita shoots back, “You don’t suck bitter juices; you lick them,” referencing the idiom “lick bitter juices,” which means “to have a bad experience.” Then at the end, Yukinoshita says, “What you were licking was not bitter juices, but life…” Nameru (to lick) also means “underestimate” or “to not take seriously.”

8 A Sister’s All You Need. is the name of a light-novel series by Yomi Hirasaka.

9 “Komachi? Who’s that? The rice girl? …Or even down here in Chiba.” Akita Komachi is a brand of rice. Komachi in fact means “town beauty”; Akita Komachi rice has a picture of a beautiful woman on it. In the original, Hachiman refers to the agricultural cooperatives of the northern Akita prefecture and Chiba prefecture.

10 “…a baseball manga (which is a little light on the baseballness for a baseball manga), okay?” Hachiman is referring to the baseball manga H2 by Mitsuru Adachi.

11 “Like how the sun lances into your eyes, specifically.” The original wordplay here was on nikkori egao (bright smile) and Nikkari Aoe, the name of a famous Japanese sword.

Chapter 2 … And so begins the all-girls battle (with boys, too).

1 “…you and Hayama should share some guy chocolate, too!” Tomo-choco, or friendship chocolate, is nonromantic Valentine’s Day chocolate. In the original, Hachiman references the children’s anime Chibi Maruko-chan, where the main character’s grandpa is named Tomozou Sakura.

2 “…girls attempting to settle the score…” The original Japanese wordplay here was on hatten (develop, as in “develop into conflict among the girls”), using the word again to mean a relationship developing, and then the slang use of hatten meaning “sleeping around,” finishing it off with reiten (score of zero).

3 “…her bluish-black ponytail did a hop-hop here and a hop-hop there, here a hop, there a hop, everywhere a hop-hop.” This was originally from a tongue twister about frogs.

4 “…lately that jagged-hearted Yukinon-ness, sharp edges hurting everything that touched her…” This is a reference to the song “Lullaby for a Jagged Heart” by the 1980s pop band Checkers. The lyrics include the line “I was pointed like a knife, hurting everyone who touches it.”

5 “Potato is a good name for a cat, so there is something cute to it.” The original name for this dish is satoimo nikkorogashi, which is taro root (a purple tuber that tastes a little sweet-potato-y) parboiled and then simmered in sake, sugar, and soy sauce. It’s called nikkorogashi because it’s boiled (niru) while rolling (korogashi) the pieces of taro in the sauce as all the water boils off to keep them from burning. Yukinoshita comments that nikkorogashi sounds like nekkorogashi, which isn’t a word, but sounds more catlike.

6 “We can still save it, we can still save it, we can save it save it please don’t make us corporate slave it!” This is a double-layered joke—this reference is to a sketch by comedian Gor geous where he repeats mada tasukaru (we can still be saved) and finishes off with “Madagascar!” rather nonsensically, but the word sounds similar. Here Hachiman finishes with “Tasmanian devil!” instead, deliberately getting the reference wrong with a word that sounds nothing like the original.

7 “I didn’t care if it was Crows or Worst or QP or what…” All of these are manga by Hiroshi Takahashi, with the same setting. They’re about delinquents.

8 Doraemon is a robot cat from the future in the children’s anime of the same name, and he lives in the protagonist Nobita’s closet.

9 “Though in this case, with Miura and Isshiki feeding him chocolate, he might be biting off more than he can chew.” The original wordplay here was on “feeding him chocolate” (choko kuwaseru) and “deceiving him” (ippai kuwaseru).

10 “We’ve got to double-time it, or they’ll be booked out!” This is a quote from Nike in Magical Circle Guru.

Chapter 3 … Unexpectedly, what Iroha Isshiki’s absence brings is…


1 My First Errand is a TV show that features real children going out to perform their very first errands. It’s common for Japanese children to be sent out on errands at very young ages, like four or so, and a child’s first errand is a bit of a celebrated event.

2 “…I might even wind up squeaking like a Chibull alien.” The Chibull alien is an enemy in the Ultraman series that shows up and is immediately defeated with hardly any fight—it’s comically weak. The original pun here was on bibiru (get scared), chibiru (wet yourself), and chibiru seijin (Chibull alien).

3 “I was just like an ARMS with the core knocked out of it.” This is referencing the manga Project ARMS by Kyoichi Nanatsuki and Ryoji Minagawa.

4 “Not at the face! At the body!” The original context for this quote was “Don’t [look] at my face, [look] at my body.” This is a famous quote from Sannen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei (Mr. Kinpachi from class 3-B), a TV drama about a middle school teacher and his ninth-grade class that originally began running in the 1970s. This particular quote is from the character Reiko Yamada, a delinquent girl.

5 “…you’re seriously jooshy polly yey party people every day…” Jooshy polly yey, a slurred version of “juicy party yeah,” is a greeting coined by Chiaki Takahashi, a voice actor, singer, and gravure model. It has no particular deep meaning. “Polly peepoh” is also slang for “party people.”

6 “Like, a blue ribbon around your chest will accentuate it in a way that’s sure to get everyone talking about you! Your popularity will explode!” Hachiman is probably talking about Hestia from Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, who wears blue ribbons both above and below her boobs.

7 “Will the day eventually come when Wakame-chan talks to Katsuo like this…? The Isono family bathwater would probably taste really good.” Wakame and Katsuo are characters from Sazae-san ; Katsuo is Wakame’s older brother. They’re also words for broth ingredients—seaweed and fish flakes, respectively.

8 “…the smart, cute Komaachika…” “The smart, cute Eliichika” is the motto of Eli Ayase from Love Live!

9 “But if this were the Sengoku era, I’d be a success!” Hachiman is referring to the saying “A child who is loathed will be successful in the world.” It’s a very old saying that appears in Heike Monogatari and generally means that a naughty child has the gumption to succeed later in life. It’s sometimes said of Oda Nobunaga, the famous Sengoku-era warlord.

Chapter 4 … And so begins the boys’ emotional roller coaster (with girls, too).

1 “It’d be more accurate to call them jumbo-sized hand-drawn pop signs.” Hand-drawn pop signs are little cards with handwritten notes that are taped besides products at stores. They’re ubiquitous in Japan, and you often see them at bookstores with messages like Staff recommendation! and then a paragraph about why a certain staff member likes it, with a decorative border and simple illustrations.

2 “This was not just a company run by black-hearted executives, but Black Company RX…” Hachiman originally uses the term “black company,” which is a term for an exploitative business that drains its employees dry, while Black Company RX is a play on Kamen Rider: Black RX, a rendition of the sentai series from the 1980s.

3 “What’s with that greeting? Is he gonna show off his Walk the Dog like we’re in elementary school?” Tobe’s original slang greeting was choriisu, which also sounds like chorizo. Hachiman says, “Is he a sausage?”

4 “And so, the next work begins…” Every episode of Sound! Euphonium ends with the line “And so the next piece begins…”

5 “He’s not gonna say Gather round for a round of cheers, whoo! or anything, right…?” The original pun here is “He’s not gonna say that since this is a circle formation [enjin], let’s get our engines running, right…?”

6 “‘You don’t have nothin’?’ Look, this isn’t an ad for Ajigonomi…and I’m not your mom.” Ajigonomi is a brand of arare: mixed rice crackers and peanuts. The old ad slogan from the 1990s was “You don’t have nothin’? You don’t have nothin’? Hey, Mom?”

7 “Where the heck is Tobe from…? He says dude way too much.” Tobe’s verbal tic is to add be at the end of everything, which is a northern Japan thing. But he doesn’t have any other northern elements to his speech, so it sounds weirdly fake. Through this series, it’s mostly been translated as “man” or “dude” or “whoa.”

8 “…Kawashima, Kawaguchi, Kawagoe, Kawanakajima, Sendai, or Sendai…” Kawa is the character for “river,” a common kanji in names. The first Sendai is also written with the “river” character (though has different pronunciation), while the second Sendai is pronounced the same, but it doesn’t have the “river” character and is in fact the name of Sendai city.

9 “I am not the one called sale-immune.” The original pun here is “The participation fee is also a pretty cheap list price [shoubai kakaku] and shoubai rock pyuru!” Pyuru is the verbal tick of Moa, a character in the anime Show by Rock!!

10 Quiz Derby is an old quiz show that ran from the 1970s to the 1990s. The scoring system involved multiplication from 1x to 10x, and whenever there was a multiplier, the announcer would go, “Multiplication bang!”

11 “Are these nin-nin ninjas or what?” Nin-nin is the verbal tic of the titular protagonist of Ninja Hattori-kun.

12 “Haru here didn’t particularly refer to a hostess who works at a hot spring.” Hachiman is referring to the 1980s manga Haru-chan by Yuusuke Aoyagi. It’s about a young hostess at a hot spring in Ishikawa.

13 “Kind? You mean kinda scary?” The original gag here was “It feels less kind [yasashii] and more yashashiin.” In the 2014 adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Persian is used for a variety of scenes, most of which is incomprehensible to Japanese audiences, but one word, Japanized as yashashiin—meaning “Commence the attack!”—stuck out among fans.

14 “She’s so good, I bet she could win over not just humans, but fairies, too.” This line is written mostly in hiragana, a characteristic of the fairies in Humanity Has Declined. They’re particularly attracted to sweets.

15 “Just like her name, she exposes things under the light of the sun.” The first character in Haruno means “sun.”

Chapter 5 … Suddenly, Shizuka Hiratsuka lectures about the present continuous and the past.

1 “…you can bet your ‘sweet’ bippy…” In Japanese, Isshiki puns on sweet again with kangae ga amai (your thinking is sweet), an idiom that means “you’re naive.”

2 “So sweet and bitter, I feel like my head will spin!” This is a line from the ending song to Blood Blockade Battlefront, “Sugar Song to Bitter Step.”

3 Unagi Pie does mean “eel pie,” but it’s neither eel nor pie. It’s a small, dry, sugar-covered pastry that’s like a long strip wrapped into an oval. It apparently has eel powder in it, but it doesn’t taste like eel.

4 The Man Without Talent was the last manga by Yoshiharu Tsuge, an avant-garde manga artist and cult figure. At one point, the protagonist, a failed manga artist, tries to make a living by selling rocks picked up from the riverside.

5 “No financial return. I’m at the point of no return. Sixth layer of the Abyss. Unpaid in Abyss.” The original line here is “The Service Club is unpaid all year long [nenjuu mukyuu]! …Mukyuu.” Usually, nenjuu mukyuu means “no holidays all year long”—in other words, “open 365 days a year,” and this instance deliberately uses the wrong kanji. Mukyuu is also a meaningless moe noise often said by Patchouli, a Touhou character.

6 “Pi, Pie… Pierre Taki? Jean Pierre…Polnareff?” Pierre Taki is a Japanese singer / actor / TV personality, and Jean Pierre Polnareff is a character from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

7 A fortified armor shell is the name of the mecha suit from the manga Apocalypse Zero by Takayuki Yamaguchi.

8 A Perfect Devil Superhuman is a bit of a cross between the Perfect Superhuman and Devil Superhuman, (or “Chojin” in the localization), a fictional race in the manga Kinnikuman, which is localized as Ultimate Muscle.

Chapter 6 … He fails to reach the “something real” he’s after and continues to get it wrong.

1 “You seemed to be whisking all around the kitchen, though…Because we were baking? Is that the joke?” In Japanese Yukinoshita says he was chokomaka (restlessly moving around) and Hachiman thinks, Because it’s choko [chocolate].

Chapter 7 … Haruno Yukinoshita’s eyes are hopelessly clear.

1 “Apparently, I wouldn’t even need to bother asking, Have you prepared yourself?” This is part of the Go! Princess PreCure group speech: “Oh dream, trapped in a cold cage, we shall have you returned! Have you prepared yourself?” It’s a bit more obvious from the Japanese wording.

2 “I said over and over, ‘Thanks so much…so much…’” Arigatee is from an iconic scene in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji where the protagonist is stuck in an underground labor debt camp and finally gets a cold beer and freaks out over it. The beer is just part of a scam to get him in more debt.

Chapter 8 … Yui Yuigahama’s gaze is always gentle and warm.

1 “The maguro part of the name made me think of tuna sushi, but it’s not. It’s a shark. Very much a shark.” Tsuma means “tip”; guro means “black.” Thus, tsumaguro = blacktip reef shark. Maguro means “tuna.”

2 “Sea bream and flounder dancing” is a line from an old children’s song, “Urashima Tarou,” which is about the folk story of the same name.

3 “I was now totally like a boy in front of the trumpet in the show window.” This is from an old JACCS credit card commercial. The narrator talks about how “back then, I could never get that trumpet.” “Tutti!” is the ending theme song for Sound! Euphonium.

4 “She’s really got the friskies for kitties.” The original line here is maji neko daisuki furisukii, a sort of grammatical double-wordplay. It sounds like he’s starting off saying “Yukinoshita really loves cats,” but then slides into a cat food slogan instead.

5 “Oh, there’s rays, too!” Ei means “ray” in Japanese, but it’s also the sound one makes while stretching, so there’s a bit of wordplay here. The original line is “‘Oh, there are rays, too!’ she said and reached out her hand with an ei! ’cause it’s a ray, ei. Whoops, I mean ee [mm-hmm].”

6 “…shleh-heh-heh-heh…” Nuru-fu-fu is the laughter of Koro-sensei from Assassination Classroom.

Afterword

1 Piiko is a TV personality and fashion critic.

2 “And the sun is laughing, too… And the puppies are laughing! Luulululu luu  ” These are lyrics from the opening to Sazae-san.



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