Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatte Iru - Volume 4 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Hello. This is Wataru Watari.

As I write a story set in the middle of summer during the middle of winter, I feel quite acutely that this was why I became a light-novel writer. So anyway, how are you all doing this season? I’m doing well.

And so, the story finally breaks into summer. When you think summer, you think of the season that youth shines brightest. Summer wear, swimwear, sheer bras! Just after I wrote that, I realized that, oh yeah, my mom is reading this book, too… So anyway, summer. It’s so important for high school romantic comedies, you’ll end up waiting in the summer.

I’ve always been more miserable in this season than any other time—I really hate it—it was a painful, miserable chapter of my life. I always just wanted to be a representative for the JSDF (Japan Secluded Defense Forces), if I could, staying at home to make sure my house is safe. It wouldn’t even be weird to call me a soldier of ancient Japan, protecting my assigned area. I’d love it if they would include a Jitaku no Moribito: Guardian of the House in the Moribito series. That’s how much I hate summer.

I mean, Marine Day? That’s just discriminatory. Some people don’t go to the ocean in summer. I think they should take that into consideration and make a “House Day” and make that a national holiday. Actually, I really just want more days off. People talk about “summer vacation” or whatever, but adults don’t get one. Once you get a full-time job, summer vacation is just, like, three days. Are you kidding me? That’s just the Bon holiday! And I got so excited about it, too! “Vacation time!” I said. “I can have so much time off! Yay, summer break! Wataru loves this vacation!” I deserve an apology here.

So anyway, this has been Volume 4 of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected. Please look forward to more of Hachiman Hikigaya’s summer vacation in the next book. Below are my acknowledgments. In English, you say special thanks, and in German, uh…danke schoen?

Holy Ponkan : I only wrote this book because I wanted to see you draw swimsuits for it. Thank you for the illustration book, too. Thank you so much. The swimsuits are the best!!

Mr. Hoshino, my editor: we would be just chatting casually about making a drama CD or a limited-edition illustration book, and then you made that stuff happen in reality. I was blown away. Are you Shenlong or what? Thank you so much.

Mr. Kenji Inoue: Thank you for your comments on the ad wrap, despite the fact that we’ve never met. Exhausted as I am by deadline after deadline, your words have been very encouraging to me.

All my writer friends: Thank you very much for getting together while I was busy drinking and making up an alibi for me as my deadlines were looming.

And to all my readers: I feel like I can keep going thanks to your support. There have been rough times, but I do love this job. Thank you, honestly, so much. I hope you will continue to stick with me.

All right, I think that’s about enough. I will set my pen down here.

On a certain day in February, in a certain place in Chiba, while drinking warm MAX Coffee,

Wataru Watari

Translation Notes

On Souseki Natsume’s Kokoro

1 Souseki Natsume (1867–1916) was one of the most prominent Japanese novelists of the modern era, the most famous of his books being Kokoro (meaning heart, mind, or spirit). It explores the relationship between the anonymous narrator and his older friend, a man known only as “Sensei” (teacher). While the book does explore themes of isolation, Hikigaya’s interpretation of the book is particularly misanthropically simplistic. That said, the book is pretty heavy reading for a kid in eighth grade.

2 The Meiji period was from 1868 to 1912, and it encompassed a time of revolution. Japan went from being under the rule of the shogunate, the military government, to the rule of the emperor. It was a time of fast-paced modernization and militarization. Kokoro was published in 1914, and one of the major themes was the arrival of modernity.

Chapter 1 … This is how Hachiman Hikigaya spends his summer vacation.

1 “…Friend/Zero.” Reference to Fate/Zero, the light novel by Gen Urobuchi that was a sequel to his visual novel Fate/stay night. There is also a manga and anime adaptation.

2 “Crush devils!” Hachiman is referencing a particular ad for the video game Idolmaster 2, a game centered on managing your pop idol group. It features the well-known voice actor Shigeru Chiba. He looks at the default name for the group Namco Angels, decides he doesn’t like the name, and declares he’ll call them Crush Devils.

3 “…I had no idea why she was suddenly writing her draft on that grid paper.” This is referring to the kind of paper pictured here. Hachiman wasn’t using it correctly—the purpose of the paper is to keep your characters a uniform size, writing one character per box. In Japanese schools, all essays are handwritten on this sort of paper.

4 “…they got a famous manga artist to draw the cover for the special edition.” Shueisha printed an edition of Kokoro with cover art by Takeshi Obata, the artist behind Death Note, Bakuman, and Hikaru no Go.

5 “And what the hell is with calling year-end parties ‘forgetting-it-all parties’ anyway?” In Japanese, the term for “year-end party” is bounenkai, meaning “forgetting-it-all party.” They’re ubiquitous in business settings and usually involve heavy drinking.

6 Mu is a monthly magazine focusing on occult subjects, like UFO cover-ups, astrology, and ESP.

7 “As proof, Hokkaido has an extremely short summer vacation and longer winter vacation…” Hokkaido is the northernmost island of the four main islands of Japan. Summers are cooler than Honshu.

8 “No, don’t call me a hikki for that. Well, I guess you could.” In the Japanese, Hachiman uses the word hikki, a shortened version of the word hikikomori, or a total shut-in who never leaves the house. This is also why Hachiman hates Yui’s nickname for him.

9 The Summer Sonic Music Festival is a two- to three-day music festival held simultaneously in Chiba and Osaka, with both Japanese and international guests, including big-name performers.

10 “Shall I tell you what’s lacking? …You’re far too slow!” This is a monologue from Straight Cougar, an Alter user from the shonen anime S-CRY-ed whose power is superspeed.

11 Beauty Looking Back is the name of a famous ukiyo-e print by the artist Moronobu Hishikawa (1618–1694) of a woman turning to look over her shoulder. It has come to be used more generally to refer to this particular pose in art and photography.

12 The Potsdam Declaration was issued in 1945 by Allied nations as a call for Japan’s unconditional surrender. Prime Minister Kantarou Suzuki’s response was to treat the declaration with silent contempt.

13 Ryotaro Shiba is a prolific and wildly popular writer of historical fiction and nonfiction, his most famous work in the West being The Last Shogun.

14 “…I’d recommend the Delfinian War, the Twelve Kingdoms, or the Moribito series.” Record of the Delfinian War is an eighteen-volume series of fantasy novels by the prolific author Sunako Kayata. The plot is standard fare involving taking back the throne to a kingdom and a visitor from another world turned hero. The Twelve Kingdoms series by Fuyumi Ono is another fantasy series that involves visitors from another world entering a fantasy world based on ancient China. These novels are available in English, as is the forty-five-episode anime adaptation. The Moribito series by Nahoko Uehashi has a twenty-six-episode anime adaptation and stars a warrior named Balsa who, in her journey, happens to save a prince’s life and so becomes his bodyguard.

15 Orestes Cucuas Destrade is a former pro baseball player.

16 “Do you know about thermal expansion?” Hikigaya is referencing an Internet meme that originated from a line in Volume 17 of A Certain Magical Index. There is a scene where a character drops a gun into a cup of hot tea, claiming that thermal expansion will now cause the gun to stop functioning. The Internet reacted to this with incredulity and mockery.

17 Saburo Ohmura is a pro baseball player with the Chiba Lotte Marines.

18 Chiiba-kun is the mascot of Chiba prefecture. He’s a red dog with a very pointy nose. His design was based on the shape of Chiba prefecture, giving his nose that distinctive pointed shape.

19 “There’s Ojaga Pond…that old abandoned telecommunication place.” Ojaga Pond is a reservoir in Togane. There is a legend that a woman killed herself there by jumping over the falls and still continues to haunt the place. The statue of Kannon at Tokyo Bay is so tall, it was also a popular spot to commit suicide until they built barriers to prevent people from doing so. There is also an extremely creepy tunnel that leads up to it. The university Hachiman refers to is Chiba University, and there was in fact an execution ground there in the Edo period. The old telecommunications place he’s referring to is the Kamigawa Radio Station, which was used by the Japan public telephone corporation to conduct secret military tests in World War II. It’s a very creepy-looking, old concrete building.

Chapter 2 … No matter what you do, you can’t escape Shizuka Hiratsuka.

1 Pet Encyclopedia is a short, five-minute show that does highlights on real peoples’ pets.

2 Summer Vacation Kids’ Anime Festa is a summer programming slot for children’s anime like Doraemon that would normally air on weekend mornings and such. During the summer, it will run on weekdays.

3 “No, not an angel sanctuary.” Hachiman is referencing the gothic angels-and-demons manga Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki.

4 “Yes, I am free… I am…we are Gundam.” This is a reference to Freedom Gundam, a mecha from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. The phrase “I am Gundam” is the catchphrase of Setsuna F. Seiei, a Gundam pilot in Mobile Suit Gundam 00. He says it so often and in such seriousness, it’s a popular target for parody among fans.

5 “…the category error of the light-novel world is Gagaga Bunko.” Gagaga is the imprint that publishes the original Japanese editions of this series. It’s also known for publishing material that doesn’t really “count” as a light novel, despite its being a light-novel label. The designation of “light novel” is fairly arbitrary in the first place, but generally speaking, they are dialogue heavy, character driven, light on prose, and otaku oriented.

6 “…the end was that it was never-ending. It’s Golden Experience Requiem.” Golden Experience Requiem is a Stand power in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki. This Stand’s power is to “turn anything to zero.” When killed by this Stand, it will result in an infinite death loop, and thus, “the end that is never-ending.”

7 “I should have had about eighty thousand points, though. ’Cause I’m Hachiman.” This is a pun. Hachiman can mean “eighty thousand” in Japanese.

8 “Oh, it wasn’t Shelley—it was Vermouth, wasn’t it?” Hachiman and Komachi are talking about the kids’ detective manga Detective Conan (or Case Closed) by Gosho Aoyama. Shelley is a character who formerly worked for the antagonist, the Black Organization, and Vermouth is their agent, so you could conceivably get their character types mixed up.

9 “Oh…my cell reception is unstable… I do like reading those books, though!” SoftBank is a major Japanese conglomerate that is most well-known for their cell phone network. They are known for being the cheapest of the big three cell networks (the other two being Docomo and au), and also the least reliable. Their CEO and founder, Masayoshi Son, is of Korean ethnicity, the second richest man in Japan as of 2015, and a known philanthropist. He’s also going bald. The name Masayoshi (a common Japanese name for a boy) is written with the characters for “justice.” SoftBank is also involved in various publishing ventures, including digital publishing. Its publishing subsidiary is SB Creative Corp., which in turn owns GA Publishing, a light-novel label.

10 “Sorta like Kitaro’s antenna.” Kitaro is the protagonist of the classic 1960s manga GeGeGe no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki. The story revolves around spirit monsters from folklore. One of Kitaro’s special powers is his antenna, which can detect spirit activity.

11 “…I don’t need love, summer.” Ai Nante Irane Yo, Natsu (literally “I don’t need love, summer”) is the name of a 2002 romance TV drama.

12 “In English, you would say his smile could cure me with pretty.” Hachiman is referencing Smile Pretty Cure! the ninth installment of the magical girl anime franchise Pretty Cure.

13 Comiket is the massive biannual fan comic market hosted at the Tokyo Big Sight.

14 The Sword of Promised Victory is the name of Saber’s sword in the visual novel Fate/stay night.

15 “How long have you been under the delusion…that we were headed to Chiba Station?” This is playing with a dramatic line from Aizen in Volume 45 of the manga Bleach by Tite Kubo. The original line goes, “How long have you been under the delusion that I haven’t been using Kyouka Suigetsu?”

16 “You thought our destination was Chiba Station? Too bad! It’s Chiba Village!” This is a twist on a Japanese Internet meme not unlike Rickrolling. Someone creates a tempting link that appears to be one thing, but when clicked, it leads to an image of Sayaka, a character from the anime Magical Girl Madoka Magica, with the text “Too bad! It’s Sayaka-chan!”

17 “The daily grind marches on, aside from during the Bon festival.” The Bon festival is an annual commemoration of the dead. It’s generally regarded by most Japanese people as one of the major holidays, and workers often take time off to go home and spend the time with family.

Chapter 3 … Hayato Hayama is socially adept with everyone.

1 “Your memory is on par with an MO disk.” MO is short for “magneto-optical disk.” It was a form of media storage somewhat like the MiniDisc, and it never really took off outside Japan. It was most often used in corporate settings rather than in home computers. Visually, it looks like a floppy disk but has higher memory capacity.

2 “I know about MDs, but…” The MiniDisc (MD) was a competitor to the cassette tape that, like MO, did not really take off outside Japan, though it was not quite as obscure as MO. Eventually, it was crushed by compact discs.

3 “…the type of people you’d see biting into midsummer fruit.” This references the title of a sappy love song about young summer love by the Southern All Stars (an old rock group that formed in the 1970s) called “Manatsu no Kajitsu” (Midsummer fruit).

4 “They were the kind who would have a barbecue or something on the sandbar of a river…” Hachiman is referring to a well-publicized incident in 1999 when a group of people had a picnic on the sandbar of the Kurokura River. The water came rushing in, and they had to be rescued.

5 “Ebina, the intense fujoshi” Fujoshi literally means “rotten woman” and refers to women who enjoy BL manga and fantasizing about sexual or romantic relationships between men. The Japanese counterpart of the slash fangirl.

6 “It’s like the call-and-response at school graduation ceremonies.” At school graduation ceremonies, the whole class recites a sort of call-and-response chant together. One student will lead the chant, beginning with phrases such as “The field trip!” and the entire class responds in unison, “Left us with so many memories.” Often, these lines are exactly the same across schools.

7 “Man, elementary schoolers are the best! …Being one, I mean.” This is a quote from Subaru, the protagonist of the loli light-novel series called Ro-Kyu-Bu! by Sagu Aoyama. Subaru is a teenage lolicon and coach for a sixth-grade all-girls basketball team.

8 “You sound like ‘A Night at Fifteen’…” “Juugo no Yoru” (A night at fifteen) was Yutaka Ozaki’s debut single in 1983. The lyrics are about teenage malaise and rebellion against the stifling, strict, and unfair nature of school and society. It was based on Ozaki’s experiences as a teen.

9 “Just as Stand users are drawn to one another…” In Hirohiko Araki’s long-running manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, a “Stand” is a kind of superpower, and Stand users are drawn to each other by fate. This is the central conceit of the series, as the members of the Joestar family and their allies are drawn to the villain, Dio Brando, as they all share these powers.

10 Yamanashi prefecture is located in central Japan near Tokyo. Yamanashi also means “wild pear.”

11 “Well, Tottori and Shimane do kinda feel the same…” Tottori and Shimane are neighbouring prefectures in southern Honshu. They are the least populous and second-least populous prefectures in Japan, respectively.

Chapter 4 … Out of nowhere, Hina Ebina begins proselytizing.

1 “‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ Are you the opening song of Azuki-chan?” Azuki-chan is a shoujo manga by Yasushi Akimoto and Chika Kimura that ran from 1993 to 1997. The story focuses on the normal everyday life and relationships of an elementary school girl. In the opening song of the anime adaptation, the first line of the chorus is “Nandemonai, nandemonai” (It’s nothing, it’s nothing).

2 “‘What the heck is a book boy…?’ It’s true that I do like books, but it’s not like I eat them or anything.” Hachiman is referencing the Book Girl light-novel series by Mizuki Nomura. The protagonist is a spirit who eats stories by consuming the paper they are printed on.

3 “You can do, like, konjak noodles and daikon and stuff… I’m like, is this hot pot or what?” Shirataki are clear noodles made from konjak. They’re typically tied up into tiny little bundles in soup. They don’t get mushy, no matter how long you boil them. Shirataki, daikon (a sort of turnip), fried tofu, and chikuwa (a tube made of fish paste) are all typical ingredients for hot pot. You don’t normally see them in Japanese curry.

4 Pixiv is a popular site for users to upload their art to share and display. It’s like the Japanese equivalent of DeviantArt.

5 “Hikki knows all about that. I know that bay leaves come from bay laurels.” This is in reference to an Internet meme. The original is “Moppii knows all about that. Moppii knows everyone loves her.” Created by 2ch, Moppii is a cute blob character, a “witch who watches over threads regarding sales of anime products.” She was originally based on the character Houki Shinonono from the Infinite Stratos series, but she took on a life of her own as a meme.

6 “Laurier…doesn’t mean pads…” Laurier is a well-known brand of menstrual pads in Japan.

7 “They’ve evolved. Warp digivolved.” In the Digimon franchise, the term warp digivolve is used to describe a digimon skipping a stage in monster evolution, going straight from rookie to ultimate level.

8 “What a Cinderella story. A Super Dimensional Cinderella.” Super Dimensional Cinderella is the pop star Ranka Lee’s nickname in the Macross F anime.

9 “…you could even call it a Reality Marble.” Reality Marble (literally “innate bounded field”) is a concept particular to Type-Moon’s Fate series. It involves an individual turning himself or herself into an entire world or reality.

10 “Her nickname from now on is Rumi-Rumi. Is this Nadesico?” In the 1996–1997 anime Martian Successor Nadesico, Ruri Hoshino is an aloof and arrogant twelve-year-old girl whose catchphrase is “bunch of fools.” Her nickname is Ruri-Ruri.

11 “Why is it that the more you say absolutely do not tell anyone, the more they spread it around? It’s like, are you Ostrich Club?” This is a popular gag in Japanese comedy. It originated in a segment of the variety comedy show Super Jockey (1983–1999) that involves people climbing into a tank of extremely hot water. Ryuuhei Uejima of the comedy team Ostrich Club begins by climbing over the tank, grasping the sides with his hands and feet, saying “Don’t push me…don’t push me…absolutely do not push me!” This scene was in fact staged, of course, and “don’t push me” was code for “I’m still getting ready, don’t push me yet,” while “absolutely do not push me” was the signal to push him in. The reveal of that fact lead to the phrase “Absolutely do not  ” actually meaning “Please do  ” in comedy shows and on the Internet.

12 Nestlé Milo is a chocolate-and-malt powder that’s something like hot chocolate mix or Ovaltine. It’s popular in Asia and Australia but not typically sold in the United States aside from Asian grocery stores.

13 “There’s no such thing as a girl who hates yaoi!” This is a quote from Kanako Ohno, a character from the manga Genshiken by Shimoku Kio. Genshiken is about a college otaku club.

14 “It’s a geas, an evil law.” The term geas originates in Irish folklore, meaning a sort of vow or spell that certain individuals are compelled to follow. The term was spelled as geass in the anime series Code Geass, which began its original run in 2006. In the series, a geass is a special power the main character is endowed with that enables him to give orders through magic force that others are compelled to obey.

15 “You’ve got guts, kid! You’re a little firefighter.” This is a quote from the manga Firefighter! Daigo of Company M by Masahito Soda. As a child, the protagonist runs back into a burning building to save a dog, and the firefighter who rescues him says that line to him, inspiring him to become a firefighter.

16 “Is this Medoroa? This is so bad, even the Great Demon Lord Vearn would be in trouble.” In Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, a manga spin-off of the Dragon Quest video game series, Medoroa is a combination of the two most powerful fire and ice spells. Vearn is the main villain of the series.

17 The Three Kingdoms era (220–280) is an era of Chinese history that is particularly popular in historical fiction, likely owing to the Chinese literary classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The shogunate era is a broad term covering the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo eras of Japanese history, from 1192 up until the Meiji revolution of the nineteenth century. Basically, it means the era of the samurai class system and the military government. Both of these eras are popular settings for historically based BL.

18 Ikebukuro is a commercial district in Tokyo. It’s also the site of “Otome Road,” or more bluntly, “Fujoshi Street,” a small cluster of otaku merchandise, doujinshi, and manga shops, with even a butler café or two, that bends toward feminine tastes, in contrast with Akihabara, which is more stereotypically associated with male interests.

Chapter 5 … All alone, Yukino Yukinoshita gazes up at the night sky.

1 The Gáe Bulg is a mythical spear in Irish mythology, but Hachiman is most likely familiar with it as a recurring weapon in the Final Fantasy series or the Lancer’s weapon in Fate/stay night, localized as Gae Bolg.

2 “Hawawa! Master, the enemy is here! >.< ” This is a quote from Shokatsuryou Koumei in the erotic visual novel Koihime Musou. The story is loosely based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, except the entire cast is moe girls. She has a habit of saying “Hawawa!” earning her the name of the “Hawawa strategist.”

3 “And time resumes.” In Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the villain, Dio Brando, has the power to briefly stop time. His iconic line when he activates his powers is “THE WORLD! Time, stop!” and when his ability is at its limit, he says, “And time resumes.”

4 “I got my underwear snugly Pilder-On…” This refers to an Internet meme that originated from the classic 1970s mecha anime Mazinger Z. A Pilder is a vehicle that serves as the command center for a giant robot. “Pilder On” is what they say when it docks into the main unit. The Internet applies this to various scenarios, like a cute animal landing on the head of a character and presumably “taking control” of the “main unit.”

5 I Don’t Like You at All, Big Brother! is the title of a faux-incest (not related by blood) manga by Kouichi Kusano. Of course, the character who is saying that is in love with her big brother.

6 “A combination worthy of despair, like a Potara-fused Goku and Vegeta.” In the Dragon Ball series by Akira Toriyama, the Potara earrings are one means of fusing two people together in order to create a being who combines both their powers. Vegito is the combination of Goku and Vegeta into one ultrapowerful entity, via said earrings.

7 Grander Musashi is a kids’ fishing manga by Takashi Teshirogi that ran from 1996 to 2000. The titular character, Musashi Kazama, travels the world with his friends looking for legendary fishing lures, or “legenders,” that have the power to attract more fish.

8 “Oh, so she wasn’t doing the At the Mercy of the Sky thing? So was this the Heaven’s Lost Property thing, then?” Sora no Manimani (At the mercy of the sky) is a manga by Mami Kashiwabara. Running from 2005 to 2011, it was a drama about a high school astronomy club, with a twelve-episode anime adaptation. Sora no Otoshimono (Heaven’s lost property) is a manga (2007–2014) by Suu Minazuki about an “Angeloid” fallen from heaven, with an associated anime, game, and light novel.

9 “Never mind a Date with defeat, she’s a Nobunaga with defeat.” Date Masamune was a Sengoku-era (1467–1603) daimyo, famed as an outstanding tactician. Oda Nobunaga was the general famed for uniting Japan and ending the era. He was also known as a brutal and merciless man who even called himself the “Lord of Six Hells.”

10 “Like some kind of legendary end-of-century leader.” This is a reference to the comedy manga Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi (End of century leader-legend Takeshi) by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. The main character is a “born leader”—born with a beard, his first word was leader.

11 “He was probably raised on classic manga from Shonen Jump magazine.” Weekly Shounen Jump is the most popular manga serialization mangazine in Japan, serializing many of the popular adventure, action, and sports titles, like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Slam Dunk, Death Note, Gintama, and the older arcs of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Aside from certain odd outliers, most of the titles have themes revolving around the “Jump triangle” of friendship, competition, and hard work. They’re generally about good, old-fashioned heroes saving the world and achieving their dreams.

12 “I want to know defeat.” “I want to know defeat. What is defeat?” was a line often said by the professional competitive 2D fighting gamer Daigo Umehara and then popularized to a meme level by 2ch. He may have originally gotten the line from Keisuke Itagaki’s martial arts manga Grappler Baki, but it’s not certain.

13 A yamato nadeshiko is the traditional ideal woman.

Chapter 6 … Unfortunately, Hachiman Hikigaya did not bring a swimsuit.

1 Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere is a light-novel series by Minoru Kawakami. It’s a science fiction story that really has nothing to do with the sort of lines that Hachiman is talking about crossing.

2 “I wasn’t doing any alchemy or anything; it’s just the polite thing to do before a meal.” In Hiromu Arakawa’s manga Fullmetal Alchemist, certain individuals, including the protagonist, perform alchemy by creating a circle with their arms, putting their two palms together.

3 “The overflowing helping she handed me was like something out of Manga Japanese Folk Tales.” Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi (Manga Japanese folk tales) is a series of animated shorts from the 1970s featuring classic fairy tales like “Momotaro.” The part Hachiman refers to is a scene where a man eats from a bowl of rice piled abnormally high. This is such a popular scene that a “folktale serving” has become shorthand to mean a “giant serving of rice.”

4 “Ohhh! Are they gonna make a circle and hold hands and go ‘Bentora bentora’?” The “dance” that Komachi is talking about originates from a 1964 interview with the American UFO “expert” George Van Tassel, who claimed to be telepathically communicating with aliens. He describes communicating with aliens by speaking their language. Bentora is supposed to be an alien word meaning “spaceship.” The popular idea is that four or five people should get together, join hands in a circle, and chant “Bentora bentora” to summon aliens. While this interview faded into obscurity in the West, it gained a foothold in Japanese pop culture, and though George Van Tassel himself is largely forgotten, the idea that “Bentora bentora” summons aliens persists among occult fanatics.

5 “Did you mean to say ‘Oklahoma Mixer’?” The Oklahoma Mixer is in fact a real folk dance from Oklahoma, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an Oklahoman who has actually heard of it. It’s extremely well-known in Japan, though, as a “classic American folk dance” that’s taught to elementary school children, a practice that most likely originated during the occupation. It involves couples joining hands and dancing in a circle.

6 “‘Wasseroi!’ …Come on, that’s never happened to me in a bathroom stall…” This is a reference to the gag manga Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar (Make it toot, Jaguar) by Kyosuke Usata. There’s a scene where the protagonist cries “Wasseroi” while watching a toilet flush, calling it a “toilet festival.” Wasseroi is an essentially meaningless cry like “yay!” that’s typically associated with celebrations or festivals.

7 Splash Star is a spin-off in the Pretty Cure magical girl anime franchise.

8 “Yukino Yukinoshita was, as her name suggested, the embodiment of snow.” Yukino Yukinoshita means “saxifrage flower of the snow.” A saxifrage flower, in Japanese, is written with the characters meaning “under the snow.”

9 “I’ll splatter your guts!” This is Tokiko Tsumura’s catchphrase in the shonen battle manga Busou Renkin (Arms Alchemy) by Nobuhiro Watsuki.

10 B-Daman are a line of toys by Takara. They’re little plastic humanoid robots that shoot marbles—as one would expect, since biidama means “marble.” They’re meant to be used in competitive games.

11 “That’s not a marble! That’s an ant!” This is playing with a line from the film Grave of the Fireflies, in which Seita tells his little sister, Setsuko, “That’s not a candy drop! That’s a marble!” This is a particularly dramatic scene, right before Setsuko’s death of starvation, but the Internet picked it up and turned it into a rather dark meme, since hajiki means both “flat marble” and “pistol,” leading to the obvious joke of “Setsuko, that’s not a candy drop! That’s a gun!” The meme spun on from there, leading to jokes in the pattern of “That’s not an  , it’s an  ,” made all the more iconic by Seita’s particular regional accent.

12 Continuous Energy Bullets are a form of ki attack in the Dragon Ball series by Akira Toriyama.

13 “…when I woke up, the classroom would be empty, and I’d think I was in a closed space or something.” In the Haruhi Suzumiya light-novel series, “closed space” is an alternate dimension that overlaps reality; it is characterized by gray skies and isolation.

14 “Come on, are you the computer grandma or what?” “Computer Grandma” is an NHK children’s song from the 1980s. It’s basically a song about how Computer Grandma can do anything and everything. It’s part of a TV program called Minna no Uta (Our songs), in which they play children’s songs with short animated videos repeatedly in between children’s shows. Generally, the same songs will continue for months, so they’re highly memorable.

15 “A: You become the god of the new world.” This is a rather infamous quote from Light Yagami of the manga Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Light’s idea of changing the world involves killing a lot of people.

Chapter 7 … In the end, Rumi Tsurumi chooses her own path.

1 “There’s nothing supernatural about the world we live in.” This is a quote from Akihiko Chuuzenji the protagonist of the popular Kyogokudo series of mystery novels by Natsuhiko Kyogoku. Chuuzenji solves mysteries with seemingly supernatural elements, but he does not believe in the supernatural himself, judging the root of each incident to be purely psychological.

2 Storyteller Tamori is a Japanese television icon who has been around for decades, known for his trademark sunglasses. One of his many television roles was as host of a series called Yo ni mo Kimyou na Monogatari (Tales of the Unusual), which consisted largely of creepy paranormal stories somewhat in the vein of The Twilight Zone.

3 “He had a dansu with baddo rakku…” This is an iconic quote from Haruki Wanibuchi, a character from the 1990s delinquent / street racer manga Kaze Densetsu: Bukkomi no Taku (Wind legend: Taku of the biker gang) by Hiroto Saki and Juuzou Tokoro. In this chapter, Wanibuchi, a gang leader, drifts to evade some pursuers, who end up crashing into a truck. He comments that his pursuers “had a dance with bad luck,” emphasizing that he didn’t engage in any violence himself, and it was all an accident.

4 “…Tell us a story, one we don’t know! Trembling, trembling…” This is a line from the song “Grow Up,” the opening theme song of the 2000–2001 anime Gakkou no Kaidan (literally “school ghost stories”), localized in English under the title Ghost Stories. The English version is infamous for having a completely rewritten comedic script, but the original Japanese show was standard fare.

5 “He was clearly a witch girl, though. Sharanran.” Majokko Megu-chan (Little Meg the witch girl) was an early magical-girl anime from the 1970s, and it was highly influential on later titles like Sailor Moon. The opening theme song begins with the nonsense line “sharanran.”

6 “Source: the Nobel Gundam in G-Gundam.” The Nobel Gundam in G-Gundam is the only Gundam in the Gundam Fight to be piloted by a woman and, as such, is heavily decorated in tertiary sexual characteristics, with a design that makes the giant robot look as if it is wearing high heels and a schoolgirl uniform and has long blonde hair.

7 “Enough with that look on your face, like you’re evaluating antiques on Nandemo Kanteidan. I feel like she’s gonna bust out with a line like, ‘Oh, well done there.’” Nandemo Kanteidan (The Evaluate-Anything Team) is a variety show that began running in 1994. In each episode, experts evaluate antiques, collector’s items, and such. Seinosuke Nakajima, a regular on the show, is famous for saying, “Oh, well done there.”

8 A yuki-onna, which literally means “snow woman,” is a type of spirit in Japanese mythology. While her traits and method of killing vary from tale to tale, she is generally described as having pale white skin and long black hair; sometimes she is wearing a white kimono or is nude. She appears in winter, often in snowstorms, and causes people to freeze to death.

9 Gachapin is a green bucktoothed dinosaur with a sleepy-looking face and was originally the costar of a variety show for small children called Hirake! Ponkikki along with his companion, Mukku. He’s sort of like Barney the Dinosaur. His role has gradually expanded to be a general Fuji TV station mascot celebrity, making cameos on a wide variety of shows.

10 A sakaki is a sort of flowering evergreen tree native to certain parts of Asia. It’s considered sacred in the Shinto faith and is used for a number of ritual practices.

11 “Does she ship Seimei/Douman or something?” An onmyouji is a traditional Japanese practitioner of the occult, and this is a popular subject in anime and manga. Abe no Seimei and Ashiya Douman were prominent onmyouji of the Heian period (794–1185); they were also rivals.

12 “In a Grove” is a short story by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) that features a variety of different characters telling the same story from different perspectives, and the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon. In Japanese, “in a grove” has become an idiom to describe a situation in which everyone’s story is different and the truth is unknown.

13 “I’ve read that before in Kooky Trio.” Zukkoke Sannin-gumi (Kooky trio) is a series of children’s adventure stories about three boys. The series spans over fifty volumes.

14 “Is that supposed to be Vega style or what?” Vega is a character in the Street Fighter series of video games who wields claw weapons (imagine Wolverine’s claws).

Chapter 8 … With Yukino Yukinoshita aboard, the car drives away.

1 “The pair were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they closely resembled each other, like Nega and Posi.” Nega and Posi are two cat mascot characters from the 1980s shoujo anime Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel. The two cats look exactly the same except for their swapped blue and pink color palettes, but as their names imply, they are like negative and positive, with completely opposite personalities.

Afterword

1 Waiting in the Summer is the name of a 2012 high school romantic comedy anime.

2 JSDF actually stands for “Japan Self-Defense Forces.”

3 Marine Day, the third Monday in July, is a national holiday in Japan. The purpose of the holiday is to consider the importance of the ocean to Japan, as an island nation.

4 Shenlong is the dragon that grants wishes to those who gather all the dragon balls in Akira Toriyama’s manga Dragon Ball Z. It was based on the Chinese myth of a spiritual dragon by the same name.