Afterword
Hello, this is Wataru Watari.
It’s spring! And spring is the season of meetings but also the season of partings. It’s like, So which is it, then? I’d soon like to part ways with labor and meet a break, you know? Eh?
Actually, the words So which is it, then? pop up too often in life.
For example—deadlines! When you hear the word deadline, typically people think, I have to keep them (sense of duty), but others will say, “Oh-ho, that’s a fake schedule created to make me panic! I still have another two weeks!”
And there are other different responses to the word deadline. Some people will respond, “J-just a little longer (big lie),” while others will go, “That’s obviously impossible (eyes rolling back),” and some people even plead, “Let me have a break already…(sob, sob).”
It may be that the meaning of words is greatly affected by the grounding and values of the one hearing them, as well as the environment they’re in. And because this happens with concrete words, those used for engaging with abstract ideas will have an even greater disparity in reactions. For example, growth or change or real. I think if you really talk about those concepts with people, you’ll find that everyone has different viewpoints on them.
So there are surprisingly few things you can communicate with words, and even when you thought you communicated something, or that something was communicated to you, it probably wasn’t. In the end, the words may have been spoken purely for the benefit of the one who said them. However, I’m still writing today, despite believing a novel has to be the prime example of that.
Even so, I hope that, if even just for this time, at least, he is happy and satisfied with that.
And so this has been My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, Volume 9.
Below, the acknowledgments.
Holy Ponkan . I look forward to receiving the rough drafts for the cover every volume, but with this one of Miss Hiratsuka, I was so excited, only second to the one with Komachi. Wonderful! Thank you very much.
To my editor, Hoshino: Come on, I’ll make the next one easy, ga-ha-ha… I wonder how much time I’ve spent saying that… As always, I’m sincerely sorry. Thank you very much. Come on, I’ll make the next one easy, ga-ha-ha!
Also, in the writing of this book, I made reference to “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (translated by Hiroshi Yuki).
Finally, to all my readers: Thanks to you, this story has come close to its final stages. It will continue just a little longer. I’d be glad if you would stay with me to the end. Also, thanks to all your support, there will be a second season of the anime. Thank you very much.
Now then, at this point, I’ve run out of allotted pages, so now I will put down my pen.
On a certain day in March, while trembling in the spring storm and building a tower out of empty MAX Coffee cans,
Wataru Watari
Translation Notes
Chapter 0 … But that room continues to play out their routine endlessly.
1 “Why would we have to get electricity from America?” USJ is the common abbreviation for Universal Studios Japan (in Osaka). The USA is the USA.
2 A Tosho card is a sort of gift card you can use at various bookstores. It’s only for buying books and magazines, not other products.
Chapter 1 … Once again, Iroha Isshiki knocks on the door.
1 “What is happiness, after all…? A home with good soy sauce?” This is a reference to an ad for soy sauce from the 1980s. It has a guy holding a bottle of soy sauce and singing, “What was happiness, again? A home with good soy sauce!”
2 “I wonder what the kikko in Kikkoman is. ‘Eternally seventeen years old’?” Kikkoman is a soy sauce brand based in Chiba, Japan. Kikuko Inoue is a voice actress who jokingly claims she’s seventeen years old forever.
3 “I would have liked to give her the moon and the stars and all the other Sailor Scouts…” The original gag here, rather than a Sailor Moon reference, is a bit of wordplay in Japanese. Hachiman says, “I would very much like to give it to her,” replacing the very much with mountain, because sanzan, meaning “very much,” uses the kanji for two mountains.
4 “I’d wish for the fortune of my pretty, cure-cure lovely honey princess and do a happiness charge!” Cure Lovely, Cure Princess, and Cure Honey are characters from Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!
5 “This world where greetings are not to be feared at all, much less a hello from a girl who might trick you into believing she actually likes you—it’s poison.” This line is a parody of a Japanese song with a title that translates to “Poison: this world where you can’t say what you want to say.” It’s famous for being the opening theme song of the Great Teacher Onizuka live-action drama—GTO is a quirky yet inspirational show about a teacher.
6 “If it means exactly the same thing to exist or not, I’m gonna have to think the world really is guided by the Law of Cycles.” The Law of Cycles is from the magical girl anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, in which the characters are tasked with erasing witches before they are born. As a result, they both do and do not exist.
7 “Gondo, Gondo, rain Gondo!” refers to the baseball player Hiroshi Gondo, who was known for pitching so frequently, he was on the mound essentially whenever it wasn’t raining.
8 “There is that winter festival held around Ariake.” Refers to Winter Comiket, which is held around that time, usually at the Tokyo Big Sight. It’s a major event for those with Ebina’s interests.
9 “The topic had suddenly Boson-jumped.” In Martian Successor Nadesico, a Boson Jump is a form of teleportation.
10 “Did she get a special letter? I never wanted her on the character roster, though…” Instead of a Super Smash Bros. joke, the original Japanese here says, “Is this Meguri Kon Koi Iroha? Though it’s not like we ever invited her,” as a play on the manga Inari Kon Kon Koi Iroha (Inari, Konkon, ABCs of love), but spelled with kanji in a way that makes it read “Meguri not coming not coming, Iroha coming.”
11 “A demon! A devil! An editor!” This is playing off a Japanese Internet meme based on The Idolmaster: “A devil! A demon! Chihiro!” Chihiro Senkawa is the producer’s secretary, and she has a sweet personality. However, in fandom, some people say this is just a facade, and underneath it all, she’s actually a conniving villain. The editor part is probably just Watari stealthily griping about his editor.
Chapter 2 … The meeting smoothly jumps into motion but gets nowhere.
1 “Does it have a doo, doo, doo-da-loo BGM that has a recovery effect on the community? No, that’s a PokéCenter…” The jingle Hachiman refers to is the recovery tune one hears when healing their Pokémon.
2 “I can’t be the butt of the joke when there’s no joke… But if there was one, would that make the joke the seme and me the uke? I’m neither, though!” The original gag here is a play on ukeru (to find something funny) and uke, as in a bottom.
3 Iroha’s nickname, Irohasu, is a brand of bottled water.
4 “Protecting one of the four corners actually makes me feel like one of the four holy beasts.” The four holy beasts refer the Azure Dragon of the East (Seiryuu), Vermillion Bird of the South (Suzaku), White Tiger of the West (Byakko), and Black Turtle of the North (Genbu), all of which are prominent figures in East Asian mythology, often appearing in pop culture.
5 “Did you know, Raiden?” is a reference to the 1980s comedy/action manga Sakigake!! Otokojuku. This title is the progenitor of the common shonen battle-manga cliché of side characters watching a fight and then explaining the moves of the participants. “Did you know, Raiden?” is a line that inevitably happens during these scenes.
6 “That sounds like the noises Ai-chan makes when she plays table tennis.” Ai Fukuhara is a table tennis player who’s famous for yelling “SAA!” when she hits the ball. In Japanese, saa can also be a sort of I dunno sound.
7 “…but the acerbating of my spirit has long been thoroughly exacerbated to the point of reprobation.” The original gag here was a play on suriheru (worn down) and surekkarashi (shameless).
8 “What the heck is re-sche, a restaurant with great beef tongue?” Risuke is a beef tongue restaurant in Shinbashi. Re-sche, a made-up word for the English edition, is a heavy abbreviation of rescheduling.
9 “Why are these guys all using nothing but technobabble? What is this, Mahouka?” The original gag here was “Why are they using nothing but katakana? Is this Ruu Oshiba?” Almost all the business jargon in Japanese is actually loan words from English, and it gets written in katakana (an alternate phonetic alphabet frequently used for foreign words). Ruu Oshiba is an actor and comedian who writes his name with katakana, which is unusual for Japanese names.
10 “Recently, my sister has been unusual…” Recently, My Sister Is Unusual is the title of a step-sibling faux-incest manga.
11 “But Mom tilted her head, gave me a blank look, and replied with a vague noise.” The original Japanese gag here is a pun on saa (meaning “I dunno”) and the way a Japanese person would pronounce sir.
12 “Reserve us a tub of chicken pieces. And a cake, too.” In Japan, it’s common to have chicken, thanks to the power of KFC’s marketing, and they usually sell out on Christmas. Cake is another Japan-made Christmas tradition that emerged postwar as a celebration of prosperity, and it is ubiquitous around the holiday season.
13 “But once I decide in my heart that I’m gonna do the chores, the deed’s already been done!” This is a play on a line from Prosciutto in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. Of course, he’s talking about murder, not chores.
14 “Besides, my dumb little sister can’t be slacking on her studies” is referencing the light-novel series My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute, also known as Oreimo.
15 “I’ll even flash my brake lights five times for you!” There’s a common belief that this is Morse code, but it was actually popularized by a Dreams Come True song “Mirai Yosouzu II,” which has the lyrics “Always flashing the brake lights five times, the sign of I love you,” probably because the word aishiteru (I love you) has five syllables (a-i-shi-te-ru).
Chapter 3 … Once more, Hachiman Hikigaya asks himself.
1 “The Reality Marble that I’d learned without even realizing it, Unlimited Double Works, has activated…” This is a reference to the Fate series, one of the most iconic of Reality Marbles being Unlimited Blade Works, which includes a full dramatic speech that became the popular butt of a joke online.
2 “He whaled away on his MacBook Air like clackity-clackity-SMACK.” This is a reference to a Jigoku no Misawa (Misawa from Hell) comic, involving a guy slamming on his keyboard. These comics generally feature obnoxious people.
3 “The Data Overmind” is an entity from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that is a conglomerate of sentient data organisms that supervise a sector of the galaxy, including Earth.
4 “I want to know failure!” is a quote from the professional gamer Daigo Umehara, in reference to his general dominance in the field of fighting games.
5 “But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don’t see it!” This line originated in the famous novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which had a popular 1985 anime adaptation called Princess Sarah. But Hachiman might be more familiar with the line in Ghost Sweeper Mikami from Hanato Kobato, who’s known for spouting quotes from A Little Princess.
6 “If this were Japanese Folktales…” Nihon Mukashibanashi (Japanese folktales) is a long-running children’s anime that began in 1975 and features adaptations of Japanese folktales. Punishment for dishonesty is a common theme in many stories.
7 “Back then, I think there’s a possibility someone told me, ‘Zawsze in love,’ or I got a key or lock or something…” These events are from the romantic comedy manga Nisekoi: False Love.
8 “When Komachi was little, she called me Big Bo instead of Big Bro. I’d think for sure she was Tora-san.” The original joke here used the terms onii-chan, which means “big brother” and Oi-chan, which is the name for the protagonist’s uncle in the long-running film series Otoko wa Tsurai yo (It’s tough being a man), which started in 1968. The protagonist’s name is Tora-san.
9 “It felt like I would breathe a pink sigh instead.” “Momoiro Toiki” (Pink sigh) is the name of a 1992 song by Mariko Takahashi, featuring the lyrics, “Make it bloom, make it bloom, the pink sigh in your embrace, I will become a falling flower.” It’s a song about sex, stated very poetically.
10 “Does Totsuka’s laughter have an effect like 1/f fluctuation?” 1/f noise is also known as pink noise and is one of the most common signals in biological systems. Pitch and loudness fluctuations in speech and music are pink noises.
11 “Like the futile stone towers children build in the river of purgatory.” The legend of Sai no Kawara is a belief of Pure Land Buddhism, in which children who die prematurely will be sent to Sai no Kawara, a riverbed of souls in purgatory, where they build stone towers in hopes that they can climb out of limbo into paradise. But every day, demons of hell come to knock their towers down. Sai no Kawara is often used as a metaphor for a futile endeavor, similar to the Greek myth of Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill.
Chapter 4 … That’s why Saika Totsuka feels admiration.
1 “So it’s a complex maiden circuit thing…” Complex maiden circuits are a feature of marionettes (basically female androids) in Saber Marionette J.
2 “You think it’s that easy? What are you talking about?! This is just carelessness!” This is a reversal of a line in Rurouni Kenshin from Shishio to Saito. Shishio says, “You think I’m being careless? What are you talking about? It’s just that easy for me!”
3 “We can still save it! We can still save it! We’ll just corporate slave it!” The original pun here ends with “Madagascar!” which sounds like mada tasukaru (we can still be saved) and is from a sketch by the comedian Gor geous.
4 “It’s pamyu if you do, pamyu if you don’t! Pon pon way!” Instead of a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu joke, the original gag here was a pun with a reference to the ending theme of the anime Witchcraft Works, which features the lyrics “Witches over here, witches over there!” which sounds somewhat similar to an idiom that means “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
5 “Humming Raa, ra, ra-ra, ra, ramen like Nausicaa…” There’s a tune in the Studio Ghibli film Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind in which a young girl sings in la-las, used most notably in a flashback scene.
6 “I find myself thinking maybe magic and miracles are real.” This is a quote from Sayaka in Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
7 “…’cause I’m a human…” is a line from Geronimo in Ultimate Muscle (aka Kinnikuman), his famous quote right before he dies.
8 “It’d be crazy if Momoya started selling something like It’s Totsuka!” Momoya is a supermarket brand that sells sauces and various canned products, with a line named things like Gohan desu yo! (It’s food!) and Amai desu yo! (It’s sweet!)
9 “Hey, hey, you know what they say about a man and a woman eating yakiniku together…” It’s an old cliché that a man and a woman eating yakiniku together must be in an intimate relationship. The idea is that meat is carnal, and if the couple is eating garlic together, there’s a lack of shame. It’s considered rather old-fashioned now.
10 “But what’s with the abbreviation Fa-kin? It seems kind of unfortunate.” Fa-Kin is short for First Kitchen (Faasuto Kicchin), a fast-food restaurant that sells American-style food like hamburgers.
11 “If you’re asking if I burst out yelling, It’s so goooood! as lights exploded from my eyes and mouth while I swam through outer space…” Overreactions are a staple of cooking manga, but this particular overreaction is from the 1980s cooking manga Mister Ajikko.
Chapter 5 … Shizuka Hiratsuka wishes them a good future.
1 “What I had to worry about was the black company I was heading off to now.” A “black company” refers to an exploitative business but, more specifically in the white-collar sector, usually forcing young employees to work heavy overtime without pay or benefits, engaging in various forms of harassment, and threatening employees if they try to quit.
2 “Our complacence as corporate slaves reflects the lies, gives us ‘freedom’ before we die of overwork…” This is a parody of the lyrics of the first opening of the Attack on Titan anime: “Our complacence as livestock makes these lies flourish, gives us the ‘freedom’ of starving wolves.”
3 “When I eyed her, wondering if it was just a corpse…” “No reply. It’s just a corpse” is a standard dialogue line when investigating dead bodies in the Dragon Quest series.
4 “…a perfect role for myself, the chicken!” Hachiman says chicken in English, wording it like the title of Mayoeru Shitsuji to Chikin na Ore to (The Hesitant Butler and Myself, the Chicken), published as Mayo Chiki! in English. The protagonist of this light-novel series has a pathological fear of women.
Chapter 7 … Someday, Yui Yuigahama will…
1 “…and then zvezdashed right out of the living room.” This is referring to both the anime World Conquest Zvezda Plot and the onomatopoeia for skittering and dashing about, zvezda.
2 “Peter is Shinnosuke Ikehata, huh?” Shinnosuke Ikehata is a singer, dancer, and actor, and Peter is the stage name he uses on variety shows and musical revues.
3 “You’re Hachimanure, as always.” Komachi calls Hachiman gomiichan (trash) in Japanese, which rhymes with onii-chan (big brother.)
4 “Clearly, this was far more useless than a picture of a mochi.” A picture of a mochi is an idiom for something useless. That is, you can’t eat it.
5 “Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that someone with Yukinoshita’s tendencies is so serious about chasing a mouse that she has a meownual pussport.” The original gag here was a pun based on the anime Non Non Biyori. “Using a nenpasu (annual passport), is Yukinon non biyori non? Nenpasuuu.” Non non biyori is a very unique and slangy way to describe taking it easy, while non is a regional accent thing. In Non Non Biyori, the protagonist has a nonsensical greeting of nyanpasu (translated as “meowning”).
6 “People will enviously complain, So Chiba people often hold their coming-of-age ceremonies at Destiny Land, huh? but that’s only in Urayasu city.” Urayasu, a city in Chiba prefecture, is where the Tokyo Disney Resort—er, Destiny Resort—is located.
7 “They were in such perfect unison that I wanted to tell them, ‘Nice coupling.’” Hachiman says “Nice coupling” in English, a reference to the anime Buddy Complex, a giant robot show that involves psychological links called coupling. Nice coupling, said all in English, is a term from that show and the name of the second episode.
8 “Oh, friend of my heart!” is something Gian from Doraemon often says. Usually, he plays the antagonist as a petty bully, but in the movies, he’ll often call Nobita a friend and join up with him to help out.
9 “So this is the Reconguista in G…” Reconguista in G is a Gundam installment. The G is supposed to be for Gundam, but also for ground, and reconquista means “reconquest” in Spanish.
10 “Well, Land is kind of eh around this time of year, but what about the newer one next door?” Hachiman is referring to “Destiny” Sea.
Chapter 8 … And then Yukino Yukinoshita…
1 “…and a perfect Demon Superhuman…” The Demon Superhumans, or Akuma Choujin, is a type of choujin from Ultimate Muscle. They reside in the demon realm, their race founded by Satan.
2 “Did she hear the word like and think this was a confession?” In the original, Hachiman asks if Isshiki was making an anagram out of “don’t worry about it,” which is ki ni sunnatte in Japanese and can be rearranged to include the word kiss (kisu).
Chapter 9 … Of her own accord, Iroha Isshiki takes a step.
1 “I’m not so important enough to tell others what to do, and I don’t understand the pounding of my heart…” This is referencing some lyrics from an opening of the Detective Conan anime, “Mune Ga Dokidoki” (My heart is pounding): “I’m not important, and I’m not great, either. What I understand is the pounding of my heart.”
2 “I’ll give the one who answered correctly eighty thousand points! (Because I’m Hachiman.)” Hachiman’s name also sounds like the number eighty thousand in Japanese.
3 “Yukinoshita’s got some devil ears straight from hell…” Jigokumimi (hell ears) is an idiom for great hearing, but this instance is also referencing the lyrics to the original Devilman anime’s opening theme, “Song of the Devilman”: “His devil ears are jigokumimi / straight from hell.”
4 “…Takashi from the math textbook…” Takashi is a fairly common Japanese name, and one that you’ll always see at least once in elementary school math textbook problems. And sometimes the example questions he appears in become rather absurd, leading to the jokes about Takashi’s wild exploits.
5 “Man, elementary schoolers really are the best!” This is a quote from Subaru, the protagonist of the loli light-novel series Ro-Kyu-Bu! by Sagu Aoyama. Subaru is a teenage lolicon and coach for a sixth-grade all-girls basketball team.
6 “Get on out there, you! And then do Aikatsu with me!” A quote from Johnny Kitagawa, president of Johnny & Associates, that is famous partially because the you is said in English. Johnny & Associates is a prominent talent agency that produces boy bands and male idols, and they’re behind some of the biggest pop stars in Japan. Aikatsu! is a TCG about idol stars.
7 “I’m also an admiral and a Love-Liver.” Hachiman is talking about Kantai Collection and Love Live, respectively. The latter is also an idol-based franchise, while the former is a game about battleships, but they’re anthropomorphized, so it’s all about managing cute girls, in the end.
8 “…like how in the PreCure movies, you can use the Miracle Lights to support them?” Miracle Lights are wands that supporting characters use to help the girls in the Pretty Cure movies. Of course, you can buy real-life replicas of these wands to use in the movie theater.
Chapter 10 … The lights in each of their palms illuminate…
1 “Okopon” is the nickname for the restaurant Okonomiyaki Honpo, and it almost sounds like an SFX. Zaimokuza is making weird noises again.
2 “I’m almost as uneasy about this as I would be about a kid’s first errand…” 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. There’s a TV show called My First Errand that shows real children going out to perform these tasks.
3 “Morusua” is the cry of a mutilated Furby, an American electronic toy, from an online story about someone who chopped off the head of their Furby.
4 “I’ll never forget this performance today!” is a quote from the producer in The Idolmaster Movie: Beyond the Brilliant Future!
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