Lessons Were Learned

omg damianya version? YEEEEEESS!!!

This has been a most worthwhile evening 🍽

Are we finally heading into the long awaited Desmond arc? 👀 It's hard to say yet, but my first thought upon reading the new chapter was that, like, 9 out of the 23 pages was just awkward silence at the dinner table 😬

Another thing that stood out to me within the first few panels was how different Damian seems at home than at school.

When he's rejected and inconvenienced by Demetrius and Max respectively, he keeps calm and doesn't get mad. On the contrary, he's very understanding and considerate. It's quite different from how he acts in similar situations at school where he's quick to lash out, especially at Anya of course. I'd like to think that what we're seeing in this chapter is more of the "real" Damian; a basically nice kid who longs for a normal childhood with a normal family, but unfortunately was born into the opposite...and because he's not free to openly express his frustration about this due to how uptight and estranged his parents are, he lets out a lot of his negative emotions at school instead. Anya is often the brunt of this due to how often she tries to interact with him in ways that he's not used to.

But anyway, back to the chapter itself, we're also introduced to a new butler at the Desmond house, Mary Jane.

Not sure how prominent of a character she'll be, but the fact that Endo gave her a name (which he doesn't always give to reoccurring characters) makes me think we'll see her again.

We also finally get to see Max and Damian interact. Despite being a German shepherd (I think), I like that Endo made him look distinct from Aaron. Though it seems like he has longish fur...maybe he's a mixed breed? Endo provided this cute illustration along with the chapter release too.

Among all the "Desmond family being awkward at dinner" panels we got, the one that stood out the most to me (and probably others) was this two-page spread.

Showing all of them in separate corners against total darkness, each seemingly in their own little world not looking at any of the others. This is very contrasting to how the Forger family meals are conveyed...

It really makes you wonder - which is the fake family and which is the real family?

A more subtle thing to note about the Desmond dinner is that Melinda never actually eats anything. Throughout all the panels, she's only seen drinking wine and never using her silverware. When she leaves, her plate hasn't been touched.

What I interpret from this based on what we know so far is that she has such an aversion to the Desmond house, and probably Donavan in particular, that she can't even bring herself to eat in his presence.

And lastly, I wanted to touch on the word that Donovan uses when describing the family dinner. In the Japanese version, he uses the word 有意義な which means "significant," "valuable," "useful," "of interest," etc.

I got the impression that Damian doesn't know what that word means, which is why it's written in katakana when he asks Jeeves. He says "Hey Jeeves, what's ユーイギ?"

The English version makes it seem like he knows what the word "worthwhile" means, but not what Donovan meant by it in this situation, so slightly different nuance between the two versions.

That about wraps up my thoughts on the new chapter! Like I said in the beginning, I think it could be leading to a new arc focused on the Desmonds, or it could simply be a standalone chapter, and we'll focus on something else next time. Gotta wait and see~

The new chapter (chapter 108) I noticed there is a difference on Anya's wording in Japanese about "bullying"

In this chapter, Anya use two different words to describe "bullying"; いじわる (ijiwaru) and いじめる (ijimeru). While it seems like it's the same, turns out these two words have a slightly different meaning.

I did some searchs, turns out the word いじわる (ijiwaru) means "mean", it's an expression that is suitable to describe for someone intentionally annoys, irritates or harshly treat them, but without malicious intent/result, and it tends to be a one-off occurrence.

Meanwhile the word いじめる(ijimeru) means literally "bullying", a malicious act of feeling superior to those weaker than oneself and getting satisfaction from the other person's sadness, and it's continuous.

I'm going to compare how Anya use the words here, I'm taking example from chapter 15.

In chapter 15,

いじめてくるからきらい (iji mete kuru kara kirai)

(he bullies/intimidate (me) so I hate (him))

This sentence is used for Anya to describe how she feels about Damian. It was reasonable, considering this was set really early in the story, right before they had the dodgeball game. Anya's didn't know about Damian's good nature yet and she still see him as a real bully.

However, in chapter 108

いじわるしてくるからきらい (iji waru shite kuru kara kirai)

I feel like the supposed closely correct translation is (he's being mean (to me) so I hate him).

Like I explained earlier, the word いじわる (ijiwaru) isn't as harmful as the word いじめる (ijimeru), and I feel like it's important to point out too because of the next scene..

じなんのははらすぼす(じなんのちち)にいじめられてる…？ (jinan no haha rasu bosu (jinan no chichi) ni ijimerareteru...?)

(second son's mother is being bullied by last boss (second son's father?))

Here, Anya use the word いじめる (ijimeru) when describing of what she thinks of how Melinda and Donovan's relationship be like.

🫠

Well, I'm loss at words. Let me know what you think lol (and feel free to correct me if you can speak or fluent about the Japanese language!)

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“I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.” - Gilbert

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