Afterword
Hello, this is Wataru Watari.
Recently, I’ve been thinking back on my youth, but my memories are so faint, I’ve been having trouble with it. That’s probably because there were nothing but unpleasant memories, and I don’t want to remember any of it, but also perhaps because those memories are still too close to be reflecting on just yet. It’s been years since I graduated from high school, so it’s not chronologically close, but rather, emotionally too close, I think.
Let me compare how I was back then and how I am now. It’s like this:
In high school: Late 1,100 times in three years. Late so often that they called my parents to school to talk about it. Thinking in the future I’d like to marry a rich, beautiful woman and lead a life of indulgence and depravity. Had a high probability of skipping on rainy days.
Midtwenties: Late so often that they called me out at work to talk about it. Thinking in the future I’d like to marry a rich, beautiful woman and lead a life of indulgence and depravity. Forget rainy days; I don’t get much writing done even if it’s sunny.
I really haven’t lost my boyish spirit, man. Wow.
When I think about it, I figure maybe being a boy is about always acting like you’re in the middle of your youth. So I think I can keep dragging around the feelings of awkwardness, jealousy, and inferiority from my high school years, keep occasionally getting drunk on baseless confidence, keep maintaining the incomprehensible contradiction that is I’m the best at feeling inferior. I’ve got, like, a superiority complex about it, and keep writing the things I’ve dreamed of writing forever.
But there are still things that are most definitely lost to me forever… I wanted to go on a date with a high school girl in uniform…
Now then, for the acknowledgments.
Holy Ponkan . Thank you so much for your wonderful illustrations in Vol. 2 as well. Yui is so cute on the cover that I started doing a Yui-nique dance in celebration. I will offer prayers to you a full five times a day.
My editor, Hoshino. I’ve been causing all sorts of trouble for you for Vol. 2, too, but somehow you managed everything for me. I plan to continue causing trouble for you, so please keep working hard. Thank you very much.
Manta Aisora. You wrote some comments on the obi of this book even though you didn’t know me, and for that, I am grateful. Also, thank you for sending me chocolates. Those delicious morsels are what enabled me to write this.
My family, especially my father. Thank you for all your hard work over the years. You working yourself to the bone has enabled me to be a writer. Please take it easy, enjoy your life, and live a long one. Also, I don’t think our cat likes me at all. Maybe it’s just my imagination, though.
All my readers. Your support for My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected (also known by the abbreviation Oregairu) is the reason I was able to publish Vol. 2. I’m really happy about this. Thank you very much. I will try my very best to write a third volume that you will all enjoy.
And now I shall say something conclusive and set down my pen here. Once you start running, you can’t stop; it’s because you’ve got momentum! And the same happens with teen rom-coms. I hope you will stay with me for the next volume, too.
A certain day in June,
A certain place in Chiba,
While eating a plain Italian gelato with relish,
Wataru Watari
Translation Notes
Chapter 1 … And that’s how Yui Yuigahama decided to study.
1 “…like those on the Nio statues by Unkei and Kaikei.” The Nio are a pair of famous statues of guardian warriors of the gods at Todaiji in Nara. They were said to travel with Gautama Buddha to protect him and have very angry expressions to ward off threats.
2 “Shocking First Bullet!” This is a skill that is a special attack of Kazuma Torisuna, the main character in the shonen anime S-CRY-ed.
3 “…Annihilating Second Bullet…Exterminating Last Bullet.” These are more special attacks of Kazuma Torisuna from S-CRY-ed. As you might assume, Shocking First Bullet is the weakest; Exterminating Last Bullet is the most powerful.
4 “It’s a Yutori education–style program that just cuts into the curriculum…” Yutori education or “relaxed education,” is a general government policy to reduce classroom time while adding things like extracurriculars. This began in the 1970s. It’s constantly under criticism in the vein of “students these days don’t learn anything anymore, and school is too easy.”
5 “…a disco monster truck?” The original novel references a dekotora (an abbreviation of “decorated truck”), which is a part of a Japanese trucker subculture. Long-haul truckers (who own their own trucks) will deck out their rigs with LEDs and glittery custom artwork.
6 “…the Ayrton Senna of fingertips.” Ayrton Senna is a Brazilian race car driver and winner of three Formula One championships.
7 “…that hero who says that love and courage are his only friends…” This is a line from the opening song of the children’s anime Anpanman. It’s about a hero made of anpan, a red bean jam bun.
8 “…soccer balls aren’t friends, either.” Hachiman is referencing the soccer manga Captain Tsubasa. The protagonist’s catchphrase is “The ball is my friend.”
9 “…Devilman, whose devil ears could hear all the way to hell.” This is a rather loose translation of the opening song of Devilman, an old Go Nagai anime from the 1970s. There’s a bit of wordplay here. In Japanese, jigokumimi (“hell ears”) means sharp ears or the ability to remember everything one hears.
10 “Misuzu Kaneko would probably be angry…” Misuzu Kaneko (1903–March 10, 1930) was a poet and songwriter. The poem Hachiman is quoting is called “Watashi to kotori to suzu to” (“Me, a Birdie and a Bell”) and is one of her most well-known children’s poems. It compares one’s self, a bird, and a bell, noting how all three have different abilities and that while they are all different, they are all good.
11 “…if they were to pilot an Eva, they wouldn’t even be able to activate an AT field.” In the original 1995 Evangelion anime, an AT (Active Terror) field is a shield barrier created by the giant “robots” known as Evas. These fields can only be activated when the pilot has a metaphorical barrier around their heart, that is to say a certain degree of psychological damage.
12 “…Saize in Purena?” Saize is short for Saizeriya, a cheap and ubiquitous Japanized-Italian food chain (their menu includes dishes such as mentaiko pasta), with meals in the three hundred to six hundred yen range. Purena is the name of a mall in Chiba.
Chapter 2 … Komachi Hikigaya is gonna marry her big brother when she grows up. (says me)
1 “…the great monk of old, Shinran.” Shinran (AD 1173–1263) was a Buddhist monk and the founder of the Joudo Shinshuu sect of Buddhism. This school preaches reliance on another power, that is to say relying on the Amitabha Buddha, rather than engaging in specific acts.
2 “…a snake, a frog, and a slug…” This comes from an old folklore belief that these three animals have a rock-paper-scissors-like relationship, where snake swallows frog whole, frog traps slug with its tongue, and slug melts snake with its ooze. Of course, if all three meet at once, none of them can move, because going for the animal they can defeat would spell their own doom at the hands of the one they can’t. Anime fans might be most familiar with this concept as referenced in the Naruto anime and manga: Orochimaru summons a giant snake, Jiraiya summons a giant frog, and Tsunade summons a giant slug.
3 “I can explain Grappler Baki instead…” The series Grappler Baki sometimes called Baki the Grappler, is a very long-running martial arts manga that began in 1991, with a sequel manga ongoing as of 2014. There is also an anime adaptation, an OVA, and a video game.
4 “…a boy wearing a gakuran.” A gakuran is an old-fashioned style of boys’ school uniform based on military uniforms. It has a raised collar, unlike a blazer, and is often associated with public middle schools (as opposed to private schools) in particular.
5 “No little sister can surpass her older brother!” This is a reference to the 1980s post–apocalyptic manga Fist of the North Star. The protagonist Kenshiro’s older brother Jagi is known for the line “No man can surpass his older brother!” The line has reached meme status on the Internet.
Chapter 3 … Hayato Hayama’s presence always shines.
1 “Make me my miso soup every morning.” This is actually an old-fashioned way to propose marriage. A man would not ask a woman to marry him directly by getting down on one knee, Western-style. Rather, he would just casually ask one day, “So when are you quitting your job?” or “I’d like to eat your cooking every day.” The growth in popularity of Western-style proposals and weddings as well as greater participation of women in the workforce has turned this into a rather quaint and old-fashioned thing to say, and many young people (like Totsuka) might not even be sure what it means.
2 “…Fearow is surely a master loner.” Fearow is a bird-type Pokemon with a skill called “Mirror Move” that copies enemies’ attacks back at them. In Japanese, the move is called oumugaeshi, which means to parrot someone’s words back at them.
3 “…as bad as the Haunted Housekeeper in Uptaten Towers…” The notorious Haunted Housekeeper is the first boss of Dragon Quest V and one of the most infamous “But Thou Must” moments in the series. It’s completely obvious that the boss is leading the player into a trap, but if you try to pick the dialogue option to avoid the trap, the game just asks the same question again and again until the player goes into it.
4 “…the game I’m working on in RPG Maker…” RPG Maker is a software series that allows users to create RPGs video games with little to no knowledge of programming. There is a stereotype that most games made with RPG Maker are uninspired garbage, but there are exceptions, and many have enjoyed varying amounts of success.
5 “…BL that is all the rage these days.” BL stands for “boy’s love,” and is also known as “yaoi” or as “slash” among Western fans. It refers to romantic stories about male/male couples written and enjoyed largely by women.
6 “…sleeve-pulling imp?” A sodehiki kozou (“sleeve-pulling kid”) is a youkai (a sort of spirit) of Japanese myth. When you’re walking along, it will pull your sleeve out of the blue, but when you turn around, nothing’s there. When you go back to walking, it will pull your sleeve again. They are purely mischievous, not actively malicious.
7 “…and Hikitani…” The kanji in Japanese names can be pronounced in many different unique ways, and it’s often difficult to know how it’s said just by seeing it written—you need to be told how it is pronounced. “Hikitani” is a misreading of the characters that spell Hikigaya. The character for “valley,” which is the last character in Hikigaya’s name, is often read as tani. Gaya is the less common reading.
8 “Finding the courage…” Hachiman is parodying a tanka by the poet Machi Tawara. The original goes, roughly: So you said to me, / “I like this flavor a lot,” / so, well, that means the / sixth of July is now the / Salad Anniversary.
9 “…I was basically Nobita.” Nobita is the main character of the children’s anime Doraemon. He’s good at cat’s cradle…which is notable, since he’s not good at much else.
10 “…totally an uke…the arrogant seme.” Seme and uke are terms generally used by fujoshi (women who like BL) to describe sexual roles of characters in BL manga: Seme is the top, and uke is the bottom. It’s notable that gay men do not use these terms—that would be tachi and neko, respectively.
11 “…Ebina was a 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.
12 “…a flash of insight like a tranquilizer bolt…” This is a reference to Detective Conan (also known as Case Closed) by Gosho Aoyama. The protagonist, Conan, is an adult trapped in the body of a child. He uses a tranquilizer gun to knock out a certain detective and then impersonates him in order to be taken seriously by adults.
13 “This mystery is solved!” This is the famous catchphrase of the hero from the mystery manga The Kindaichi Case Files by Youzaburou Kanari and Seimaru Amagi.
14 “It used about as much MP as Magic Burst…” Magic Burst is a spell from the Dragon Quest series of video games. It uses up all of the user’s remaining MP, and damage of the spell is based on amount of MP spent.
15 “Skipping out of class as swiftly as the wind, nodding off at your desk as quietly as the forest, jealousy raging hot as fire, steadfast as a mountain.” This is a horribly twisted interpretation of fuurinkazan, meaning “wind, forest, fire, mountains.” It was the slogan written on the Sengoku-era feudal lord Takeda Shingen’s battle flags. The real meaning of the slogan is “swift as the wind, silent as the forest, attack as fire, and steadfast as a mountain.”
16 “Three for the Kill: the Next Generation!” Three for the Kill is a historical drama that ran from 1987 to 1995. The story is about three swordsmen who work together to take down villains. Depending on the episode, they sometimes acted together and other times independently, occasionally even on opposing sides but would invariably come together in the end to enact justice and root out evil.
17 “…tour in Iga or Kouga or something.” Iga and Kouga are cities in southern Japan rumored to have been the home provinces for ninja during the Sengoku Period, a tumultuous era that was characterized by constant warfare and warlords competing with one another throughout Japan. In the present day, these provinces are only affiliated with ninja as a tourist thing.
18 “…the Minovsky particles around here are thick.” Minovsky particles are part of the lore of the Gundam franchise. They confound sensors and jam sensitive electronics like preternaturally effective chaff.
19 “Beast Hachiman, respond to my call!” This is an incantation from the fantasy light novel, manga, and anime series Sorcerous Stabber Orphen. “Beast, respond to my call” is also the title of the first volume of the light novel.
20 “Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows…” This is the beginning of the incantation for the Dragon Slave spell in the Slayers series, another fantasy light novel series that was also adapted into an anime and manga. The spell essentially blows up everything.
Chapter 4 … Saki Kawasaki has some stuff going on, so she’s sulking.
1 “I wish someone on Pixiv would draw…” Pixiv is a popular site for users to upload their art to share and display. It’s like the Japanese equivalent of Deviantart.
2 “…Gooo Magnum! …Don’t lose now, Sonic!” Magnum and Sonic are the names of cars in Bakusou Kyoudai Let’s & Go!!, a manga by Tetsuhiro Koshita about racing toy cars that ran from 1994 to 1999.
3 “…kind of like how Iitomo is over 50 percent funnier…” Waratte Iitomo (Of Course You May Laugh!) is a very long-running daytime talk and variety show that was notorious for being unfunny in its later years. It ran from 1982 to 2014.
4 “…the planet Vegeta…” Vegeta is the home planet of Goku and the other Saiyans in the Dragon Ball series by Akira Toriyama.
5 “Swift death to evil.” This is Hajime Saitou’s motto in the Meiji-era swordplay manga Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki.
6 “…the water over here is sweet!” This is a reference to a children’s song “Hotaru Koi” (“Come Firefly”). The song goes, “Come, come, firefly, come. The water over there is bitter, the water over here is sweet.” It’s basically about catching fireflies.
7 “If the wind blows…” The correct idiom is “If the wind blows, the bucket maker makes good money.” It means something similar to “A butterfly flapping its wings creates a hurricane in China.” That is to say, that events have far-reaching and unforeseen consequences.
8 “Chiba is famous for festivals and dancing.” This is a line from the chorus of “Chiba Ondo,” a traditional song and dance celebrating Chiba prefecture.
9 “…the Bon Odori of Chiba.” The Bon Odori is a dance performed at Bon, an annual festival to commemorate the dead. The festival is generally regarded by most Japanese people as one of the major holidays. The dance generally differs depending on the region.
10 “…about as big a deal as ‘Nanohana Taiso.’” Nanohana Taiso, meaning “rape blossom calisthenics,” is a government-sponsored calisthenics video from the 1980s that is often played in gym class for local schools. It’s extremely cheesy music by modern standards, and the accompanying video features some extremely tacky calisthenics.
11 “…less Ah! My Goddess and more Shin Megami Tensei.” Ah! My Goddess is a long-running manga series originally published by Kodansha from 1988 to 2014, spanning forty eight volumes, and generally featured cheerful, pleasant interactions with characters who were goddesses. Shin Megami Tensei, meaning “Resurrection of the True Goddess,” is a very long-running series of videogames (the first one released in 1992) published and developed by Atlus.These games revolve around the theme of summoning demons. In this series, “goddesses” are usually not the benevolent kind.
12 “Don’t troll me, Bro.” In Japanese, Komachi is saying matamata gojoudanwo, a very polite way to say, “Oh, you and your jokes again.” This is a quote from the ballet instructor Mr. Cat in the magical girl anime Princess Tutu. As an Internet meme, this line is usually accompanied by ASCII art of the character.
13 “…adding ‘Kabuki-cho’ to the word angel.” Kabuki-cho is major red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and is generally considered a seedy area.
14 “…ask Santa for Love and Berry cards?” Oshare Majo: Love and Berry (Stylish Witch, Love and Berry) is a trading card arcade game. Trading card arcade games use physical, collectable cards that can then be inserted into arcade machines to play. Love and Berry has fashion as a theme, and the main target market consists of little girls.
15 “…why did middle schoolers like Yokado so much?” Ito-Yokado is one of the larger general merchandise chains in Japan and is a part of Seven & I Group, which is the parent company of the much more familiar (for Americans) Japanese chain, Seven Eleven.
16 “Go to Mother Farm or something.” Mother Farm is a farm-themed amusement park in Chiba.
17 “…it’s Chiba’s thing to obsess over being Chiba-ish in weird ways…” The New Tokyo Airport, the Tokyo Game Show (an annual videogame expo), and the Tokyo German Village (an amusement park) are all actually in Chiba. Chiba is right next to Tokyo and is often just treated like an extension of Tokyo, thus the inferiority complex.
18 “…the high-class residential area Chibarly Hills…” Chibarly Hills is a nickname for a wealthy residential district that is actually called One Hundred Hills.
19 “…the center of a certain type of Chiba subculture.” Animate and Tora no Ana are retail chain stores for anime, manga, and otaku goods. Animate leans more toward merchandise while Tora no Ana sells doujinshi, but there is a lot of overlap.
20 “…my ghost is whispering to me…” These famous words are a quote from the film and anime series Ghost in the Shell. Motoko Kusanagi, the cyborg protagonist, tends to say it when she has a hunch about something. This quote alludes to “the ghost in the machine,” a turn of phrase discussed at length by the philosopher Arthur Koestler.
21 “…the holy kingdom where all men are loved.” This is a rough translation of the title of the gag manga Shinsei Motemote Oukoku by Ken Nagai. It’s about an alien father and son trying to get women to like them.
22 “Come back once you’ve read Shirley!” Shirley is a manga by Kaoru Mori (author of Emma and A Bride’s Story) about a maid.
23 “…Miku cosplay at Comiket…” Zaimokuza is referring to Hatsune Miku, the vocaloid, and the massive biannual doujinshi (fan comic) market hosted at the Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo.
24 “Are you Perfect Cell?” Cell is one of the antagonists in the long-running shonen manga series Dragonball Z by Akira Toriyama. Perfect Cell is his final form, and he’s basically good at everything and has no weaknesses.
25 “The opposite of approval is approval.” Hachiman is playing with a quote from Bakabon’s father in the gag manga Tensai Bakabon (Genius Bakabon) by Fujio Akatsuka. He’s always saying things like “the opposite of approval is disapproval” or “The opposite of approval! An approval of opposition!” It’s all slightly nonsensical and generally just means “Whatever, that’s fine.”
26 “Believe it.” Hachiman is adopting the catchphrase of the titular character of the shonen ninja manga Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto.
27 “…muster all his strength to HeartCatch Kawsaki…” HeartCatch Pretty Cure! is the seventh installment of the Pretty Cure magical girl anime franchise.
28 “For some reason he was wearing samue…” Samue are a monk’s working clothes that look slightly like medical scrubs. It’s not uncommon for a ramen or sushi chef to wear them as a work uniform.
29 “…a Piiko-esqe fashion evaluation…do the same like Don Konishi.” Piiko is fashion critic and celebrity, and Don Konishi, aka Yoshiyuki Konishi, is a fashion designer. Piiko has more reserved taste, while Don Konishi’s dress is quite garish. Both are baby boomer-aged.
30 “Have you ever heard of the no-waste ghost?” The no-waste ghost is the star of an old public service announcement from 1982. The ghost scares children into eating their vegetables, crying, “What a waaaaaste!”
31 “…restaurants we went to were Saize and Bamiyan. The fanciest it got was Roiyaho.” Saizeriya is a cheap Japanese-style Italian restaurant chain. The meals are in the three hundred to six hundred yen range. Bamiyan is also cheap and serves Chinese food. Royal Host is not as fancy as it sounds. They serve simple and inexpensive dishes like omelette rice.
32 “I fluttered my jacket like Hiromi Gou…” Hiromi Gou is a singer who was popular during the 1970s and 1980s. He often wore a blazer over his shirtless torso and did these iconic dance moves that involved fluttering his jacket. It looks extremely corny from a modern perspective.
33 “She doesn’t know Shimamura. I bet she doesn’t know Uniqlo, either.” Uniqlo and Shimamura are both cheap clothing chains and are considered the most basic of options when dressing yourself.
34 “Should I say Dom Perignon or Don Penguin?” Don Penguin is the mascot for Don Quijote, the “palace of low, low prices,” a bargain retail chain. The stores are famous for their low prices, the mascot, and the theme song played in every location.
35 “So that Perry guy…was a drink…” Commodore Matthew Perry (1784–1858) was a famous foreign diplomat from the United States who is known as being a major player in the opening of Japan.
36 “I don’t have to say Harris or Earnest Satow here, right?” Townsend Harris and Earnest Mason Satow were also foreign diplomats who negotiated trade with Japan during the Edo and Meiji periods.
37 “…like Yamanashi having mountains.” Though the name of Yamanashi prefecture actually means “mountain pear,” it’s also a pun with “no mountains.” But Yamanashi actually has lots of the largest mountains in Japan, with Mount Fuji nearby, thus the irony.
38 “…a familiar face from chuugen…” Chuugen is a period in July when workers bring in gifts (usually edible) to give their superiors as tokens of appreciation.
39 “…nor the Purple Rose” This is a reference to the classic shoujo manga Glass Mask by Suzue Miuchi. “Purple Rose” is the main character’s anonymous fan who sends her bouquets of purple roses.
Chapter 5 … Hachiman Hikigaya goes back the way he came again.
1 “If this were a model car, I’d call Tamiya about it.” Tamiya is, as one may expect, a toy company that makes plastic models, remote-controlled cars, and other similar toys.
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