I do too. I also hope that the anime gets to run long enough for us to see Myne's beast in action. I can definitely imagine the fun the animaters would have with the expressions of other characters would have upon seeing it.
Actually, as far as I know, the days of the week had been kept quite consistently. But, I can see why people may think that they might be inconsistent. The days of the week are Day of Water, Day of Sprout, Day of Fire, Day of Leaf, Day of Wind, Day of Fruit, and Day of Earth, which corresponds to our Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and in Japanese they are Day of Sun, Day of Moon, Day of Fire, Day of Water, Day of Wood, Day of Metal, and Day of Earth. (Five Elements + Sun and Moon). So when you see Day of Earth, you might be tempted to think Saturday, but the subtle difference here is that in the entire novel, the exact word that the author used had always been 土の日 (Day of Earth) rather than the usual days of the week in modern Japanese 土曜日 (Saturday). Subtle difference, and really the same difference. Especially when you look into what these names all represent and the background lore that the author had constructed. ( Sorry, I do realize that I'm wayyy too addicted to this series than what's considered healthy... XD
Addicted to this series? You have to be kidding, no one here is addicted to this wonderfully entertaining and marvelous series. In any case, looks like I'm gonna have to look at the official translation of the light novel, and the raws of the WN as well. Gee, I guess it's a good thing this series isn't addictive, or otherwise I'd have to spend entire too much time looking up minutia. OK. The section I'm interested in is when Myne collapses due to the devouring towards the end of volume 2 of the light novel. Quoting: “Huh?! Whaddaya mean ‘What’s Earthday’...? Earthday is Earthday. Right?” Lutz looked at Benno helplessly, unable to explain on his own. Benno sighed and explained for me. “Waterday, Sproutday, Fireday, Leafday, Winday, Fruitday, and Earthday alternate on a cycle, yeah?” Now to look at the machine translation of the raws in chapter 48 of the WN. Looks to be: “Wow !? Whatever you say ... Saturday is a Saturday day. Lutz told Benno if he could explain. Benno tells you with a sigh. “Will the water day, the bud day, the fire day, the leaf day, the wind day, the real day, and the earth day repeat?” Now for the fan translation of WN 48: “What?! What are you saying… Earth Day is… Earth Day, right?” Since it seems that Lutz can’t actually explain it, he passes the buck on to Benno. Benno sighs, then starts explaining it to me. “They’re the names of the days that constantly cycle around. Water Day, Sprout Day, Fire Day, Leaf Day, Wind Day, Fruit Day, and Earth Day, you know?” Hmm. I'm still confused with this so not addictive series. Time to play around a bit with google translate and the raws. Thanks to @dhRPGamer, I'm able to easily identify the days out of the raws and I get: 水の日, 芽の日, 火の日, 葉の日, 風の日, 実の日, 土の日 which google translate converts to "Water day, bud day, fire day, leaf day, wind day, real day, soil day". So I think I've identified the source of my confusion. Depending upon the surrounding context, the machine translation converts 土の日 to "Saturday", "Saturday day", and "soil day" whereas the author is always using "土の日". But a bit of minor confusion remains, so let's take a closer look at 土曜日 and 土の日. 土曜日 breaks down into: 土 - soil 曜 - weekday 日 - day and 土の日 breaks down into: 土 - soil の - of 日 - day Ok. Ordering is a tad confusing. Have read that Japanese is read from right to left, so day of soil makes perfect sense, But in that case, why doesn't google translate "水の日, 芽の日, 火の日, 葉の日, 風の日, 実の日, 土の日" into "soil day, real day, wind day, ..., water day"? Looks like phrases are grabbed left to right with individual phrases handled right to left. Why aren't natural languages nice and orderly?!?!? (look at me using English about which James D. Nicoll said "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.") Conclusions: Machine translations suck. Human translations don't suck quite as bad. Really want to learn to read Japanese directly. Now pardon me while I get my fix resume reading of this so not addictive novel. OK: Did a bit more research. For horizontal writing, Japanese goes left to right which makes sense. But then that still means that groups of kanji representing concepts like Sunday, Saturday, etc are still effectively right to left. Almost like RPN. Like pushing concepts onto a stack and having to wait until the last symbol for the stack to collapse and concept become clear. Gonna definitely take a while to wrap my mind around Japanese.
Actually, it wasn't that complicated. You know how in English we read from left to right then from top to bottom? It's the same with Japanese (and Chinese too, but don't know about Korean), just that when it comes to vertical writings, we turn the page 90 deg clockwise and read it like that, so from top to bottom then from right to left. Though there are cases where we read from right to left in horizontal writings, but most of those are old, like maybe more than at least half a century old. So, it's definitely from left to right. Knowing that, with phrases like 火の日 (Day of Fire) for example, rather than "of", the "の" character in the middle of "火" and "日" acts like apostrophe-s in English to denote possession or relation, so more so than Day of Fire, it's probably more accurate to translate it as Fire's Day, but the former is more proper in the English language, so that's probably why Google Translate and 99% of the translators translate it as such. Another little thing, though the kanji "実" does indeed translate to "real" (or reality) it also has another meaning, and that is "fruit" (or the fleshy part of it). I first came across this not from dictionaries, but when I played the Japanese version of Monster Hunter back in the days. It's a little silly to think that I'd be able to discover the Realities of Dragons scattered around tiny bushes around caves and mountains where dragons live. XD
I think based upon what I've read elsewhere it's more of an issue of what each culture considers important. For instance, in western cultures the main concept is introduced first, followed by modifiers to that concept whereas in eastern cultures the opposite is true. One of the ways this manifests is name order for instance. Western uses "given name" followed by "family name" so "Fred Smith" could be interpreted as "Fred" who is a member of the "Smith" family. But if you're already familiar with "Fred Smith", the instant you hear or read "Fred", you immediately know who is being talked about with the following "Smith" portion just being a confirmation that your initial assumption is correct. Whereas in eastern cultures you see "family name" followed by "given name", so "Motozu Reino" which would be interpreted as a member of the "Motozu" family who is specifically the person "Reino". So even if you're familiar with "Motozu Reino", you still need to wait to read or hear "Reino" to know specifically whom is being talked or read about. And for 土の日, you first see 土 and I'm pretty sure there's lots of different "common phrases" that start with 土 so you don't know what's being written about. Then you see の and still don't have any good idea about what's being said, but know that somehow it's a possessive involving soil or earth. Finally, you see 日 and everything becomes clear. So with eastern communication, the emphasis is to wait until you've seen everything before coming to the conclusion that you understand what was written, whereas with western communication, you can frequently (and successfully) understand what was written prior to seeing it to the end. And don't get me started on the poor quality of machine translations. For instance: フランの毒見の後で、わたしは少しずつ色々な種類の料理を食べる。is translated to After the poisoning of Fran, I eat various kinds of dishes little by little. Which doesn't make any sense at all. I hope the actual intent of the original is that Fran checked to make sure the food Myne ate was not poisoned. But the translated version seems to say that Fran was poisoned and Myne then proceeded to eat without concern.
Yes, you're right, that part is definitely where Fran was doing the food tasting for Rosemyne. Though for the more odd part, you could probably try jisho.org for the places where it feels out of place with Google Translate. 毒見 https://jisho.org/search/毒見
Just finished reading Arc III. Really really really want the anime to get to at least that point. And why not? If "One Piece" can have around a thousand episodes, why not something as wonderful as Ascendance of a Bookworm? Rosemyne chasing after Charlotte's abductor in her lessor bus with Angelika clinging to the roof. Abductor wondering "What? It's flying?!?! But it doesn't have wings!" then tossing Charlotte away while fleeing in another direction. Rosemyne being put into a medical coma, both for her preexisting problem and the poison she was forced to swallow. Spoiler: Sorry shippers Brigitte's and Damuel's romance looking to be successful, then crushed by Damuel's sense of duty. Rosemyne's attendants bravely and hopefully continuing with their duties. Benno's hope to use the time to relax and consolidate the printing industry while it's not being driven onward by Rosemyne... Only to have Elvira crush his hope by pushing it herself. Dude's gonna get rich beyond his dreams, but man is he being worked to the bone for it. Ferdinand working himself to death. Seriously, the dude really needs to learn how to delegate things. Ferdinand worried that they don't have enough magical stones to absorb enough magic from Rosemyne. Ferdinand wondering "With this much magic, how is she still alive?" Ferdinand .... Yup. The dude seriously needs to learn how to delegate.... Seriously. Charlotte bravely attempting to step into Rosemyne's shoes.... Only to realize how immense those shoes truly are (fond memory of earlier scene with Wilfried and Rosemyne swapping places for a day. That turned Wilfried around). Lutz and Tuuli... Let's not get into too much detail here. Well, Rosemyne is back in action. Time for her to recover from her medical coma and inflict her own wonderful form of chaos upon the greater autocracy. Looking forward to reading more of this so not addictive series. Seriously, Ferdinand really needs to delegate.
I know this is a few months after you asked for a spoiler about the drawing of Myne hugging Ferdinand. But since I haven't seen any actual answers to what the image was representing, I figured I'd tell you. Myne is hugging Ferdinand in order to comfort him from the emotional trauma he had from the emotional overflow from Myne to him when he was scanning her memories. Let's just say that he was rather surprised at what he saw and most definitely didn't expect Myne to react as she did both during and after the memory scan.
Spoilers about those two is entirely dependent upon what you already know about them. So up to what point in Ascendance are you?
I have only read the web novel up to chapter 125, I think is about preparation for ink making and have the english books which is only up to vol 1, part 3.
Ah, given what chapter you've mentioned and the description, I can see that you're considering the Flying Lines trash to be correct. That scum doesn't have the decency to do things like calling their chapters cXpartY when they release only part of a chapter (so as to increase ad revenue since the actual chapters of Ascendance of a Bookworm are rather long when compared to other web novels). So c104 through c127 actually corresponds to chapters 104 through 112 of the web novel. Well, in any case, Gunter and Eva will shortly have not just two daughters, but a son will be added to their little family. Myne will of course continue to innocently strew chaos around her and as a result of that chaos will be declared to have died with the results of said declaration being enforced by contract magic. And the family of Gunter and Eva will then have only two surviving children, a daughter and son, their educations assisted by Myne's legacy in the form of her possessions and gold that she had at the time of her "death". Of course, more will happen later. If you really need a good fix of Ascendance, you can try reading a MTL of the actual web novel. I personally, don't remember the URL from day to day, but that isn't a problem. Just use google with the words "ascendance of a bookworm wikipedia" to get the URL of the wikipedia entry, and at the bottom of that page is a nice convenient URL to the web novel in Japanese. And if you're using Google Chrome or some other browser that supports language translation, it's easy enough to select a language. The MTL is rather poor, but still good enough to understand the novel if you keep the context in mind. As for me, I'm currently at chapter 313, near the beginning of arc 4, not quite halfway through the WN.
Actually, Volume 2 of the published Light Novel has a side-story at the end that may contradict this theory. The side story is from Effa's POV (Myne's and Tuuli's mom), and in it, she recalls how every time Myne would have a fever, she would have strange dreams, and after waking up she would excitedly talk about this dream world she saw. To me this says that Urano's soul was always in Myne—in fact, Myne might have always been just another iteration of Urano's reincarnation, but her overflowing magic caused the child Myne's ego to erode until only Urano and her pastlife's memories and personality were left.
In that chapter, Effa mentioned that Myne talked about the world in her dream, but I don't think that it necessarily means that it was Urano's life that little Myne saw. Little Myne had always been frail since birth, since she had the devouring and it often caused her fevers, so I don't think that it's all that surprising that she would dream of living a life where she was healthy and lived a good life. (Though with that said, I have no problem if the author really decides to go that way, since she never wrote clearly about just how Urano became Myne. But that part about Urano-Myne's magic growing strong and eroding away little Myne's personality, I think we can rule that out with definiteness. The author quite clearly stated in later chapters (through Ferdinand's deductions) that the sole reason for Myne's (Urano-Myne) immense magic power is because of her determination and willpower of an adult, despite being inside the body of a child. In the first novel, that time when Myne was almost about to given up living and give in to the "fever", having all of her attempts to make paper thwarted by the kindness and loving care of her own parents, she remembered that she still hadn't fulfilled her promise to Lutz despite all the things that he had done for her, so she "willed" the "fever" down and boxed it in within her. Then from that point on, every time when the "fever" came, Myne would will it away in the same way. In Arc 3, Ferdinand referred to this action as compressing her magic. Since the container (her own frail body) was too small for her growing magic, she packed her magic in tighter and made it smaller and denser to make it fit. According to Ferdinand, this is something that only experienced nobles can do, he himself does it all the time after he learnt it, not to mention that the extent that Myne did it surpassed even Ferdinand, since she literally went at it as if her life depended on it. According to readers' speculations (yes, we're that bored XD), Myne's innate magic power (what she was born with) wasn't actually that strong. They argued that, since Myne's magic grew strong enough to threaten her life at the age of 5, then the orphan that she picked up in Arc 2 should have hundreds of times more magic potential than Myne, since his magic threatened his life in merely a few days after his birth.
OK. Just took a look at that side story and have to say your interpretation is quite different from mine. There's no indication that Myne's dreams have been a long term phenomenon. The "stunted childish words" that Myne used to describe her dreams would be the Japanese words Myne used to describe things that weren't known to the old Myne. Additionally, the fact that Effa is considering Myne to be finally settling down after she started making paper with Lutz indicates that much of the really strange behavior happened prior to that, such as her earlier attempts to create writing media. And the scene in the SS is quite a few months after new Myne's arrival since Myne is making paper and therefore able to go to the forest. And how long did it take her to reach that point? And how many times did she have a fever during that process? Think perhaps that Myne would have a few complaints about that process? And during that process, she did have a rather drastic epiphany due to Otto's advice about not trying to do every thing herself and instead have others do the physical labor for her. Sorry, but I don't see that SS supporting the theory that old Myne had those "dreams" prior to Urano's arrival.
Effa points out how the dreams are from when Myne was in her "crybaby phase" (in contrast to the "rebelious childhood phase", where she started doing things), and at one point even said "My dreams are so much more fun, I want to stay asleep forever"—something Urano would never tell Effa, and we never see Urano being yelled at by Effa about that. Original Myne 100% had these dreams. This isn't even unambiguous. The only point of contention might be what those dreams actually are, given all we know is that they consisted of things Effa didn't understand, and Myne had trouble explaining with her limited vocabulary.
For all we know that Mrs. Author may one day decide to fill in that part. (Please do, I'm dying for any new Bookworm contents!) After the main arcs ended (i.e. the big happy end), the newest development was that the Goddess of Time and Goddess of Weaving asked Rosemyne to go back in time to fix up holes in the fabric of history (Plot holes! XD... No one? @@... OK... OTZ ) that the Goddess of Destiny had mischievously snipped off because she felt that it looked ugly. Though, the thread in the fabric that she had snipped off in those places were Ferdinand's thread (life), so the two goddesses asked Rosemyne to reconnect Ferdinand's thread (life) with her own, and repair the abnormalities in those places. So for all we know, it could potentially cover the bit of how Urano became Myne. Who knows? Maybe it would be like @TUSF suggested all along, that somehow the gods and Myne (future Urano version) herself came back in time and intervened and made it happen. In any case, please give us more, Mrs. Author! ( And then, after the latest update (Jan 2019), Mrs. Author went into a huge hiatus. She updated this last bit, and commented on her blog that this was just a friendly forecast of the direction that the next arc will head into, AFTER all of the WN has been LN'ed. ( ( Mrs. Author: What? I was just being nice and letting them know about it in advance. Mrs. Author's Husband: That wasn't being nice at all... ( ( ( Meanwhile, all who followed her blog wailed and lamented, knowing that they had to wait another 2-3 more years before they can see a resolution to that huge cliffhanger that Mrs. Author left behind.