but saying she doesn't want to be popular among guys (in particular) really begs the question (so you want to be popular with girls, then?).
The thing is, the Japanese bubble doesn't say a thing about boys or girls. Literally she's talking about being popular but doesn't specify if it's among boys or girls. Boys are of course heavily implied by the context, but it's not there in the original wording. So we're dealing with the translator's interpretation here, which is quite inevitable due-to Japanese being such a context-dependent language.
It's similar to the cherry popping from the previous chapter, where Ran literally said that she was happy she took one of senpai's firsts. Yes, cherry popping can mean that too, but it also has a sexual subtext, which seemingly is not present or is not that obvious at least in the original Japanese phrase. On the other hand, I'm so far from fluency in Japanese that I can only rely on common dictionaries, while in slang this subtext might actually also be present.
So maybe it's the translator being too optimistic for the sake of a more natural English or due-to yuri coggles, or maybe it's just me lacking in the Japanese department (which is probably more realistic).
And I wonder how Keiko will react now. The author made an amazing job: in the last chapters, they practically confessed to each other, indirectly, but still. First, Ran on Christmas apparently overheard Keiko on the balcony. And now it's Keiko overhearing Ran.
last edited at Oct 16, 2014 12:57PM