Japanese vs. English Dabi and Toga - A 341 Comparison
Finally, after what feels like forever, we get another lov-focused chapter and it sure did not disappoint. In particular, it gave us quite an insight into Dabi, Toga, as well as their relationship so let’s take their conversation apart and break down what they said in Japanese, starting with Dabi:
「てめェのよーなイカレ女にも感傷に耽る心があるとはね」
「のよーな ; no you na 」-> like; similar to
「イカレ女 ; ikare onna 」-> insane woman
「感傷 ; kanshou 」-> sentiment
「耽る ; fukeru 」-> to be lost in; to indulge in
「が ; ga 」-> subject marker particle
「とは ; to wa」-> adds emphasis to the prior word/phrase
「ね ; ne 」-> sentence ending particle; used to seek confirmation
= “Even a crazy woman like you has a heart indulged in sentiment, don’t you.”
This line is very rich coming from the guy who - not too long ago - was lying shirtless in an abandoned building, crying blood as he told his non-present family members to “watch him in the depths of hell” - I wonder how much longer he can tell himself that he doesn’t feel anything… Either way, it sounds a bit like him warming up to her. Of course, continuing to call her “crazy” isn’t great evidence for that, but admitting to her being sentimental is him admitting that she isn’t some label he assigned her, but a person with feelings - in other words, he is humanizing her, which in turn would make it harder for him to dismiss her as someone he doesn’t care about.
On a linguistic note, “you na” is written in a slightly odd way. While the word is normally written in hiragana, the dash is actually how vowels get extended in katakana. The rest of the word remains written in hiragana, though, so really, the only part being emphasized is the extended “o”. So yes, Dabi’s many ways of emphasizing parts of his speech continue. The “to” at the end of the sentence also gets used to emphasize the word or phrase it attaches to, and the “ne” is used to seek confirmation, and by putting so much emphasis on this, it shows a certain amount of interest and curiosity, possibly wanting to hear more but also possibly emphasizing it to signal Toga that he is noticing this situation being important and also emotionally challenging to her. In summary: he cares.
「気になった ; ki ni natta 」-> was interested in; wondered about
= “I only wondered a bit about my home. That’s normal.”
If you know a little bit about Japanese, you might have noticed that Toga uses “desu” here, which is used in polite speech. I’ll address this in a bit, so just keep that in the back of your mind for now.
“Futsuu”, which is usually written in kanji, is written in katakana here for emphasis due to its significance for Toga’s character as it has come up repeatedly during her backstory in chapter 266:
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
dededos
2087
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
