does joongi han is gay?

The Enigma of Amigara Fault

This short story by Junji Ito is about a fault that appears in Amigara mountain after an earthquake. The earthquake exposes countless human-shaped holes in the mountain which seem to have been made about a thousand years ago. People, intrigued by these  silhouettes, gather at the site and that’s when things get creepy.

“Cowbook! Like cowboy! No…Readcher? Like Rancher? No, fuck this is hard…”

the fish are beautiful <3

Here’s something hilarious lost in translation from Shuake’s aquarium date.

As eny fule kno, Japanese author Natsume Souseki is reputed to have translated “I love you” from English to Japanese as “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” - 月が綺麗ですね tsuki ga kirei desu ne. This is an excessively well-known anecdote, not only within Japan but in the wider world.

In this scene, Akechi has called Joker up and invited him to that well-known date spot, the aquarium, and we are all very excited about it. However, journalist Ohya (a good friend of Joker’s, whose close colleague Akechi put into a vegetative state, as you do) shows up and promptly starts questioning the boys about their relationship (as you also do).

However. Once Ohya clears off, Akechi wants to know a little more about these links to the media Joker has, because there’s a good chance they could end very badly for him―it’s not great to manipulate someone to their death without taking into account that they can tell the media about your evil acts, if you slip up. Or indeed that a journalist can place you as a close contact of your victim. He wants to know if Joker has “some kind of professional agreement” with Ohya. Plus, he thinks he killed Ohya’s colleague, so she’s certainly on his radar.

And one of the options you have, to throw him off the scent, is:

Joker 魚がキレイだ sakana ga kirei da How about these fish, huh? [lit. The fish are beautiful.]

That’s right. One of the options you have to throw Akechi off track, on your unexpected meeting at this romantic location, is to make a barely-indirect declaration of love.

Kidding, of course. But Akechi gets the joke:

Akechi はは、その誤魔化しだと逆に怪しく見えるって。 haha, sono gomakashi da to gyaku ni oyashiku mieru tte. Haha, you’re just making it seem more suspicious! [lit. Haha, I’d say that counterproductive sneaky trick makes you look suspicious.] Haha, that monkey business makes you look worse than ever. I’m sure that wasn’t the plan.

hey I’m sorry I love the ship and I do like this theory… but (noun)は(adjective)だ is a really standard way to structure a sentence… and i like Akechi’s answer, but I don’t find that anything in particularly alludes to Natsume’s line. I mean, he often comments about protag being innocent or suspicious or unsuspecting even outside of the aquarium hangout. it’s still a nice theory, don’t get me wrong! just feels like this is a reach

Hi! Thank you so much for commenting. Obviously I’m a student, my Japanese is extremely bad, I make tons of mistakes all the time, and I’m always delighted to have them pointed out (since that’s what learning is). That said, I’m delighted to have a chance to show my working on this one.

First of all, I want to be super clear that I do not think this is a real confession in the script: Joker has an obvious reason to bullshit, and Akechi doesn’t take it that way. You could, if you want, read it as the official translation does: Hey, how about these fish? However, that assumes that Joker and Akechi are both ignorant of a really widespread trope.

More below the cut. (do these things even work any more?)