#dgm230

1.) I have been informed that the cityscape referenced in the opening setting panels here is Edinburgh, Scotland:

Edinburgh is in fact in Scotland, buuuut this is somewhat complicated by the fact that Hoshino-sensei did something weird with the naming here (wow, shock). 

Though she calls London "London" and Paris "Paris" and is therefore presumably fine with giving real-world cities their real-world names, she calls the town our heroes just landed in "Edinston" rather than "Edinburgh" and says it's in "Igirisu," which is a Japanese world describing both the United Kingdom and — more commonly — England in particular. There are existing Japanese words for both "Scotland" and "Edinburgh," and they are notably not used. 

To be as safe as possible, I've transliterated the town name directly and used "Britain" wherever "Igirisu" was used, to leave the door open for either possibility to be true. 

As for Allen's nationality: that's still up in the air, too, because this town is only where he met Mana in the circus and the events of Lost Fragment of Snow transpired, not where he was born or where he joined up. He's definitely from somewhere in the UK, but beyond that? Pick your favourite and have fun, haha.  

2.) HALLELUJAH AMEN, IT'S RAINING MEN (enjoy those nightmares, kids! :D)

3.) Oh my god, they forgot the bracelets. Rest in pieces. 

(Also: the implication that if Komui had made them they were probably broken because things Komui makes work so terribly well the people whose lives they're meant to improve often end up worse off in the end is both hilarious and painful. See: Komurin. But because Reever made it, coming off is a failsafe meant to protect the users from unforeseen circumstances, because he actually thinks things all the way through most of the time.)

4.) "the ground smells different" I mean okay to be entirely fair, this is a real thing that I've noticed myself, but this is still... so funny.... such a dog person thing to say.....

5.) The "one more step" line was more literally "if you intend to keep running any more than this," with the implication that Kanda would rather just kill him right now and have done than take one more step in his pursuit. (Kandas are natural sprinters; very dangerous over short distances.)

6.) lmao

Allen: okay are you going to save me or kill me, please choose one

Kanda: both? both is good

8.) Okay now for a bit of the kind of thing I actually make these posts for:

"神の結晶" (kami no kesshou) is a very interesting term that was first (and possibly only ever the once, I still haven't read all the raws) used in chapter 007, during Komui's guided tour of the Order:

Komui: A substance of mysterious power some call the "crystal of God."

The fun thing about this is that while pretty much everyone opted to translate kesshou as "crystal" — the "crystal of God" — the word also (and more often) means "crystallization (of)". As in, Innocence is the crystallized and shattered body of God. 

Funnily enough, when I went back to 197 to find a panel for the next point, I also found this while skimming:

Image

Guro!Tokusa: We [AKUMA] will [kill/destroy] God (f: the Innocence).

The kanji say "God", the furigana say "Innocence," and that is what Hoshino does when things are meaningfully related and/or synonymous. By destroying the Innocence, they are killing God, because the Innocence was not made by God, but of God.

Soooo since this is my translation and that felt like a Sign, I'm going with "crystallization," to hell with it.

 9.) This part is new favourite ever, oh my god. Kanda not only understanding the feelings of others, but trying to teach empathy to Allen?? Oh, how the turntables~! 

And then!! Allen accusing Kanda of sticking his nose in where it isn't welcome, and Kanda's like "POT, KETTLE, ASSHOLE" because this is exactly what Allen did to/for him in North America over Alma. "Call this payback for what you said" refers to this bit in 197:

Allen: You're not even trying to face Alma head-on...

Kanda: Now who isn't facing things head-on?

ALSOOOO the callback to chapter 005, wherein Kanda cut Allen's arm with Mugen for an entirely different reason:

Allen's self-sacrificing hypocrisy, however well meant, is being called out increasingly hard as the story goes on, and I'm all about it. He keeps trying to make people's decisions for them, and though it's true that he's doing it because he's scared for them, it's still not at all his call to make. He's treating them like children, not his friends, and ignoring their very clearly stated wish to see this through with him, but even so they're standing firm on the decisions they made for themselves. justcommunication.mp3

9.) And the flipside: despite his terror of seeing his loved ones hurt, he actually is still properly scared for himself and desperately doesn't want to be alone. Their presence made everything both worse for him (because they cranked up the stakes even higher being within impact range) and better (because he wasn't alone in the sightless, murderous dark). His torn heart here is so real and it hurts just to watch. In the best of ways.

10.) Aaaand there's where the "fool" line comes back in: when Allen accepts that he's guilty of exactly the same thing he took Kanda to task for, and they've just exchanged shoes. This chapter is a gift to me personally, thank you Hoshino-no-kami.  

11.) He's grieving for Tim properly now, thank god. This is tremendously painful too, but so much better than the blank dissociation from before. Now he can walk on through the rest of the grieving process with everything moving within him as it should. 

12.) I definitely thought for a hot minute that the Mana-marked tree was Cornelia and he jumped them straight to the mansion, but it's definitely not. It's in a small square in a city, whereas Cornelia is on the vast Canbell property, and it wouldn't make any sense for the circus to have been parked on the front lawn of the place Mana ran away from. So the plot isn't jumping ahead quite as fast as I initially thought, but it is going somewhere!! For real!!!

13.) The little "is your stomach empty, too" aside is because he thinks Allen is grubbing around in the dirt for food. (Take a glance at the fancy ants and maybe... try a few? ♫) 

14.) Furigana on "Allen" in "where Allen was born" say "I," and "born" really says "hajimari", "beginning". I took a tiny bit of poetic liberty on that one and I don't think it'll affect anything but if it does, now you know.

What a killer chapter, I'm so delighted. January is going to be amazing.