スーパーカブ discussion (Intermediate) April 2024

Book Clubs
#221

I would continue to use the jpdb vocabulary list. The Bunpro list hasn’t been updated past chapter 11.

Please remember that all automatically generated lists contain errors and can’t represent the true meaning of the words when taken out of context. I prefer to learn words as I read, rather than looking at that information in advance.

If you want to learn words before reading, I recommend jpdb as you can sort words by frequency. This means you can look at the most important unknown words in the text to learn vocabulary that gives you the most benefit with the least effort.

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#222

I’ve been keeping lists of words missing from jpdb deck and words in it that I though are mis-parsed, and so far got approximately 60 out of 4.5k words. As long as you don’t trust the deck blindly, it’s fine. Most of the issues are reading not matching the context, like 五分. And some hiragana words are not picked up, like おかっぱ.

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#223

Hi!

小熊のバイト ended and I just started chapter 28. She is now confident in her driving, flush with money and wondering what to do with it all.

お手並み拝見、小熊！

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#224

I’m in chapter 38 and just fyi I feel like once you hit Reiko’s arc that the reading becomes more difficult. There’s so much vocabulary about equipment, parts, proper nouns, roads, etc. It’s definitely a little tiring. Right now it’s at level 27 on LN and it feels like more of a 28-29, personally.

So far for Super Cub I’d order it’s media like this.
Manga>Anime>Novel

This type of content goes so much better with some kind of visuals.

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#225

I noticed the change in difficulty as well. Do you know when Reiko’s arc ends, or is the difficulty consistently higher until the end of the book?

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#226

Reiko’s arc I think has 4-5 chapters in it. It’s been several chapters for me since her arc and so far it’s staying harder. I’m not sure if that will continue until the end of the book.

I know what happens in the anime/manga so I would think that it’ll get easier again and turn more into slice of life material, and less directly about the bikes. At least I certainly hope that’s the case because these chapters are killing me. :sweat_smile:

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#227

I mean seriously. Just look at this nonsense.

エンジン内部のシリンダーと呼ばれる円筒型燃焼室の微かすかな変形や歪ゆがみを、製造ラインで使われている加工機械より高精度な機材で真円に削り直し、修正する.

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#228

I almost gave up during her arc, but I just kept going and stopped paying too much attention to all that nonsense. Fortunately it all goes back to “normal” once its done.

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#229

Definitely agree that Reiko’s arc is more difficult. I think that’s half her personality, and half a chunk of new terminology.

After that, it’s back to normal for the rest of the book. (There’s a chunk of place names but is otherwise back to normal Koguma)

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#230

I finished Reiko’s section. It seems to be back to the standard difficulty in chapter 36. (I never imagined that I would be reading the word 酸素 this much.)

In chapter 36 the proper noun 富士宮口（ふじのみや ぐち） Fujinomiya Route appears.

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#231

The Supercub will stop being made in 2025, apparently. As a tribute here is a nice nostalgic article (today’s 天声人語, which is a daily short opinion section in 朝日新聞).

（天声人語）スーパーカブの雄姿

幼い頃、「きょうは出前にしよう」と母が宣言すると、家の中は沸きたった。黒電話のダイヤルを回して近所のそば屋に注文を告げたら、耳をすませて待つ。近づいてくるエンジンの音に胸を高鳴らせたものだ▼あれは、きっとカブだったに違いない。ホンダの「スーパーカブ」。少々手荒く扱っても大丈夫。小さな体に馬力を秘めた原付きバイクは、そば屋に限らず、新聞配達、郵便局、酒屋と、街に欠かせぬ風景の一つだった▼初代は１９５８年に誕生した。片手で盆を担ぐ出前のそば屋でも運転できる。そんなバイクを、というのが開発のコンセプトだったそうだ。左グリップからクラッチレバーなどが取り除かれた。人まねを嫌う創業者・本田宗一郎らしい注文だろう▼使い勝手の良さから、人気は世界の隅々にまで広がった。ベトナム南部ではいまも、メーカーにかかわらず二輪車のことを「ホンダ」と呼ぶ人が多いという▼そのホンダが、総排気量５０ｃｃ以下のカブなどの生産を終了する。排気量の大きなタイプはいままで通りとはいえ、寂しさは否めない。排ガスの最新基準に応じられず、おしゃれな電動キックボードなどに販売も押される。世の流れに取り残される姿が、昭和生まれの目には、どこか人ごとに思えないからだろうか▼きのう街で見かけたカブは、かなり乗りこなされたのだろう。マフラーがさび、塗装ははげ、老兵のおもむきだった。汗を流して働く人たちにとって、あんなに頼もしい相棒はいなかった。

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#232

Wow, that struck a sad chord in me. Reading this strangely made me feel like some kind of time traveler going back in time, like a guy who knows the “contemporary” fiction he’s reading is about to unintentionally become historical fiction. Cubs are everywhere in my parts, but I didn’t start paying closer attention to them until reading this book.

Honda also makes the Super Cub 110 and C125, but I wasn’t able to determine whether those lines (with larger engines) will also be discontinued despite not being impacted by upcoming emissions laws changes.

Teary-eyed hand salute to the generation of machines that literally helped carry part of the nation.

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#233

That would be a very different book, with no room for installing storage boxes, earning a living with deliveries to the next town over, or climbing mountains.

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#234

I powered through the rest of the book during my vacation. It wasn’t bad, but a little difficult for me to get through sometimes. There were definitely some chapters that were way harder than others. Personally, Reiko’s arc and chapter 38 can go straight to hell. :joy: I was really struggle bussing on those. And I can’t believe that this first novel doesn’t even cover the entire 12 episode anime. Talk about slow pacing. In contrast, the manga has incredibly fast pacing. I’ve only read 4/10 volumes and with volume 5 it’ll probably go past where the anime ends.

I still stand by the manga and anime both being more entertaining. Maybe if my reading ability was a bit better I would have enjoyed this a little more though. I’d give it a 6/10.

Very glad for the experience though. It’s the hardest novel I’ve read so far and it was still mostly doable, which feels like an accomplishment. My worry of falling behind worked to my advantage I actually got way too far ahead. :sweat_smile:

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#235

Congrats on finishing the book!

As we are in the final weeks, I think now would be a good time to discuss the club’s next book. That way a schedule could be made in advance and people would be prepared to join the next one, without having a significant delay between books.

Also, for the next discussion thread, would it be possible to implement a checkpoint system, where people would be able to quickly update where they are in the book with a poll? I think a feature like that would make the thread less sparse, and encourage people who might be lurking to participate in a small way without having to write comments. It would also demonstrate whether a large part of the group is behind and the pace should be decreased.

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#236

New poll started at the top of the Intermediate book club main thread! Get your votes in before next Sunday! :bowing_man: :bowing_man:

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#237

I meant to post more throughout our journey, but I joined this one late and only finally caught up, didn’t want to post about ancient history in the meantime. Still, I’ll post one or two things here before we wrap this book up. For now, I’ll focus on chapters 46 and 47, our second to last section of reading.

Chapter 46

二速のままうるさい音をたてていたカブのエンジンが悲鳴を上げ、再び失速し始める。

Honestly I felt this experience–losing power quickly to nearly stalling while going uphill–was a bit under-explored. After reading for a bit, I started to anticipate various biking-related problems since they are used as plot devices. I’m amused that anime like Yuru Camp is like, “now that I have this particular camp gear, look at all these nice things I can experience,” and Super Cub is like, “now that I have this bike, look at all the trouble I get into.” I was a bike owner for many years–the trouble is not contrived :sweat_smile:

尾道や長崎のような坂の街で、車に登れぬ勾配の先にある家まで、配達カブは毎日やってくるらしい。

I felt at home reading this. If you hike various mountains around Japan, you’ll find homes high up in some of them. Typically there are roads up to these homes, but these roads often double as a path up the mountain for hikers (ex: Takao-san or in Tokyo). Sometimes you’ll see cars, but in my experience I actually encounter Super Cubs often!

「今日はこれくらいで勘弁してあげる」

I do appreciate that Koguma’s character has been consistent. Cheeky as always.

Chapter 47

以前礼子に箱根はバイクのオーナーズクラブにとって聖地みたいな場所で、ツーリングイベント等が盛んに行われていると聞いたことがある。

This is true about Hakone!

昔の日本では許可なく藩を越えて移動するのは命がけだったらしいが、きっと彼らもスーパーカブを買っていれば脱藩なんて朝飯前だったんだろう。

This was such a cute thing to read. I had to read it a few times to make sure I really understood that, yes, Koguma was referring to the trespassers of yore being fine if only they could have blown by on Super Cubs.

そういう重要人物が泊まる旅館は利用者のプライバシーのためにネット地図やカーナビには場所を掲載していないと聞いたことがある。

The car navigation thing always gives me a laugh. As an American, I put my destination in Google Maps on my phone and start driving. To this day, I find many people in Japan still use these clunky car navigation systems. Try interacting with one if you have or rent a car in Japan. They are quite impressive albeit slow and sometimes convoluted.

「でも、私のほうがずっと優れた機械に乗っている」

Ever cheeky.

脱水症状を防ぐため時々口にしていたペットボトルのお茶が無くなりつつあったので、道順の再確認を兼ねて一休みすることにした。

This is a thing I still marvel at as an American. I see more Japanese drinking tea to stay hydrated than water. I’ve talked to my Japanese buddies about it. “Yeah, I never thought about it, we just reach for tea a lot.” Even a sugar-free barley tea will leave my mouth feeling a tad dry, so water it is for me. I just don’t associate tea with hydration hah.

つまり、私はこういうことをしにきた。

This sentence, the last in chapter 47, felt really out of place to me. I was expecting 私 in a quote or an aside. Perhaps it was an aside, but I think the narration was third-person for quite some time and then all of the sudden first-person popped up.

Well, this was mostly me reacting, but hopefully it adds some interesting flavor.

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#238

Indeed! Another article on this, from NHK News Web Easy.
Low sales and environmental issues.

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#239

As it’s our last scheduled day of reading, I’ll share my thoughts on the final section and my general reflections on the book.

Chapter 49

In my last post I talked about expecting events with the Cub since it’s the obvious plot device, but I admit I didn’t expect

... Koguma and Reiko to steal away on Koguma's Cub together against the teachers' rules while on the school field trip.

This certainly plays into the last sentence of chapter 50, though.

Chapter 50

The recent news about the Super Cub production adds to the sentiment of the end of the book in my opinion.

Notable passages. 小熊には、五十年後、百年後の世界でもスーパーカブは変わることなく街を走り、新聞や郵便、出前を配り、営業社員や警官、農家、あるいは若者を乗せて走っているんじゃないかと思えた。
[...]
小熊の青春はそんなスーパーカブの生み出した一〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇の物語のうちの一つ。

I’d like to quote more of chapter 50, but so much sticks out to me it’d probably be copyright infringement haha.

I enjoyed the storytelling of the last chapter. We see that Koguma understands Reiko on a more fundamental level, and we get a rare glimpse into Reiko’s heart. Koguma’s and Reiko’s relationships with their Cubs are contrasted, but they’re brought together through their common interests.

Koguma was the girl who did nearly nothing and had nearly nothing at the beginning of the story, but now she’s got a companion in the steel horse and in the flesh. Reiko was the girl everyone envied, but she ate alone and turned down most company, and now she’s got a friend with a common passion who can also make one of her favorite meals. The friends are character foils for each other, just as their Cubs are to them.

If only Koguma knew how prophetic the last sentence of chapter 50 was.

Regarding 青春, I think there is more of a platonic reverence, among all the natural wistful feelings, for that period of life in Japanese culture than in American culture. If you’re not Japanese (culturally) and have a culturally-Japanese contact you can speak to, I recommend you ask them to tell you what 青春 means. In my case, most answers I get dance around the meaning, like trying to tell someone what “love” means. Part of understanding 青春 is having experienced it yourself. The Japanese collectively refer to this period of life with this term. Koguma and Reiko’s situation aside, the Japanese school experience is far more standardized than that in America, and members of a single class are kept together over the years, and this lends itself to many similar experiences in peoples’ 青春 than we might otherwise expect in an American youth’s experience. So in that way, I think there is more to 青春 than the definition you’ll find in a Japanese-English dictionary. I enjoy this subject, but I digress before I get too off-topic!

General Reflections

I can’t say the story was terribly gripping, but the pacing and detail kept it interesting for me. The more I read, the more I enjoyed the book. I approached this book simply wanting more exposure to Japanese, to build my grammar and vocabulary. I feel the book was great for that, so I overall enjoyed it. I’m keen to learn “technical” Japanese, so I was happy to get to learn terms about bikes and engines, roadways and dynamics and motion. I had to look up a lot of things, but I was reading a digital copy, so the usual-suspect tools made it easy to still enjoy. I put various vocabulary I learned from this book into practice in daily Japanese conversation. I have a habit now of vetting the words I learn with native speakers, just asking, “do Japanese people actually say/write this,” and a lot seemed to be practical.

I’m open to reading the second volume!

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#240

I’ve missed a couple of months of reading, but finally also finished volume 1 + セカンドマシン after-story.

It was a nice book as far as language exposure goes, with more words to describe roads and mountains than I know what to do with.
In terms of writing, I think I’d prefer even more of Koguma’s cheeky thoughts and phrases, and perhaps a little less turn-by-turn driving and Cub history. But as the author mentions in the afterword he has a personal history with Cubs, so it’s understandable.

Might go for volume 2 a bit later, after reading something in a different style for a change of pace.

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