Volume Ten "Dogged Pursuit"
Episodes 100-112


Episode 100
Part One: Lost in the Blossoms
First published April 15, 1985
Episode 101
Part Two: Lucky Day
First published April 30, 1985

First appearance of Mitaka's (paternal) uncle.

First appearance of Asuna Kujo and her parents (and her six dogs)


Episode 102
Part Three: "I Love Dogs" I
First published May 15, 1985
Episode 103
Part Four: "I Love Dogs" II
First published May 30, 1985
Episode 104
Part Five: Love You Lots
First published June 15, 1985
Episode 105
Part Six: Send in the Hounds
First published June 30, 1985

In the original, Asuna does not draw a cartoon dog on the sand when they are at the beach: she writes instead the "kanji" (Chinese character) for "dog" (it's a simple three-stroke character which does not require any great drawing skills :-)).


Episode 106
Part Seven: The Door's Still Open
First published July 15, 1985
Episode 107
Part Eight: The Door Slams
First published July 30, 1985

The basic misunderstanding between Kyoko and Godai which takes place here, during their conversation through the closed door, is a little hard to understand in the translation and maybe even in the original. Here is how I see it:

First, the background: before returning to MI, Godai has run into Kozue, who's told him that Mitaka and Kyoko are getting married. Kyoko, of course, doesn't know this. So, from the start, it turns out that they are talking about different things without realizing it: Godai's thoughts are focused on Kyoko's engagement to Mitaka, and Kyoko has no idea, and can make little sense, of what Godai is talking about (because he never makes it explicit); she's still set on trying to explain what happened the other day, when Godai saw her and Mitaka seemingly embracing.

Then, in a last attempt to set things straight, Kyoko says (first panel on this page):

"Godai, listen. You are wrong." And then the critical sentence:

"Mitaka-san ga ippouteki-ni..."

Now this is a sentence without a verb, because the verb should have gone at the end and Kyoko doesn't finish it. All we have is an emphatic subject (Mitaka) and an adverb which means something like "unilaterally, one-sided-ly." Kyoko leaves it dangling because she feels a little embarrased to go on, and she thinks she's said enough to make it clear that what happened "was all on Mitaka's side, was all Mitaka's doing." In expanded form, what she SAYS is something like this:

"Godai, you are mistaken (about what happened the other day). It was Mitaka's doing (implicitly: I did not agree to it, I was not a party to it)."

But what Godai THINKS she's saying is:

"Godai, you are wrong (about Mitaka and I getting married). It's all Mitaka's idea (implicitly: I have not agreed to it)."

This is because Godai is thinking about the engagement, Kyoko does not make it explicit, this time, that she's still referring to the incident of the other day, and the sentence, lacking a verb, gives no indication as to the tense, that is, whether it refers to an action that was completed in the past, or to something that is going on in the present.

This explains all that follows: Godai's shocked silence for one panel. the fact that he then asks for confirmation "You mean...you're not going to marry him...?", and maybe even it goes a little way towards explaining why he can say later, with perhaps a grain of truth, that he doesn't feel anything for her anymore: he may be momentarily disappointed in her, to think that she would go that far with Mitaka without really being serious about him. (This last is speculation, of course.)

(Incidentally, Godai's actual words to Kyoko, "I don't feel anything for you anymore," don't sound as strong to me in the original as they do in the translation--although perhaps they may have sounded that strong to Kyoko. I would translate them more along the lines of "I'm not thinking about you romantically anymore.")


Episode 108
Part Nine: Twin Journeys
First published August 15, 1985
Episode 109
Part Ten: Party of Two
First published August 30, 1985
Episode 110
Part Eleven: Steamy Love
First published September 15, 1985
Episode 111
Part Twelve: One Night Dream
First published September 30, 1985
Episode 112
Part Thirteen: Back to... School?
First published October 15, 1985

There are a couple of features of the Japanese language that allow Yagami to get away with her trick here. First, personal pronouns are almost always omitted and inferred from the context; second, the verbs give no clue as to whether it's first, second, or third person, singular or plural, that is intended. So, what the (nameless) kid actually says when he shows up is, literally, "mother's agent (or "representative") is/am/are." Naturally, everybody assumes that he means "she is my mother's agent," but, as Yagami points out later, he could just as well have meant "*I* am her mother's agent."


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