Mystery to Iu Nakare — Complete

Totonou Kunou is just a regular college student living by himself when one day… police shows up at his door accusing him of murder. He is taken to the station and bullied, intimidated, and questioned but he stands firm that he is innocent. He uses his wit, observation, and unique worldly views to get himself out of this situation.

Translation Notes/Trivia

• Episode 1
  • Japanese schools
    • Japanese school year starts in April, so their summer vacation is half-way through the school year. (As opposed to American system where summer starts at the beginning of the school year.)
    • Japanese college entrance is almost entirely determined by the college exam scores, and there’s usually 2 types–the standardized ones (like SAT) and the college-specific ones. Most seniors spend their first 2 trimesters (until December) taking mock tests and striving to improve their practice test score.
  • **Spoiler**
    • Kunou says Sagae got his car in his senior year spring, and he lost his car by senior year summer. And then he says Sagae let the senior members of his club drive it. This doesn’t make sense to me because seniors are the most senior members of the school. So I assume what this means is that Sagae let college students (who used to belong to the same club, but has now graduated) drive his car. In Japan, clubs are almost like society and often graduates are welcomed back like alumni and treated like sempais.
  • Garbage collection
    • Japan has the most extensive garbage collection system. There are designated place to put trash, designated trash bags issued by the city per garbage type, and designated days for the type of trash. For example one day is plastic, the next day is glass, third day is raw scraps, etc. This is why 1) It’s easy to notice a plastic bag among a pile of city-issued trash bags, and 2) a normal household would have so many trash cans.
• Episode 2
  • Ajisai-to–the name of the bakery– is literally “hydrangeas hall”
• Episode 3
  • Hyoryu Post Office (English: Missing Post Office) is real. Japanese wiki article. Summary: it’s not a real post office associated with the Japanese Post. It uses an old post office building. It’s an art project established in 2013.
  • Mistake: I had previously thought Tobacco Mori was his first and last name, but turns out it’s his entire last name, so I’ve since changed it to Tobacco-Mori in this episode.
  • Keema curry is an Indian curry dish
  • Cultural note: it’s very rare in Japanese culture to return goods. Most people just live with a bad purchase. So deciding to return something without hesitation is another sign of quirkiness.
• Episode 4
  • M.O. = Modus operandi
  • **Spoiler**: Not translated or ever mentioned by the story but the caption on the 3rd cipher says “worst place in my life”
  • **Spoiler** “ongaku” means music in Japanese.
  • **Spoiler** Mifune, Miyoshi both have last name that starts with the kanji for three.
• Episode 5
  • Some Kanji lessons….
    • 暖かい vs 温かい. Both are “atatakai” but former is for room temperature and latter is for liquid temperature.
    • 質 vs 室. Both are “shitsu” but former means quality and latter means room.
    • 賛辞 vs 三時 both are “sanji” but former means eulogy, latter means 3PM.
    • 紹かれ vs 招かれ both are “manekare” or “sho” but former (with string radical) means introduce and latter (with hand radical) means to invite
    • 対 vs 待. Both are “tai” but former means “versus” and latter means “to wait”.
    • Otsukare, in the context of how it was used in this episode, would mean “Congrats” but it’s a common phrase that can mean anything from “good work”, “good night”, “hello”.
• Episode 6
  • Japanese often use the phrase “spring has come” to reference that someone found love. It ties back to spring being the beginning of everything– flowers blooming, school starting, etc.
  • Geko is the sound that a frog makes, in Japanese language. It can also be gero, or kero– hence where keroppi from Hello Kitty came from.
  • Roku can be read as 6 (ro) – 9 (ku). 6 is roku in Japanese, but it’s often shortened to “ro” when sounds are mapped to numbers. For example, ONE OK ROCK is written as 10969 because it’s 1 (one) 0 (o) 9 (k) 6 (ro) 9 (ck).
  • Putting charms on cellphones are very popular practice. Some people have multiple charms… to the point where it outweights the phone. It was more popular on flip phones. These days, they don’t make charm holders in iphones/android so the practice is dying down.
• Episode 7
  • Kanji are made up of radicals. Often, one radical represents the meaning (or classification) and the other represents how it’s read, what it means, etc. The most obvious example is this noren of fish kanji. Each kanji is for a different type of fish, but they all share the same fish radical on the left.
• Episode 8
  • Japanese universities have clubs called ‘circles” where people with similar hobbies get together and hang out. There are clubs that host legitimate events aligned with the hobby (like climbing, golf, etc.) but others are usually just an excuse to get together and drink.
  • Language of flowers or hanakotoba, are words/meanings embedded in flowers. It’s used in the west too but seems like not as extensively as in Japan.
  • Awatatsu’s name has been updated to Amatatsu in this episode.
• Episode 9
  • Java curry and Vermont curry are both supermarket curry brands.
• Episode 10
  • Zoni mochi soup
  • Omikuji are fortunes sold at shrines.
  • **spoiler**
    • Goya are bitter melon. Normally goya tofu (goya stir fried with tofu) would be pronounced as goya-dofu with a “d”. Totonou picked up on that and realized it’s significant that she said “tofu” with a “t”.
    • Moist in Japanese is “fuya fuya”.
    • Oi kimchi are cucumber kimchi, unlike regular kimchi made with napa cabbage.
• Episode 11
  • Guest-mentality is usually used in a bad connotation to mean a very passive person who considers themselves a guest, so they don’t take any initiative, and they wait for everything to be handed to them.
• Episode 12
  • Update 3/30/2022: A kind soul pointed out that Totonou-kun actually said “I have adopted parents myself” instead of “I have birth parents myself.” This was an oversight on my part, so I’ve fixed & reuploaded the subs.
  • “The string radical in your name makes you sound smart.” Traditionally, women’s name have been very simple (like all-hiragana, or kanji with few strokes) because women were not as educated. In contract, men were given names with complicated kanji because they would become educated, and they’ll be able to write their name. So thus, Totonou-kun is noting that it’s uncommon for a woman to have a name with a string radical–that most of the time it’s 広子 instead of 紘子.
  • Consonant markings are the dot-dots on top-right corner of hiragana. If you add consonant markings to た, you et だ.
  • Hell Screen by Akutagawa

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