In the seventh episode of Shingu, a girl needs to get home and is too weary to walk. The guy who is with her (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, which is why I'm being vague) offers to call a taxi, but instead she says, "Carry me." Or something like that.

What she says sounds to me like ounbu. But I can't parse that. The subtitles translate it as "Piggyback".

Anyone have any idea what she's saying? (DVD 2 of the thinpak, title 2, chapter 4, time 0:22:18)

UPDATE: A different one, which I figured out a while ago. The "Secret technique" that the subtitle calls "Astral Deviation", well, that wasn't really a very good choice for an English term for it. I think I might have used "Astral Projection".

The Japanese term they're using is 空蝉 utsusemi which is the term that's used to refer to the process of a cicada molting and casting off its shell when it transforms to its adult winged form. That's actually rather poetic.

(Obviously, in order to avoid spoilers, I'm not saying what it specifically refers to in the show; and just talking about the name isn't a spoiler because we first hear of it just as it's used.)

UPDATE: Actually, it turns out to be 空蝉の秘技 utsusemi no higi. (But it sure does sound like they're saying himi, which is not a word.)

UPDATE: I'm told that the word I heard was 負んぶ onbu which means "carrying on one's back". So in fact the subtitle was accurate when it said "Piggyback".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Japanese at 01:15 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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