Nekomata Okayu: Korone and the Grain of Rice

[@Pentaoku]

Okayu recalls a funny story on her way to Universal Studios Japan (USJ) with Korone. Korone is usually such a clean freak, but even she can get rattled and slip up a bit at times, especially when things don't go according to plan. Expand for translator's notes. 0:00 - General context note: For those who watched the clip about Okayu talking about Korone's break, this day trip to USJ is the sleepover they planned. Originally, they were thinking of just having a regular sleepover, lazing around at home, but Korone figured that since they had the chance, they may as well go on a short trip together, so she booked a hotel for them and they went to Universal Studios Japan for a day. 0:14 - Where I'm from, people actually say "bento" to refer to Japanese lunch boxes instead of something in English. I added lunch box just before this in case it was a little confusing, but I figured that the word was common enough that I didn't have to change it completely, and just state that they bought lunch boxes. 0:22 - There's an awkward skip here, and the reason for that is because I cut out a part of the stream where Okayu makes a pun. She says she really likes (suki / 好き) sukiyaki, and says something basically similar to "'cause it's SUKIyaki, get it!?" I didn't want to go through the trouble of translating/localizing this pun, so I just took it out. I'm a liiiiittle upset about doing this since Okayu makes this really funny smug face when she makes one of the oldest puns in the book, but I didn't think it was worth the trouble of figuring out some English equivalent (or worse, making up my own joke). 0:41 - I don't have any plans to clip the ticket trouble they had, but long story short: Korone bought bullet train tickets online. However, Korone doesn't have a lot of experience riding the bullet train, so she only bought one ticket for herself and one for Okayu. The bullet train/shinkansen in Japan actually requires two tickets: one to board the train, and one to the destination. They also offer "all-in-one" tickets, but they realized that after the fact (they bought them for the way back). They were able to get their second pair of tickets and get on the train in time, but it made Korone panic and feel guilty for not planning things carefully enough. Knowing what kind of person Korone is, that probably got to her. 0:56 - Here, Okayu says 生まれて初めて, which is literally the same thing as the English phrase as "the first time in my life (something has happened)." Literally speaking, it'd be "the first time since I was born," which is essentially "first time in my life." 1:40 - Korone is basically a clean freak. Okayu is going out of her way to emphasize how someone who is as big of a clean freak as Korone could let rice get on her clothes/neck/collar, which basically emphasizes how exhausted she probably felt after the ticket debacle. 2:30 - It's a common romantic trope in a lot of media for there to be a moment where someone gets food on themselves, or some sort of smudge, and the other person cleans it off for them. In Japanese media, it's usually a grain of rice. Korone was probably pretty happy that a moment like that played out between her and Okayu. Since Okayu mentioned she can be kind of a sloppy eater, I wonder if Korone has ever done this for her.

[@mjc7745]

Hey - love the translation notes as usual. If you ever want I think it would be OK to leave those puns as is and point towards your notes if people need explanations. Either way is great!

[@Temari_Virus]

Scenes like this make it feel like they're in a romcom or slice of life, they're just so perfect for each other

[@highlight0001]

Thanks for the translations! I like how even though Okayu says that Korone was really happy that Okayu picked the rice, that Okayu was laughing about it a bunch herself just telling the story of her doing that lol. Just goes to show they have a fun time even with the smaller things that happen to them

[@nitrix6538]

That is really adorable. But I'm really impressed about how Korone never had rice stuck on her clothes ever. I'm always having a constant battle with my food so this is something amazing to me

[@remu5376]

I really need all okakoro anime story, thank you for translation!

[@yoursonisold8743]

OkaKoro is just anime in real life at this point.