Poking Around Pt 158 (Patreon)

Phew, almost there.  2 of the 4 (or maybe now 5) pages I wanted to get done this month.

This page took a fair bit of re-editing and retooling from what I had originally planned but I did it; getting into Sanctuary helped massively.  There are quite a few TL Notes as I couldn’t fit everything I wanted on this page.  Still, thank you for reading as always.   You can read this altogether in the Poking Around Completely: The Collection.

TL Notes:

• No (More) False Starts: Both a criticism at myself for taking so long to get to this part, but also a reference to ‘false starts’ in sumo bouts; when one wrestler starts the match before the other is clearly ready. This is deemed as a fault and a matta 待った (まった) is called, meaning the match must wait (the first Kanji in matta literally means this) until everyone is ready at the same time.
• D.Pato: A bilingual pun. デパート depato is the generic term for a department store/supermarket, but pato in Spanish means duck.
• Those Japanese-style shop front banners:  The proper term for these is nobori 幟 (のぼり).  They were originally used in the battlefields of Feudal Japan to differentiate units and divisions in an army; nowadays nobori are more used for commercial or political advertising, and indicating festivals, sports and special events.
• It’s Science, Snitch: Breaking Bad reference.  In 2023 (time of posting), I know...