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Notes for Chapter 1

Page 2

I have no clue why I made Shimon cry so much. Yeah, he's been through a lot, but he winds up seeming kind of pathetic... I guess his problem at this point is that he's sad and he doesn't fully remember why. He's also just fallen from the sky, so he's a bit confused as to what's going on...

Page 3

Tam's supposed to be stuck on the jungle gym, so she can't get down. Actually, this incident happened to me when I was pretty young. I've always been afraid of heights, and once I got stuck where I couldn't pull myself up, and my feet couldn't touch the ground, and I was afraid to let go of the bar because I thought I'd fall and kill myself if I did. So someone--I don't remember what he or she looked like, even--picked me up and set me on the ground. I don't even remember what happened after that--for all I know, I really could have been 'saved' by someone from another planet...

English translations:
panel 3

Tam: "Don't let me die!"

Page 4

English translations:
panel 2

Tam: "What?"
panel 4
Tam's mom (Josie): "TAM!"
Tam: "Mom!"
panel 5
(I forgot the direct translation, but it was something like...)
Tam: He talks funny, but I was stuck and he saved me!
panel 8
Josie: "Where do you think you're going?"

Page 5

I suppose Josie really doesn't believe that Shimon doesn't at least understand English. Typical American.

English translations:
panel 2
Tam: "See?"
panel 3
Josie: "... Come on."
panel 7
Josie: "I said, come on!!!"
panel 8
Josie: "Are you stupid?"

Page 7

Tam and her mother are not supposed to live in a particularly nice house...

English translations:
panel 2
Josie: "We're here."

Page 9

One of my three readers expressed confusion over why Josie doesn't take Shimon to the hospital. I don't know why myself, except I've always envisioned him as an 'alien;' this is a small town, and he's obviously from somewhere far away. The language doesn't sound like any Josie has heard before, and she's never heard of anyone from any faroff country wearing clothes like that, either. And besides, he's still breathing... Obviously she wasn't too worried about him, anyway...

Page 11

Josie is a very lonely person. She comes home from work too tired to even read escapist romance novels, so she just watches the same bad videos over and over...

Page 12

panel 1: Shimon doesn't know the word for 'blanket' yet.
panel 4: One thing that I noticed when taking a Japanese course was how people tend to revert to English 'hesitation noises,' such as 'um' (instead of, say, "Anou...") when speaking in a foreign language. So Shimon's still using his native 'ums'...
panel 7: Okay, it's a Jedi ripoff. But I like to see a place where women aren't allowed to hit men...

Page 13

English translations:
panel 1
: 'slapped'

Page 14

English translations:
panel 6
: 'plural'
panel 11: 'customs'

Page 15

English translations:
panel 9:
'shine'

Page 16

English translations:
panel 6
: 'dream'
panel 7: 'couch'

The reason Shimon insists on sleeping on the floor (besides the fact that the couch is softer than what he's used to sleeping on) is because he didn't understand the word 'couch,' but did remember the word for 'floor.'

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