Endnotes
1 - In Japanese, the name for rhizocephala also has the word “sac” in it.
2 - The cape-clad appearance comes from the kanji 蓑代衣 (minoshirogoromo) meaning ‘a substitute for a straw cape’.
The kanji is 蓑白 (minoshiro), ‘straw cape’ plus ‘white’, which turned into 霊の代 (minoshiro) ‘soul’s substitute’.
The kanji 海の社 (minoshiro) means ‘shrine of the ocean’.
Snake can also be written 巳 (mi), so Minoshirou would mean ‘Shirou of the snake’, probably referring to Orochi.
3 - The sea slug has the same 蓑 (mino) as the minoshiro, meaning ‘straw cape’.
4 - Wind scythe literally translates as “scythe weasel”. In Japanese mythology, a trio of weasels (brothers or triplets) ride on wind currents cutting at peoples’ legs.
5 - This type of arrow, called kaburaya, has a turnip-shaped whistle made out of wood or bone attached to it and is shot to signal the start of battle.
6 - The first kanji in Robber Fly (塩屋虻) means ‘salt’.
7 - This is really loosely translated as there doesn’t seem to be an English equivalent as far as I know. The term he uses, 竜穴, is used in fengshui to describe an area that has “energy” and is likely to prosper. I suppose in this case it means a place where they have an advantage over the enemy. If there is an actual term for this, please let me know.
8 - The second kanji in Kiroumaru (奇狼丸) means ‘wolf’.
9 - 奇 (ki) has connotations of ‘strange, mysterious, magical’, 詭 (ki) means ‘deceptive’, and 道 (dou) means ‘way, method’.
10 - Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) are known in folklore to be devious shapeshifters.
11 - Pleiades is usually written only in hiragana as すばる (subaru), but Saki says that it comes from the kanji 統ばる (subaru), meaning ‘many united into one’.
12 - 番 can mean ‘turn’, ‘pair’, or ‘couple’, depending on the context. So 当番 can mean ‘to be your turn (to do something)’ aka “duty”, or ‘to be a pair/couple’ (although this isn’t a normal reading, as far as I know).
13 - I don’t usually translate the honorifics (the -san, -chan, etc suffixes), but did in this case because it’s kind of significant. Tomiko calling Saki’s mother Mizuho-chan is a clue that would be missed in English if I didn’t include the suffix. -chan is a childish/cute honorific that adults call children and children say among each other, but adults almost always use -san for their peers (outside of intimate/family relationships), so it’s indicative of…something.
14 - Robber flies are called 虫引虻 (mushihiki abu, literally bugcatcher flies) in Japanese. There is a related subfamily of flies, which in English is still called robber flies, but in Japanese is シオヤアブ (shioya abu), and this is the name of the queerat colony. It’s usually written in katakana, but the book uses the kanji 塩屋虻 (still pronounced shioya abu), because 塩屋 describes the white tip on fly’s body. So when Saki talks about the birdcatcher flies, 塩屋大鳥引 (shioya ootorihiki, literally white-tip big birdcatcher), she’s referring to the bugcatcher naming convention. The name birdcatcher fly is made up, because no such thing exists.
15 - The kanji is 公, meaning “public” (or “government” in this case), but it’s also a pun because the character is made up of the katakana ハ and ム, which reads “ham”.
16 - He’s singing a twisted version of a children’s song called Zui Zui Zukkorobashi. There aren’t really any good translations of it out there, but the part that corresponds to what he’s singing basically goes, “Smash, smash, smashing sesame miso. When the soldiers come, slam the door. Once they’re gone, take a breath. Little mice eating from bags of rice. Squeak, squeak, squeak.”
17 - The first kanji in Spider Wasp, 鼈, is pronounced betsu, but they used a simpler character 別 for the tattoo, which happens to mean ‘other’.
18 - The name translates as ‘A Carp from My Dreams’, and comes from Ugetsu Monogatari.
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