Chapter 4 … Once again, Hachiman Hikigaya makes a speech.
1 “Slowly, slowly, like a kyogen performer…slowly, slowly, slowly…” Kyogen is a type of traditional Japanese comic theater. This line is a reference to a bit where a comedian from the manzai duo Chocolate Planet did an imitation of the kyogen performer Motoya Izumi.
2 “…maybe I’ll be able to fire off a midair Motoya chop…” This was a move Motoya Izumi unveiled in 2005, when he entered pro wrestling. It involves jumping from the corner to leap onto his opponent and repeatedly karate chop his head.
3 “This is a Soubu High School workplace reform, the Professional High System…” The “Highly Skilled Professional System” is a workplace reform that was discussed in the news for years before finally being enacted in 2019. The intent is actually the opposite of what Hachiman describes; it basically cuts off overtime pay for skilled white-collar workers in an attempt to reduce superfluous overtime. It’s called “Kou-Pro” for short using the kou from “highly skilled,” which Hachiman puns on the high in “high school.”
4 “Wait and hope” is a quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, but Zaimokuza surely heard it in Gankutsuou, the anime loosely based off the original novel.
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Chapter 5 … At some point unknown, the ending credits begin to roll.
1 “…into the grand blue. The courtyard just about turned into an ocean of red…” Grand Blue, localized as Grand Blue Dreaming, is a manga about a diving club.
2 “Oh yeah, the Pastimer’s Club, right? My memories about it are vague, but I do recall it being a workshop of fun, the time we played Millionaire there.” The Pastimer’s Club is the name of the club in Asobi Asobase, which is subtitled as “Workshop of Fun” in English.
3 “He is a fool, a buffoon, a clowning knave!” In Japanese, this third term is hyouge mono, an archaic term meaning “jocular fellow” and a reference to the historical manga Hyouge Mono by Yoshihiro Yamada.
4 “…unease stirred among all three of the glasses. Zawa…zawa… I don’t know why even Zaimokuza was joining in on their zawa zawa-ing.” Zawa zawa is a normal sound effect for murmuring or unease, but the manga Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji takes it to memetic levels, with constant zawa…zawa… in basically every tense scene (read: every single scene).
5 “…a bill that features a portrait of Ichiyou Higuchi, it makes paying the bill easy (we call this a grown-up with Growing Up).” Ichiyou Higuchi is one of the most prominent modern women writers in Japan, and she features on the five thousand yen note. One of her most famous books is called Takekurabe, sometimes titled in English as Growing Up. In Japanese, instead of the “showing up/shown up” bit, the wordplay here was oreshirabe (personally researched), chichishirabe (researched by my dad), and then Takekurabe.
6 “I am very thankful. Thankful for everything that has made our meeting possible!” This is a quote from Netero in Hunter X Hunter when facing a particularly formidable enemy.
7 “We were on the road to having a toast: Thinking of our firm bonds, happiness to you.” This is from the lyrics to the 1988 single “Kanpai” (Cheers) by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi.
8 “My youkai radar cowlick was pinging, but I was too scared to face the source.” The hair of the protagonist of GeGeGe no Kitaro is known to stick up in the presence of youkai.
9 “…I encouraged myself: I’ll do my best to wrap this up!” Ganbaru zoi, with the cutesy meaningless sentence-ending zoi, is from the protagonist of the manga New Game!
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Chapter 6 … Privately, Hayato Hayama feels regret.
1 “…all the parts of a human, body and mind. My cells are at work, so I don’t have to be, right…?” “All the parts of a human, body and mind” is a reference to an old ad for the Olympus Corporation, which manufactures optics, like for cameras and medical equipment. “My cells are at work” is a reference to Cells at Work, an educational biology manga.
2 “Zombie Land Chiba” is just a Hachimanification of the anime Zombie Land Saga.
3 “Tamanawa isn’t a crude fish. Don’t classify him with suckers and blowfish.” The original pun here was on bora (volunteer) and bora (striped mullet, a kind of fish), the joke being on fish that you generally throw back when caught. Hachiman says, “He’s actually super-gourmet material.”
4 Supreme Being Overlord is a reference to the light-novel series Overlord.
5 “…Soubu High School Neo-Prom-ject.” The Japanese title was Soubu High School Prom Saiko Project, with Saiko being a pun on “reconsider” and “greatest.”
6 “Alternating between hot and cold gets me sorted out…” Hachiman brings up a lot of very specific sauna lingo here that even many Japanese people might not understand. Totonou (sorted out) describes the feeling you get after a sauna, which varies for different people, and some people even describe feeling high or euphoric. Rouryu is hot water with scented oils that’s thrown on the coals in a sauna to produce steam, said to have health benefits, while a gurushin is a cold-water pool with a temperature below 50ºF (under 10ºC).
7 A super sento is a public bath facility with added features, such as having a variety of bath types with different themes, or things like massage chairs and general relaxation facilities. It’s not the same thing as an onsen (a hot spring), since the water is artificially heated.
8 “Since it’s, y’know, the next hot… Never mind…” Instead of hot, the original wordplay here was on the idiom “I can feel it [like a tingling sensation] on my skin,” which means “to know from experience.”
9 “Praying that Hayama Magic would make the call for Chiba…” Hayama Magic was part of a routine from the comedian Shougo Kawashima, in which he plays a street magician. Kawashima was also born and raised in Chiba.
10 “I’d even forge his signature…” In Japan, official seals are unique, custom-made stamps of your name legally registered to you and are used instead of signatures. In the original, Hachiman refers to stealing Hayama’s—essentially, identity theft.