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Chapter 1 … Always and forevermore, Komachi Hikigaya wants a sister-in-law.
1 “Every New Year is a milestone in your journey to the underworld.” Hachiman seems to be misremembering this poem by Sojun Ikkyuu, a Buddhist monk born in the fourteenth century. Instead of naming the New Year directly, the poem refers to the kadomatsu (New Year’s pine decoration) used as a metaphor for New Year’s. And the “milestone” used in the translation is actually an ichirizuka, mounds of earth separated by a distance of one ri (about 4 km). They often had pines planted on them.
2 The name Ikkyuu could also be read as hitoyasumi, meaning “taking a break.”
3 Godiego is a rock band, and they have a song titled “Beautiful Name” (in English), which repeats the (English) refrain of “Every child has a beautiful name.”
4 “Kya-ha! Lucky me! Time to have another normal year!” Hachiman is adopting the manner of Raki Kiseki from Aikatsu!
5 “Don’t rush, don’t rush, a break here, a break there…” is from the 1970s anime Ikkyuu-san about the life of the aforementioned monk Sojun Ikkyuu.
6 “This purimiamu Japaniizu burando product automatically celebrates the Niuu Iyaa on its own, no mess, no fuss!” The original Japanese here is, more literally, “The Japanese brand flowing through this body celebrates the New Year’s ceremony on its own,” with the italicized words all being English. The particular words dropped—especially “this body”—is a reference to the language used by the TV shopping service Japanet Takata, which overseas audiences might be familiar with from the parody Jikanet Tanaka in the Persona series.
7 “After being swept along in the waves of shrinegoers (without being scolded from a distance)…” This is a reference to the lyrics of “Graduation Photograph” by Yumi Arai: “You occasionally scold me from a distance / when I’m swept along by the crowds and change.”
8 “‘How dare you…’ Komachi muttered scarily like a certain young environmentalist.” Greta Thunberg said this in 2019 at the UN’s Climate Action Summit in New York.
9 “…like Solar Flare… Tien Shinhan…” Solar Flare is a move of Tien Shinhan in Dragon Ball.
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Chapter 2 … Nevertheless, Komachi Hikigaya won’t give up on getting a sister-in-law.
1 “You could call that mission complete. You could get a reward to use on a gacha pull.” Complete in a gacha game (using the English term) refers to getting all the items of a random set, after which they give you some of the in-game currency that costs real money. Some kind of rock is typical, which is why Hachiman cites a stone as the reward in the original.
2 “I was just about to attend to some lucky bag gacha…” Lucky bags are common New Year’s items sold in Japan in all different kinds of stores, from clothing shops to cafés. They have a random assortment of items of varying value.
3 “Learn from the prime minister’s cherry-blossom-event invitation list.” The governmental “cherry blossom viewing party” was an annual event that had been expanded every year to invite a variety of politicians and influential people, all on the taxpayers’ dime. In 2019, it came under fire for lack of transparency about who was invited and was canceled.
4 “Hey? Could you stop talking about my marriage like this is a duel? Even if you send your big bro to the graveyard, you can’t summon a big sister.” Hachiman is referencing the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game here.
5 Treasured Tool is a term for special weapons in the Fate universe.
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Chapter 3 … And then the festival ends, and a new festival begins.
1 “…or get on a portable shrine and call out wasshoi, wasshoi like Mirai Moriyama in Moteki…” This is a reference to the opening of the drama Moteki in which the protagonist, played by Mirai Moriyama, is raised up on a mikoshi (a portable shrine used in festivals) by a bunch of girls.
2 “Chiba is famous for festivals and dancing. There are idiots who dance and idiots who watch, so if you’re an idiot like the rest, you’ve got to dance and sing a song.” Calling back to the cultural festival in Vol. 6, this is a variation on “Chiba Ondo,” punning on the ending with odoranakya sing-a-song instead of odoranakya son son! (you miss out if you don’t dance).
3 “I’ll power-snooze my way through it just like Meng Haoran!” Meng Haoran was a Tang dynasty poet. Hachiman is probably referring to the poem “Chūn Xio,” meaning “Spring Dawn,” which, translated roughly, goes, “I enjoy sleeping comfortably through the spring dawn / I can hear twittering of birds here and there / It reminds me I heard awful wind and rain last night / I wonder how much the flower petals have fallen?”
4 “Rarely but often happens” is the familiar meme from the famous FFXI player Buronto.
5 “Ah-ha, so she’s the type of umamusume who’s good taking the lead from behind? She totally blew right past me at the end.” Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a cell phone game about racehorses reincarnated as pretty girls in another world. There’s also an anime.
6 “…and Yukino Bijin from Tracen Academy.” Yukino Bijin is one of the girls from Umamusume.
7 “ …GoYuu are basically already together…” Satoru Gojo and Yuji Itadori are a popular ship in the anime Jujutsu Kaisen.
8 “Like the Glay two-hundred-thousand-person concert.” Hachiman is referring to Glay Expo ’99 Survival. Glay is a rock band that’s been active since 1988, too.
9 BanNam Fest (Bandai Namco Entertainment Festival), Anisama (Animelo Summer Live) and Lantis Matsuri are all otaku-related music events.
10 “…they call the first song ‘Daihatsu.’” This is a thing with Aikatsu! concerts—they play a song called “Diamond Happy” first because it can be abbreviated to “Daihatsu,” which could also mean “first thing.”
11 “…just emotional. Ah, soooo eeeee…eeeemo…” This is based on an Internet meme, what you’d originally expect from the drawn out eeeee is ero (sexy).
12 “…eating the emo-emo fruit…” This references the devil fruit from One Piece, which grant people special powers upon eating them. They’re usually called things like gomu-gomu fruit or mera-mera fruit.
13 “But it’s only me, Bump of Chicken, and people on drugs who try to see things that cannot be seen.” “Trying to see things that can’t be seen” is a line from Bump of Chicken’s song “Tentai Kansoku” (Observing heavenly bodies).
14 “…makes you feel like the protagonist of a Makoto Shinkai film. You get theme music in your head and everything.” In the original, he specifically mentions Masayoshi Yamazaki, who did the theme song “One More Time, One More Chance” for Makoto Shinkai’s film 5 Centimeters per Second.
15 “Like Vaaanilla Vanilla Vaaanilla whoo whoo sorta thing?” Vanilla is the name of a recruiting service for sex work businesses. They park their trucks in downtown areas and have barkers that call out “Vaaanillaaaaa!” In some regions, the Vanilla truck doesn’t appear, depending on local noise / public nuisance bylaws.
16 “…it’s that thing where you go “Umapyoi! Umapyoi!” in a winning live…” A winning live is the scene at the end of an Umamusume playthrough once you’re done raising your horse girl, and they do an idol-style dance with a pop song. Umapyoi is a word made up by Umamusume that means a variety of things, but it’s also in the lyrics of some of the songs and is used as a fan chant.
17 “One, two! Yeeeah, yeeeah, yeah yeah yeah!” This chant—Hai, seeno! Haaai haaai hai hai hai!—is used mostly for idol groups such as Nogizaka46, Sakurazaka46, and Hinatazaka46. They’re similar to AKB48.
18 “Whoaaa! Queeeen!” Here, Tobe actually says “Toutomi Hideyoshi,” which is a play on the word toutoi. Literally meaning “precious,” toutoi is generally used in a similar manner to the more dated moe—just a word you say about your favorite character or idol in an otaku context. Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a famous general from the Sengoku era, and using his name is just a form of net slang that was popular around the time this book was written.
19 No reply. It’s just a corpse is a standard dialogue line when investigating dead bodies in the Dragon Quest series.
20 Spelunker is a 1983 platformer, originally on the Atari. Like many games of the era, there was a lot of dying.
21 “…a radio that’s breaking down and you can’t hear anything from is somewhat preferable… Wait, if you can’t hear anything from it, that’s not breaking down. Isn’t that just broken?” This is a reference to the lyrics of the 1990 pop song by Hideaki Tokunaga, “Kowarekake no Radio.” He’s misremembering them, though, since in the song, it isn’t the radio you can’t hear anything from, but himself: “My body won’t hear anything, won’t listen to anything… Teach me true happiness, radio that’s breaking down.”
22 “Oh-hooo, verily sooo?” Ee, hontou ni gozaru kaa? is a quote from Sasaki Kojirou / Assassin in the Fate franchise.