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In _Joshiraku_ , Marii enters the room dressed as a
[Yankee](http://yanki.urbanup.com/2909634), proclaiming that she's gonna break
a load of windows since it's a full moon. Tetora responds with:

![Tetora, with motorcycle in the background; subtitled "Marii, it might be a
full moon night, but it's not the
fifteenth."](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ltDpIl.jpg)

What's the significance of the 15th and why would she break a load of windows?


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japanese-language joshiraku
What's significant about a full moon on the fifteenth?


This is conjecture on my part, but it probably has to do with the differences
in the Western and Eastern Calendars. The western Gregorian calendar is solar
based, whereas the eastern calendar is lunar based.

This is important, and answers your question because the lunar calendar is
based on the phases of the moon. The 15th of the lunar calendar is when the
moon is full.

So based on that, she was probably saying that the moon is full, but going by
the western calendar, its not the 15th.

Its either that, or they _are_ going by the lunar calendar, and so going by
the calendar, the moon is not completely full, yet. Another explanation would
be there is something significant about the 15th in the anime, but I have no
idea what that might be.


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answer


The dialogue here goes:

> で、窓硝子はどこだい？  
>  So, where are the windows?
>
> なぜ？  
>  Why do you ask?
>
> 壊して回るんだよ。  
>  I'm going to go around breaking them.
>
> 魔梨威さん、十五夜と十五の夜は違うから。  
>  Marii, it might be a full moon night, but it's not the fifteenth.

The last quoted line is the one depicted in your screenshot. There's a
difficult-to-capture joke in this sequence, which I will nonetheless try to
capture below.

Here, 十五夜【じゅうごや】 (character-by-character "fifteen-night") is translated as
"full moon night". It literally just means "full moon". This originated as a
reference to the lunar calendar, but now is just an ordinary synonym for "full
moon".

十五【じゅうご】の夜【よる】 (the same thing with the genitive particle の interposed) is
translated as "the fifteenth". A more direct interpretation of this, however,
would be "a night at the age of fifteen" (an age when people are prone to
["Yankee"](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapaneseDelinquents)
antics).1 The joke, then, originates from the fact that 十五の夜 ( _Juugo no Yoru_
) is also the name of [an 80s
song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pshjQzqGynE), the debut single of popular
singer OZAKI Yutaka, and one that has great affection for the Yankee
ideology/ethos. The song's chorus reads:

> 盗んだバイクで走り出す 行き先も解らぬまま  
>  暗い夜の帳りの中へ  
>  誰にも縛られたくないと 逃げ込んだこの夜に  
>  自由になれた気がした 15の夜

Translated loosely as prose:

> Riding the bike I stole, I dash off into the curtains of the dark night,
> knowing not where I'm headed. I don't want anyone to chain me down as I run
> off into the night, feeling free at last - the night of the fifteenth.

This is why Tetora's backdrop changes from a full moon (十五夜) to a guy riding a
bike when she says 十五の夜.

* * *

Alternate possibility (and probably a more likely one): Marii's lines could be
a reference to a _different_ Ozaki Yutaka song: 卒業【そつぎょう】 ( _sotsugyou_ ,
"Graduation"; [lyrics](http://j-lyric.net/artist/a000ee6/l004f70.html)), which
contains the following line:

> 夜の校舎 窓ガラス壊してまわった  
>  I went around the school building, breaking all the windows.

* * *

Note also that Gankyou's line a few seconds later may be related:

> つまらない大人にはなりたくないね。  
>  I don't want to become a boring adult.

This is an almost-direct quotation of the penultimate line from the song
ガラスのジェネレーション ("Glass Generation"), by [SANO
Motoharu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoharu_Sano), on his album "Heart
Beat" ([lyrics](https://www.moto.co.jp/works/songs/HeartBeat.html)).

> つまらない大人には なりたくない  
>  (same as above, but without the concluding interjectory particle ね)

* * *

# Notes

For more information about Joshiraku obscurata, see [vale's translation
notes](http://notredrevie.ws/2012/08/09/joshiraku-04-notes-and-the-like/).

1 This is probably an elision of the construction 十五歳【じゅうごさい】の夜【よる】, and is
literary or poetic in nature.


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