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S01E02 Miyuki gives advice to Tsubasa Tanuma. Part of the advice includes the 'kabe-down', an original invention of Miyuki.

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Wait no actually as Kaguya points out it's something that's been around forever, and it's called kabedon (壁ドン [かべドン]).

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This particular translation of 'kabedon' is 'wall slam'. [I read on wiktionary that don (ドン) is actually literally an onomatopoeia (hence why katakana instead of hiragana or kanji is used I guess), but whatever.] Ok so what's the katakana (or hiragana/kanji?) for the 'down' in 'kabedown' ? Is it just ダウン (daun)? But in this case why is ダウン = slap ?

кяαzєя
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2 Answers2

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It is ダァン (e.g. source), which is an onomatopoeia similar to ドン. The difference is, ダァン is a prolonged sound and as such a bit stronger. Possibly a better comparison would be the other way around: ダァン/ドン = Slam/Slap, but slam seems already taken, hence the current translation (slap would be too weak for either anyway, I suppose). Here you can think ダァン is used simply because the author wanted the same thing as ダン but slightly different.

In general, difference of using hiragana/katakana for onomatopoeia is rather subtle. Although I don't think authors use them with much intention, looking at the One Piece usage of どーん, hiragana is used for 'effect sound' and katakana for the actual sound (cannon, guns etc.). The ダァン is consistent with this.

sundowner
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To supplement sundowner's answer:

  1. The live action seems to confirm this as kabedaan (壁ダァン).

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  1. Just search ダァン in google. Like you don't have to search 壁ダァン. Just ダァン is enough. Lol.
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