An attempt to throw them off the scent?

The visual non-sequitur of Wo-Class clinging to Kiso amuses me. Also, it's cute.

Steak said:

An attempt to throw them off the scent?

More to throw the scent off them, so to speak.

Also, can anyone make out what's on the signboard for the building? I know the first part is 多摩, and I think the last character is 産, but second half overall is too small and blurry for me to be sure, even with Waifu2x's help.

Moonspeaker said:

The visual non-sequitur of Wo-Class clinging to Kiso amuses me. Also, it's cute.

More to throw the scent off them, so to speak.

Also, can anyone make out what's on the signboard for the building? I know the first part is 多摩, and I think the last character is 産, but second half overall is too small and blurry for me to be sure, even with Waifu2x's help.

Google Tranlsate says those are "Tama" and "production" respectively, so....

...."Tama's Factory," perhaps? Might depend on the kanji between 多摩 and 産

Third one looks like either an independent 火 or the fire radical.

Edit:
Wait, hang on, 多摩水産？ Tama Fisheries? Oddly, there's a school with that exact same name (not a fishery though), and an actual Tama Fisheries company but with 但馬 instead of 多摩.

If the sign says 多摩火産 , it should probably be something like "Tama's (Industrial) Furnace"

That said, I'll leave the actual translations to someone who learned Japanese somewhere more prestigious than East Saint Louis Upstairs Linguistics School And Lawnmower Rentals.

Cliff_Edge said:

Google Tranlsate says those are "Tama" and "production" respectively, so....

...."Tama's Factory," perhaps? Might depend on the kanji between 多摩 and 産

Cliff_Edge said:

If the sign says 多摩火産 , it should probably be something like "Tama's (Industrial) Furnace"

That's... not really how Japanese kanji work. 水産 can mean fisheries because it can also be short for 水産業, but most ?産 words don't refer to a place of production; instead they mean the production of something, or something being produced, or the state of production of something. You can't just tack X + "Production" to get "factory" or "Fire" + "Production" to get "furnace". They have to be preexisting* words.

(Most of the time. Academia/technology and scifi/fantasy fiction being notable exceptions because they have to come up with new words all the time.)

NNescio said:

Third one looks like either an independent 火 or the fire radical.

Edit:
Wait, hang on, 多摩水産？ Tama Fisheries? Oddly, there's a school with that exact same name (not a fishery though), and an actual Tama Fisheries company but with 但馬 instead of 多摩.

It's feasible, and I'd considered it, but the last two kanji were still too blurry for me to be sure enough to use it in a note. If someone with better eyes/image enhancement tools can confirm it, or we get a reasonable consensus, I'll go with that.

Edit: I took a fresh look at it today and was able to discern 水産 after all, so I guess I'm my own consensus.