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The sentence is taken from a manga in which the character kills people at a TV station in order to threaten the world :

おはよう世界の諸君...これからほんのわずかな時間だけ...

Hello (ladies and gentlemen of the) world... for only a very short time...

テレビにおジャマさせてもらう事にした。

???

The first thing I'm not sure about is if テレビに is the agent of もらう and something like お前たちを is implicit: I received the favor from the television to let me disturb you.

The second is　the combination of させてもらう and 事にする which to my understanding means "decide to" : is it a way of being ironic? like I decided the TV would kindly let me (kill them and) disturb you guys.

Thanks for your help.

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  • As far as I know ことにした is neutral. “～させてもらう” means “(you) please let me do”, but is often (arguable wrongly) used as a humble(謙譲語) or polite (丁寧語) way to say “I will do”. It doesn't need to be ironic, but in this context, the speaker might be a little 慇懃無礼.
    – Yang Muye
    Apr 1, 2014 at 20:37

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「これからほんのわずかな時間だけ... テレビにおジャマさせてもらう事にした。」

The agent of もらう is the speaker, not television. The speaker is the one who wants to be the receiver of a favor. (In this case, he wants to make himself be the receiver of a favor by force.)

There is no 「お[前]{まえ}たちを」 implied anywhere in this sentence. Is that used in another place in the same context? The thing is this person's speech style is actually fairly polite, so a derogatory word like 「お前たち」 would not fit in. I wonder if it is possible that your knowledge of the story is making you see things that are not in the actual text.

「～～させてもらう」 means "to take the liberty of doing ~~". It is not that the speaker was asked to make an appearance on TV, is it?

"I have decided to take the liberty of interrupting you all on TV for a few seconds."

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  • Hmm, I'm not sure I get it, do you mean that the speaker is both the subject and the agent? (I'm not sure I'm using the right english terms here, by agent I mean B in Aは/が　Bに/から　V-てもらう : A benefits from B's action, hence B is called "agent" in french, and A "grammatical subject"). Also, I didn't know させてもらう meant "to take the liberty of doing", is it always the case?
    – Alox
    Apr 1, 2014 at 22:59
  • And yeah, 「お前たちを」 was a bad choice of word, what I meant is that 「おじゃまする」 must have an implicit direct object 「諸君を」？ that you have in your translation too : "interrupting YOU ALL". Or maybe it's interrupting the TV? I don't really get the function of テレビに if it's not the "agent" of おじゃまさせてもらう... Sorry to bother you with all this questions
    – Alox
    Apr 1, 2014 at 23:02
  • OK, my comments are confusing, here is how I understand the construction, please tell me where I'm wrong : 「Bが Cを 邪魔する」 : B disturbs/interrupts C 　 　　　　　 「Aが　Bに　Cを　邪魔させる」 : A makes/lets B disturb/interrupt C 　　　　　　 「Aに　Bが　Cを　邪魔させてもらう」 : B Benefits from the fact that A makes/lets him disturb C. And in my mind, Aに　was 「テレビに」, Bが was the speaker and Cを was the implicit 「諸君を」 I was refering to (using 「お前たちを」 improperly)...
    – Alox
    Apr 1, 2014 at 23:33
  • @Alox:(Somebody please correct me if I am wrong but) I think TN's translation makes it clear that テレビに indicates the location where the disturbance is taking place, ie on people's TVs. The に not marking the object or agent. (And I think it is に not で because you "appear" on TV, as in 「テレビに出る」）
    – Tim
    Apr 2, 2014 at 1:55

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