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どっちの太郎が好き？

どっちも太郎で太郎焼とかぶっちゃう

I can't grasp the meaning of the second sentence. Particularly, I don't understand how the particles で (which I usually understand as 'by means of') and と (usually a conjunction) are being used. I would expect と to be in between the two nouns being coupled together, but in this case it is before the verb, and 太郎 doesn't seem to be any 'means to an action'.

I suppose it is a pun about 太郎 being a common name and 太郎焼, a specialty from Kawaguchi (website). But I'm far from understanding the meaning.

I think I'm wrong about that. Maybe 太郎 is another sweet, different from 太郎焼? Although I can't find it.

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  • Did you check what "かぶる" means?
    – sundowner
    Jun 16, 2022 at 21:35
  • @sundowner it has a lot of different meanings. I'm confident here it means "to be similar" because in the context of those sentences it had been used before where that meaning was the only one that made sense.
    – blundered_bishop
    Jun 16, 2022 at 22:02
  • I think it might be something like this: 'Both (of those) Tarou are similar to Tarouyaki"
    – blundered_bishop
    Jun 16, 2022 at 22:04
  • 1
    related: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/74769/…
    – lc.
    Jun 17, 2022 at 3:47

1 Answer 1

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Simply put, で is not a particle but a te-form of だ. と means with. So Both are Taros and かぶる with Taroyaki.

かぶる means a number of things and you are correct in that it is close to "similar", but it is something totally different from 似ている, most common word for "similar".

大辞泉 definition:

同じようなものがそろう。重複する。「キャラが―・る」「保護者会でAさんと洋服が―・ってしまう」「前の人と発言内容が―・る」

Some examples

  • あの人と服がかぶった My clothes happened to be the same as hers.
  • AさんとBさんはキャラがかぶっている A-san and B-san have the same characters.

The basic implication of かぶ(ってい)る is that something duplicates/is indistinguishably similar and confusing/conflicting/awkward.

I'm not sure of the contexts, but I assume the sentence in question just says that there are two persons named 太郎 and it is (sort of) confusing with or reminiscent of 太郎焼き. (It is also possible that there is just one 太郎, but a food named 太郎 is not likely.)

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  • Thanks for the thorough answer. The context is exactly like the first one you assumed: there are two things named 太郎 and the person saying the 2nd sentence thinks they are too similar to　太郎焼. But the page (it's manga) shows two other snacks which are called 太郎, that are different from 太郎焼.
    – blundered_bishop
    Jun 17, 2022 at 11:47
  • This is not relevant to the question anymore, but for curiosity, this is a screenshot of the first question, and pictured are the snacks: imgur.com/8Q7bSbP
    – blundered_bishop
    Jun 17, 2022 at 11:49
  • @blundered_bishop Hmm it is possible that the characters on the package are 太郎, though not very sure. There is a real snack called キャベツ太郎.
    – sundowner
    Jun 17, 2022 at 13:52

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