It's probably just my inexperience, but "お疲れ様" seems like an odd way to greet someone coming home from school, so I've left that bubble open.

Also seems odd that everybody else has been "normalized", but Koakuma still has her head wings. Then again, she'd be pretty much impossible to identify without them...

Tetrominon said:
It's probably just my inexperience, but "お疲れ様" seems like an odd way to greet someone coming home from school, so I've left that bubble open.

I was wondering about that. It's not something usually seen in Western culture, to be sure, greeting someone by essentially thanking them for an assumed amount of hard work. I took a stab at it, but it might not be quite the same.

perhaps Patchy is thanking Koakuma for continuing to pick her up after school?

In a way I believe that this could be considered as 'going out of your way' and thus, "hard work".
that's at least what I think of the situation.

in this story, from the black limo, I guessed their relationship as

patche = daughter of a high-class family
koakuma = her chauffeur

in spite of her class, patche goes the ordinary public school.
so koakuma may see it as a burden or something.
"お疲れ様" is aprreciation for her work.

... do I think too much?

It's a standard greeting towards someone who spent intense effort to express gratitude, appreciation or sympathy, depending on the context.
There is no generic equivalent in English. The usage is very similar to "Thank you for your hard work", except that the speaker does not have to have been direct witness of the said work, and does not have to be a beneficiary of it. Another subtlety is that the expression does not emphasis on the work itself, but the amount of effort put into it. Put together, he expression means the following: "I am appreciative of the amount of effort you put into doing what you have been doing."

ikke said:
perhaps Patchy is thanking Koakuma for continuing to pick her up after school?

In a way I believe that this could be considered as 'going out of your way' and thus, "hard work".
that's at least what I think of the situation.

sakuma said:
in this story, from the black limo, I guessed their relationship as

patche = daughter of a high-class family
koakuma = her chauffeur

in spite of her class, patche goes the ordinary public school.
so koakuma may see it as a burden or something.
"お疲れ様" is aprreciation for her work.

The trouble with both of these approaches is that the "お疲れ様" is Koakuma addressing Patchouli.

Moonspeaker said:
The trouble with both of these approaches is that the "お疲れ様" is Koakuma addressing Patchouli.

sakuma meant that Koakuma might see it as a burden for Patchouli to have to mingle with the proletariat.

All I could think of was the possibility that Patchouli is actually a librarian and the お疲れ様 was a typical end-of-work valediction, but she has a school uniform and is leaving at the same time as the rest of the students, so that's probably not it.

It's probably her arm, but it looks like Patchy's seat belt is tucked into her shirt and coming out the other side.

Zaku_Zelo said:
It's probably her arm, but it looks like Patchy's seat belt is tucked into her shirt and coming out the other side.

Hah, you're right. Looks like the wrong layer got pulled "up."

EDIT: Oooh, wait, I get it. She has her hands in her lap with v-arms. That's her hair behind the seatbelt. Sheesh, monochrome...

Told you she was going to have a harem ~da ze.

Tetrominon said:
Also seems odd that everybody else has been "normalized", but Koakuma still has her head wings. Then again, she'd be pretty much impossible to identify without them...

Earlier on, Reisen was shown and still had her ears. It looks like just back-wings and tails were omitted.