When commenting, please refer to the chapter numbers below.
Chapter
Start Page
Chaper Name
1
9
二十二歳の秋
2
17
やまない黄砂
3
29
エントリーシートと白いスニーカー
4
40
パーソナリティクライシス
5
50
共食い
6
60
レモンの甘味
7
71
胎動
8
82
バース オブ ザ シェパード
9
93
M
10
103
割れた豆腐の白
11
114
鬼王
12
124
運命
13
133
インターン初日
14
143
二重螺旋
15
152
ライオンと花畑
16
162
最終面接
17
172
カラスの群れと二本の海老
18
182
戻るべき場所、行くべき場所
19
193
美津子
We’re planning to start reading this book on Dec 1st, 2023. This is an informal club, meaning that there is no fixed schedule. So, feel free to read at your own pace and comment as you like. If you can’t join in at the official start and would like to join in later as well, that’s no problem! This thread will still exist and any participants will be happy to discuss the book with you later on.
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Are you planning to read チュベローズで待ってる AGE22 with the club?
Started the book this morning and it’s a really fast read! Already read through the end of chapter 3!
My random comments and ツッコミ about the story so far:
Chapter 1
Oh, the first sentence of the book is talking about barf. Nice. Is it possible to just randomly get scouted to be a host like that? I guess it could be.
Chapter 2
Protags family and 就活 situation seems quite tragic, why would his gf go and order the steak menu at the ファミレス?! So insensitive! I guess a round of relations before you let your little sister come sleep in the same spot where you just got it on I will fix everything. Also his little sisters name “芽々” is giving me キラキラ vibes! Is that a common name?
Chapter 3
Finally we are into the host club! Protagonist seems a bit boring but we all have a hard time at a new job. I don’t know anything about hosts but I was surprised to find out they dress rather casually (as opposed to wearing suits). Maybe the appeal is just talking to a young, casual guy? Can’t say I understand anything about why people go to host clubs though.
No worries at all! Fingers crossed you get it quickly. It’s a fun read so far!
I would also like to go just once to see if they are really that good at talking and find out what the appeal is…but I would never go in alone! Let’s just arrange to be in Japan at the same time one day and go together to find out haha!!
Was busy for a few days but am getting back into the book now…
Chapters 4, 5, 6
Read these a few days ago but I found it weird how 光太 just gets kidnapped by his colleagues, threatened, and then nothing else happens?! Is that gonna come up again??
I found the explanation about how hosts have to throw up multiple times during the night to survive all the drinking they need to do interesting. I always wondered how hosts/hostesses/水商売 jobs that required drinking do it if they don’t have a high tolerance and I guess now I know.
Chapter 7
Uh-oh, 亜夢 stole the money and 雫 is in debt. Is the plan ミサキ and 雫 had to open a new shop ever going to happen now? Seems like a bunch of things waiting to go horribly wrong tbh.
Chapter 8
I was wondering why this chapter was called “Birth of the Shepherd” and then I got to the end where he made 美津子 make sheep noises and was like え？ You feel bad? Bleat for me like a sheep then. Very random but comical. Imagine the 面接官 who failed you for no reason showing up in your life all full of remorse. Can’t wait to see how this develops.
Chapter 9
The fact he hasn’t told his girlfriend what he’s doing as a バイト yet also seems like something waiting to go horribly wrong? It seems 光太 is getting a taste for money, though.
Chapter 10
Bruh… did you really need to have sex with her? This chapter was all kinds of weird. I get 美津子 feels guilty and responsible but ugh. Plus, he just cheated on his girlfriend with basically zero hesitation- yikes.
Chapter 11
It seems like 雫 is falling from grace and the host club rankings, uh-oohhh. Will someone please think of the unborn child?! On a serious note though, the course of his downward spiral is a little unclear to me? 亜夢 stole the money and 雫 got left with the debt and yelled at by パパ in front of everyone and has the stress of ミサキ being pregnant + wanting to improve his life on top of that… but I am left wanting some more supporting details and insight into his mental state and why he is now sitting around drunk out of his mind and spilling red wine all over himself. Let’s not pretend that this novel actually has great characterization though.
So far it is quite spectacular how basically no character in the entire book has made a single good decision in any scenario so far. I must say, despite its flaws, this book is quite a fast read and I am entertained by it so far. Let’s see what else goes down in the second half!
Always coming through with the documentaries! I watched the first quarter or so to start with, and it was crazy how good the first host is at stringing his clients along that a relationship might be possible. Will finish the rest later, since it was pretty interesting!
I finished the book today and…wow, lots happened. Kind of don’t even know where to begin…
Random thoughts from chapters 12 through the end
Warning: Rambling thought dump incoming
Ok we have the introduction of Machiavellianism - the psychology of that is pretty compatible with host life and the actions of the main character so it was somewhat interesting and kind of added a guiding thread supporting 光太s actions in the last chapters. Although, the fact he beat 雫 up felt out of character (and I didn’t appreciate how the author just covered that up by 光太 himself being like “this is so out of character for me, I am not myself rn lul” as he was doing it).
I guess the fact he missed the second day of his internship was needed for the dramatic final interview scenes where he dropped Machiavelli truth bombs all over the 面接官 in a “that happened” moment (can I just say, I would never want to work at a company that pulls what they did in an interview, though?! Plus, I felt like his motivations for wanting to work there at any cost were really unclear… the only explanation was that his little sister likes video games and because he failed the DDL interview the year prior he wanted to pass the AIDA one… that’s great and all, but won’t it be awkward working there now especially since 美津子 is dead? There is no way the company doesn’t know about that lol).
美津子 committing suicide at the end felt a bit anticlimactic and obvious - where did he think she was getting the money?! I guess he didn’t think hahaha. I found myself completely unaffected by it, since 美津子 was rather 存在感が薄い as a character throughout the entire novel. I also did not really find the fact 光太 liked her very credible, but alas.
This was my first book by 加藤シゲアキ and overall it was a fun and entertaining read. There were points where I didn’t find the actions of the characters very believable or the flow of the plot very natural, which made his writing a bit lacking overall. I think if he had developed the characters further and shown insight into their psychological state, things would have fallen into place a bit better and the novel would have had more intrinsic momentum (if that makes sense). Since that was missing and some of the characters barely talked or felt like little more than cardboard cutouts there to advance the plot, I found that the urgency and tension were not really there when they should have been. However, I was very entertained throughout and think he has great potential as an author. The overall story line, the set up, the edgy descriptors and imagery, and the interactions between the characters (when they did talk) all worked pretty well and he has an eye for what makes books from this genre entertaining. I’d be happy to read more books from him in the future to see if he grows as a writer!
Since volume 1 kind of ended on a cliffhanger and I already own volume 2, I am going to read ahead to see what happens next!
It was fun reliving the book through your posts! I was about to suggest you go on to read volume 2, but I see you’re already planning to do it. The first part is a bit of a slog, but after that… I’ll be eagerly waiting for your updates
I’m glad you enjoyed revisiting the book! I won’t post as many thoughts about the individual chapters since this thread is technically just for volume 1, but I shall definitely follow up with my final thoughts.
(Apologies in advance as this was typed in mobile so there may be typos)
︎ 光太 is suddenly supposed to be this elite genius within his company even though in the first book he failed 就活? Far-fetched to say the least. It was kind of explained that 美津子 groomed/tutored him but just no. ︎ Why were there suddenly made up technologies and light sci-fi elements? I get that it was in the future but the fact we got from a book about hosts to this felt kind of hilarious and clumsy. ︎ In addition to the sci-fi stuff, it became this big mystery thing where no mystery even existed in the first place. The yakuza connections in the first 1/3 felt shoehorned in as a way to involve the host characters again and also show that the company no longer did awful interviews and that 八千草 is a good guy but it was unnecessary and took up too many pages. ︎ In addition to that plot, the plot of his little sister disappearing and becoming a hostess because she resents him was nonsense, and after it was over it wasn’t addressed and he still didn’t even go back to his home or have a relationship with her! Like, lol what was the point? ︎ Further to the points above, book was so interested in being action-packed that we barely got any character development or 心理描写. We got a few back stories of the characters as an attempt to flesh them out, but how did they feel during the story? How did the main character even feel?! Characterization was just bad bad bad. ︎ It was full of horrible similes and metaphors. I found the ones in the first volume charming at times, but now I was straight up cringing. My favorite was this one when 八千草 and ユースケ were fighting and 八千草 gets his glasses and earpiece knocked off: 「何もつけていない彼の顔を見るのは初めてで、皮を剥かれた鶏のような生々しさがそこにはあった」。It literally made me groan and then read it out loud to my husband, who also ended up laughing. I guess it makes sense it sounds so dramatic if you know what happens next, but at that point I didn’t so it just felt silly. ︎ 八千草 IS A PUPPET BEING CONTROLLED BY HIS BROTHER? Or “played” if you will since this book is kind of about video games? It’s the ultimate role play game? When his brother has romantic relations, he can feel it too? 美津子 had no problem with any of that? What? What?!? Just no. How did we get from a book about hosts to this?! ︎ 美津子 groomed 光太 for some revenge on puppet master brother? No lol, none of this makes sense. ︎ The mystery of her suicide is that she killed herself because she loved 光太 and wanted to die at her happiest moment? The entire scene with her hologram message felt like nonsense. She barely talked in the first book so it was hard for me to imagine that character saying all those things. ︎ If you know anything about game development (or have worked any office job in your life tbh), everything about the company parts of the storyline feel like made up nonsense. This really dragged the book down.
TLDR version: very poor characterization, writing felt juvenile and clumsy at some points, the オチ was insane, the mystery conclusion was also insane, all the different genre elements he included felt sloppy, he did no research.
I just came here for the hosts, how did we end up here?!
Is it possible to just randomly get scouted to be a host like that? I guess it could be. 
Also his little sisters name “芽々” is giving me キラキラ vibes! Is that a common name? 
My eyes might have been bigger than my stomach for this advent. 
You feel bad? Bleat for me like a sheep then. Very random but comical. Imagine the 面接官 who failed you for no reason showing up in your life all full of remorse. Can’t wait to see how this develops. 
I watched the first quarter or so to start with, and it was crazy how good the first host is at stringing his clients along that a relationship might be possible. 
︎ 光太 is suddenly supposed to be this elite genius within his company even though in the first book he failed 就活? Far-fetched to say the least. It was kind of explained that 美津子 groomed/tutored him but just no.