You’re so strict! I’ll do my best then…
3 Likes
hehehe, 頑張ってね
3 Likes
3 Likes
I just loaded the ebook onto my tablet and that book is thicc… 
glad there is an audiobook so I can do some hybreading. 
2 Likes
Only available on Audible JP apparently 
I don’t mind thicc books - usually they tend to be fast reads. It’s the short ones you need to be wary of. 
3 Likes
I had no idea there was an audiobook 
but it’s a fast read without. I zoomed it 
2 Likes
only came out in August of last year, so might not have been out yet, when you read it.
Yeah, it’s an audible production.
3 Likes
I finished 砂の女 and I’m ready to start this one tonight or tomorrow! 
(I hope it’s an easy read because I’m in urgent need of a confidence boost…)
5 Likes
Wow you actually finished it!! お疲れ様！I was actually joking about you finishing before we start this but I’m really glad it gave you the motivation! Now you need to make sure to watch the movie on YouTube too. 
I started reading ハサミ男 already and am at about 15% now. So far it feels like (it feels weird saying this given the type of person the narrator is) slice of life…in the life of a murderer that is.
2 Likes
I remember the office scenes had the hardest vocab for me for some reason, and they don’t take up a huge part of the book, so I think you’ll be fine 
2 Likes
ah, okay… I thought we start next week… then I will start, too. I will do some hybreading with the audiobook, probably.
3 Likes
Read the first chapter just now:
Are we in the head of the ハサミ男? Feels like it. Guess I will find out as I continue. Edit: After reading the blurp, I guess I was right. Reading blurps is helpful. 
So far, the language is really easy straightforward, but I am glad for the audiobook, so I don’t have to figure out all the place names. 
Chapter 2:
TIL that you can use desinfectant for suicide.
Chapter 3:
I am confused. Who is this 医師? An actual person? Someone he imagines? Is he schizophrenic? Did I miss something?
the 
are coming out to play.
Chapter 4:
Wouldn’t you get suspicious, if someone rings your bell, tells you they have a delivery and then never show up at your door?
Chapter 5:
Not much happens here… but we get 
shiny new scissors
10% mark. That’s good progress for today. I was hoping to finish this in about 2 weeks, so anything above 7% is great.
I like the author’s writing style. It’s straight forward but not bland, if that makes sense?
3 Likes
Chapter 6:
Can anyone explain the joke? Apparently it’s supposed to be “American”, so…
ある日本人観光客がロッキー山脈をトレッキング中、一匹の
観光客はとっさに日本古来の熊対処法を思いだし、死んだふりをすることにした。地面にあおむけに寝そべり、両手を胸の上に組んで、両目をつぶり、息を殺した。
すると、灰色熊が言った。
“Is it Zen ?”
医師は声をあげて笑ったが、わたしにはどこがおもしろいのか、さっぱりわからなかった。
くだらないアメリカンジョークをこれ以上聞かされないうちに面談を終了しようと思ったとき、医師が珍しく真顔になって、こう訊いてきた。
The doctor is back again and I still don’t know if this is a real person or not.
Chapter 7:
Filler chapter. 
3 Likes
Ok I didn’t get why this was funny either and my understanding of “American jokes” from a Japanese perspective is that they’re very in-your-face dumb jokes 
But someone asked about it on 知恵袋 and I’ve screenshot the top answer since I know it’s not available in the EU:
Not really spoiling anything there, but just in case 
edit: Oh, I guess an American Joke can also mean a sarcastic one? In which case I sorta get this, but it’s still not funny
Also I mentioned this to @Biblio privately already, but I’m going to avoid answering any plot comprehension questions because I don’t want to inadvertently spoil anything
4 Likes
I thought it was about as funny as the first one, which is not particularly funny at all, but it does poke fun at the joke’s “protagonist”. In the first joke, the person isn’t sincere in their death wish at all, which is why they’re leaving the door open so they can be saved. In the second joke, the assumption is I think that it’s only Japanese people who believe that playing dead will save you from a bear attack. The American bear hasn’t seen such a reaction before, so is curious about what’s going on, and thinks it may be an Asian practice as the person is a Japanese tourist. At no point is this bear, or any other, fooled into thinking the person is dead, but in this case, maybe a conversation about cultural differences may save the tourist after all. Or not. It just pokes fun at the tourist’s foolishness.
Read up to chapter 6 so far. I really like the writing and the subtle dark humour. I’m very curious about the narrator - we don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman at this point. I’m pretty certain the doctor is a hallucination of some sort, as he only appears at very specific moments and does nothing but make sarcastic comments. But I guess we’ll see.
4 Likes
so I’m not sure of the intention in the joke, but Americans are also taught to play dead, specifically with brown bears. There’s a rhyme I was taught at some point. “Black, fight back. Brown, lay down. White, good night”. It basically means that you can scare off a black bear by being aggressive, you play dead with a brown bear, and if for some reason you come across a polar bear… Well, accept your fate.
2 Likes
I’ve heard of this method too, so it’s definitely not Japan-exclusive, but whoever made the joke doesn’t need to know that. The impression I got is that they thought it’s a Japan-only myth. And I think the bear was grey if I remember correctly?
We’re probably overanalysing it in any case
3 Likes
those are the cute small ones you mostly get in Japan. But up north apparently they have nasty brown ones that kill people every year. (Or so I have been told by Sapporo residents… bears have been making their way into Sapporo in recent years.)
3 Likes
Chapter 8:
We have a corpse .
and apparently, I have now reached chapter 1? The numbering in this book is a bit odd.
第一章:
マルサイ is basically Criminal Minds: Japan
Ah, I see… the numbers and 章 are 2 different perspectives. なるほど.
3 Likes
Chapter 8: Ooh, the plot thickens! I had been suspecting that the narrator is not really the murderer, but apparently it’s only this latest murder that was committed by someone else? The easy assumption would be that it was our unreliable narrator who did it but somehow completely blanked out, but what about the two scissors? And what’s this thing at the girl’s feet there at the end? Very intriguing.
3 Likes
