Just speculation here (do not read warning for anyone who doesn’t like speculation ahead of the ending in mysteries🙈) — but what if the way to stay alive is to give it to someone else to watch within a week? It’s possible he was the one who lent it to the group of four who died at the beginning since they stayed there and rented a video after all.
Haha no problem! After looking further there is actually another version somewhat close to the book version but not as scary called ‘kanzenban’. Check it out if you want an impression of what it would’ve looked it! There are no spoilers as long as you don’t read the comments.
Answer to speculation: That’s interesting, actually! And a great way to wipe out the whole human race, one viewing at a time But I think we saw the caretaker’s thoughts there (which I still find strange, how we sometimes see two points of view at once in this book), and he was just reluctant to give it because he hadn’t seen it and it might be interesting, and he didn’t want the guest to record something else on it? Or was it just what Asakawa thought?
My own speculation is that the tape is someone’s fragmented memories. That person died unfairly (as a result of the last scene), and now it out for blood as a vengeful spirit. I’m guessing avenging the death or finding the body would be parts of what was erased by the commercial.
Thanks, that looked indeed fairly close to what I imagined (with bits missing, but still), and strangely compelling for something so incoherent. I had already forgotten about the dice, by the way! I’m sure they mean something important.
I finished 第三章 1-3 yesterday as per the new schedule.
So turns out this “friend” who will be helping is a serial rapist? How nice. And Asakawa hasn’t only been protecting his secret all those years, but he in fact invites him into his home, with his sleeping wife and daughter. Just perfect. The fact that he plays back the tape in his own home is bad enough - I was convinced someone would walk in and watch unnoticed. I paid extra attention to what happened to the tapes after the playback, because again I was sure one of them would be left in the VHS. Glad that’s not the case.
I’m amazed at Asakawa’s detective skills. He not only somehow got access to the names and phone numbers of everyone staying in the cabin, but he got them to answer his weird questions about what video they watched while they were there? To the point of making that lady go check for empty tape cases? I’m pretty sure I would just have hung up.
If the video was a 電波ジャック, surely some people would have watched it live by mistake? How come no one else noticed that their favourite programme was hijacked by some weird video? Not that we’d see complaints of that in social media back then of course…
Chapter 1.6
So let me get this straight. The only reason 浅川 decides to visit his sister-in-law is so that he can poke through his dead nieces stuff? And apparently he next to never looks after his kid or helps out in the kitchen? I’m not sure if I should be amused by 静’s confusion about her husbands sudden helpfulness or infuriated instead.
Am I the only one that finds the phrasing 女子高生の匂い really weird? What is that supposed to smell like? Is there a perfume that’s really popular with high school girls or something?
With how 浅川 went on about how strange it was that his daughter knew to be scared of the Oni mask I wonder if she actually sensed something supernatural? Not that fears need to be perfectly logical, but this is a story and it was explicitly mentioned as odd, which leads me to believe there is more to it than meets the eye.
Chapter 2.1
I’ve only just started this section but what are you thinking 浅川? So you don’t exactly know why those 4 died, but you decide to stay at the place you suspect caused their deaths anyway? What if it actually was a virus? Congratulations, you are now infected and going to die. It’s not like there’s a cure. Plus you might infect some other people before dying. It would be one thing if he thought that one person was infected and then spread it to the other 3 during their time there. But in that case there would be no real reason to go to all this effort in order to investigate the place, since it’s not going to tell him anything about how the first person got infected. I just don’t follow his thought process here. If someone close to him had died, ok, you might risk your life after that. But his motivations seem to be more in line with “this is interesting”, or did I miss something there? I just hope he doesn’t drag other people into a dangerous situation.
With whom he apparently didn’t have any kind of relationship anyway. Yes.
Yes, but I’m used to that by now in Japanese media. The husband works, goes to 飲み会, and comes back late or whenever. The wife does everything around the house, and has a lovely dinner ready for whenever her husband decides to appear. In fact, he almost seemed to me a tiny bit more involved than others I’ve read about. Also let’s keep in mind the book was written in the 80s.
I decided to not take it the weird way, although it’s easy to do so.
Chapter 2.1 spoilers
Yes, he’s extremely reckless. But then he’s an investigative journalist at heart, and he can’t stop when curiosity gets hold of him, I guess? He’s probably convinced it’s not a virus, and that even if it is it’s not very contagious. None of the kids’ families caught it, for example. I was more curious about what he expected to find, just staying in that room. But I guess he just followed the only clue he had and hoped for the best.
As for endangering other people, I’m in constant fear of that. With a baby in the house, I’d definitely be more careful.
Yeah, I think I’ll be siding with the vengeful spirit or whatever it is here. But I definitely don’t want it attacking the wife or daughter. They’re just innocent bystanders.
Yes? It is structured very much like a mystery story, and it has dwelled on the difficulties of finding out information before now, so how does he suddenly do all that so easily?
Discourse should mind its own business if you ask me
tbf, I have to suspend disbelief in most mystery novels as well… a lot of them rely on coincidences, people not asking the right questions and unbelievable convenient timings… so stuff like this is just like “ah, he knows this now. cool.”
Finished Chapter 3.1 - 3.3 as per the new schedule.
Is he, though? I only remember that one time. Which ofc does not make it any better but I think it is used to let us know that this dude is somehow in touch with the evil. I expect this to be very important.
Same here But he notices his wife and stops the tape in time, as it seems.
As we came to 高山 竜司. In almost the whole book the author speaks of him by using his first name 竜司, but 浅川 和行 almost always by using his family name 浅川. Does somebody maybe have an explanation for that?
My speculation is that the story is told from 浅川 point of view, and so the names would be those that 浅川 himself uses? I.e. that 竜司 is a really close friend (which he also confirms iirc).
Yeah, that is a possibility, but it does not convince me fully. There are for sure sentences like: Asakawa and Ryuuji do this and that, though I do not have one that I could cite at the moment.
After looking further there is actually another version somewhat close to the book version but not as scary called ‘kanzenban’. Check it out if you want an impression of what it would’ve looked it! There are no spoilers as long as you don’t read the comments.
But I think we saw the caretaker’s thoughts there (which I still find strange, how we sometimes see two points of view at once in this book), and he was just reluctant to give it because he hadn’t seen it and it might be interesting, and he didn’t want the guest to record something else on it? Or was it just what Asakawa thought? 
so stuff like this is just like “ah, he knows this now. cool.”
Thanks for helping me along 
