🍭 ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 👵 이상한 과자 가게 전천당 🍬 Offshoot Book Club

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This is the informal offshoot book club for the ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 series. The first volume was read as a Children’s Book Club pick, and for those who want to continue reading and discussing the series, you can do so here. As it’s an informal club, we don’t have a reading schedule, so you can read at your own pace. :smiling_face:

Book Club Links
Book Club 🥳 Children's Book Club 📚 [Next vote: Oct 19]
Home Thread 🍭 ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 👵 이상한 과자 가게 전천당 🍬 Home Thread
Japanese Series ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 | L24
Korean Series 이상한 과자 가게 전천당 | L22

Participants

Make a home post to track links to your notes on each book. Add yours here!

name home post
mitrac Home
soggyboy Home

Discussion Guidelines

  • Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
  • When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
  • Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
  • If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.

Polls :bar_chart:

Will you be reading along with us?
  • Yes! :heart_eyes:
  • Maybe… :thinking:
  • No :cry:
0 voters
I have finished…
  • volume 1
  • volume 2
  • volume 3
  • volume 4
  • volume 5
  • volume 6
  • volume 7
  • volume 8
  • volume 9
  • volume 10
0 voters
I have finished…
  • volume 11
  • volume 12
  • volume 13
  • volume 14
  • volume 15
  • volume 16
  • volume 17
  • volume 18
  • volume 19
  • volume 20
0 voters
I have finished…
  • 1 The official guidebook
  • 2 The 天獄園 spin-off
  • 3 The 招き猫 book
0 voters
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I am having double-vision. :eyes: Is that a me issue?

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How odd! The page is displaying normally for me - you might have caught it mid-sync? I noticed the more recent volumes were missing, so I queued it for sync a little while ago. :thinking:

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:cupcake: mitrac’s Zenitendo home post :cupcake:

Thanks for starting this thread!

So… I absolutely love these books and started Book 2 right away after the club finished book 1 and just kept going.

Guidebook

I love the guidebook and use it with 3 bookmarks for the various sweet atlases, referencing them after reading each chapter. I wrote a review here to help other people navigate the guidebook without spoilers!

Book 2

Prologue

hhmmm I’m liking how the world is widening and I’m really curious if we’re going to hear any stories about how these capsules work out. But I’m a little confused - the idea of people coming in the shop is that Beniko selects something for them specifically, if they get a capsule from a machine, is there some mechanism that what they get fulfills their desire? I guess I’ll have to wait and see

Ch 1

oooh, so a really unconventional one. On the character: So far there has been an implicit moral high ground, and yet here we see her helping a thief to do it better! or is that a tricky way of making sure the (ending spoiler) police officer / detective gets his big break? This makes me very curious about who is setting the rules here of what is a good fortune?

Ch 2

OMG maybe my favourite one so far!!! I absolutely loved this :star_struck: ち先生 is just so cute and I love how she (progression part) just innocently tries so hard to help everyone.

Ch 3 and 4 comments

Ch 5

Is this our first recurring character? I love the twist with the beautician now trying so hard to find Beniko.

I’m not a big fan of revenge themes, so one thing I liked about this one was that once the MC realised that his actions with the sweet had a real-life impact he burned it to avoid the temptation of doing it again, or of someone else finding it.

This one surprised me, coming from Beniko’s shop, as it seemed to be a sweet that fit her interests a bit more than her customer’s…

Ch 6 was one of my favourites, I just haven’t written it up yet.

Book 3

Ch 1 comments

Comments about よどみ spanning Books 3-4

Book 4

Prologue

I love the start here with the scheming Yodomi. It took me the second read to get that she has a way to spy on Beniko

ヤマ缶詰

In the above link for general book 4 comments there were some notes. I was surprised how dark this one ended

ウルフまんじゅう

Felt most like a children’s story in the whole series, I didn’t care much for this one.

眠れませんベイ

I love the perspective shifts on this one. I could guess the girl had a secret sweet super power but it was fun that Beniko’s sweet was incidental for the main part of the story. The guy doesn’t find Beniko, but rather gets a sweet from Yodomi. I like how it turns out the solution to his sleepless nights later is to use the small print on Beniko’s sweet to make it so that both of them get the effect of Yodomi’s and a happily ever after. Surprise!

ゴブリンチョコエッグ

I like how innocent the little girl is, making so many mistakes with the goblin.
It’s so believable how hard that would be to give the goblin something you value, great idea. I also like how she gives up on the goblin but doesn’t feel like she can throw it away. Her solution is so sweet to give it to the unwitting neighbour who will profit from it massively without knowing why. Love this one

虫歯あられ

Holy smokes the darkest ending yet right? That was grim

🌈 虹色水あめ + epilogue 💥

This story was the toughest one in a while for me, regarding language difficulty. I love how this one develops and the focus on repairing the relationship at the end instead of revenge. The hard part for me was the end when Yodomi appears.

Woah, so at the end we got more world building and story development here than ever!

  • We find out there are rules, so Yodomi shouldn’t interfere with Beniko’s customers’ actions.

  • And, major news, finally, why does Beniko do what she does? I really like this angle and how it develops our unfolding understanding of her motives. In book 1 I started by thinking she wanted them to have good fortune but was a bit silly in her implementation. And she’s not totally neutral, she definitely wants them to have good fortune, but she doesn’t ensure it which puzzled me. And here we find out why. She’s interested in human nature, what do people do with their lucky chance?

  • It also makes more sense why they can only come once - they would behave differently and with more cunning after round 1 and she wouldn’t see as much of the pure human nature.

  • Now, why does she have to draw the coin that determines the customer? I didn’t see a big connection there. Perhaps it’s part of the magic that enables her to use the coin to find out the “ending” ie whether the outcome is good fortune (coin becomes golden cat) or misfortune (coin becomes misfortune bug)

  • Beniko isn’t enthusiastic about this competition with Yodomi, but Yodomi is a sore loser. This is no longer a rivalry or competition, Yodomi wants to ruin Beniko now, oops! I love how Beniko is like, I guess I should be careful, even though I’d rather design sweets. And then she immediately gets distracted with sweets :sweat_smile:

Book 5

Book 5 - great fun with the world building. Stories 3 and 5 my favourite so far. Ch 1-2 a bit middling.

Prologue

Love the mystery of Beniko realising she’s been robbed and scrambling to figure out where the items ended up. I’ve been hoping for more of her vending machine and capsule stories so I’m very interested where this goes. In particular, what are the connotations of her not choosing the customer who gets the sweet/ item?

Ch 1 新品ピン

I really liked the premise here and the youngest child getting second hand everything was so realistic! I enjoyed it for the most part and found it sweet that June helps his sister, but then the ending seemed rather contrived to me, with the pin changing function completely if you lent it to someone. It just seemed needlessly contrived to make the ending look nice. On the other hand, I guess in terms of Beniko’s original aim to get a peak at human nature, then the pin’s rules are interesting. If you benefit from the pin you would feel bad for anyone who didn’t have it, yet sharing it means losing it’s magic forever. That would be an interesting study in human behaviour, how do people use it that leads to good fortune vs misfortune.

Ch 2 おじょうさま

Well, what can I say, I read it in one go because the premise of poor girl wanting rich man was rather shallow and I didn’t hugely enjoy it. Although at least the ending tries to redeem the shallow nature by showing the view of the boyfriend, his abrupt departure leaving her the apartment was rather contrived and felt like what you expect from a children’s book (fortunately not the norm in this series). So I was overall disappointed.

A permanent refined nature is an interesting idea for a sweet, and my favourite part was the enterprising man who sold the cola based on the amount he knew he could get, lol. 10,000 yen! That made me laugh as a contrast to Beniko’s super cheap prices. I hope we see more of him

Ch 3 (virtual badge) - tough (language difficulty) but enjoyable
Ch 4
Ch 5 (イケ面) - really endearing story
Ch 5 to end thoughts

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I have way too many other books that I should be reading instead, but I caved and started volume 2. So far, again, this is super fun! The descriptions of the shop stay both similar enough that I already know a bunch of the descriptive vocab, but I’m still learning a lot of new words as well.

I’m halfway through chapter 1, and I find it pretty funny that while the main character for this one is a thief, he didn’t end up actually stealing anything from the store and it’s a non thief character from book one that stole something. I found the confession of the thief that he wanted to be very interesting, we’ve already seen that the characters visiting the store don’t really think clearly, but here, it really does seem like he was compulsed to say what he wished for!

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So glad you started!!

I find this so helpful, too. Some stories I can read straight through, and others, there are just predictable points where I might need lookups: first two pages (scene/topic setting for the new character’s desire), Beniko’s comments when she sells the sweet, which sometimes have a hint of how it will go wrong, and then the instructions/warning text on the sweet. It makes it a lot easier to settle into reading it.

Ch 1 reply

This one is so fun, the character is just so unconventional and unlike all the others that came before. I hadn’t thought about what you said, this contrast that he’s a thief, but he doesn’t steal anything from Beniko, interesting.

yeah, that pattern has repeated enough I’m wondering as well, if there’s something about Beniko and the shop that gets them to express their wish so directly, and then they always have this super strong desire for whatever she pulls out.

I really really like how each chapter brings in new ways of playing with this world.

I’ll put in some more comments from the next ones before I forget. I’ll organise it with spoilers so that if you’re partway through it’s clear what you can uncover at what stage. I’ll edit my previous one’s like that, too.

Vol 2 Ch 3

I read this one a couple of times, first in a rush because it got me hooked, then with a lot of lookups because there was a lot of unknown vocab and I wasn’t totally confident about the story progression.

Character thoughts: some good old-fashioned teenage-ish girl trying to fit in at school. I liked how she was purposefully trying not to go into 銭天堂 but the allure caught her anyway!

The snack: this reminds me of cereals that came with little toys, and I love the idea of this ritual she does with the keyholder to ask it questions

One common theme in the development stage seems to be people suddenly get a power and then misuse it or become afraid that someone else will also gain it. Human nature I suppose, sigh

Ending - total shocker! First of all, the 銭転堂, and I was not expecting something so dramatic at the end and had to reread it with a lot of lookups to make sure I got that right. oooooh the wrath of the fox spirit got her sucked in and I’m so curious where Beniko’s comments go in terms of that case potentially being useful for a future customer, if I got that right. From the guide book I know this comes up again in Book 8.

Vol 2 Ch 4

I love the character here and right from the start seeing Beniko outside of the shop again. The snack: What a cool idea to be able to play the piano like a genious after having a snack. This one feels quite believable in how the MC (progression part) gets wrapped up in the new ability and suddenly starts on a new life trajectory. Toward the end/climax: The concert is devestating :sob: and then when Beniko showed up I was like, wait that is cheating :joy: so I’m wondering, it seems as if she has some rules she has to work within as well, and if therefore she sneakily purposefully sold the snack past its due date so she had an excuse to step in to avoid a 不幸 situation and turn it around! Resolution: I liked the character development where the MC thinks ahead and realises the Schumann snack doesn’t give him long term happiness :heartbeat: There must be so many play on words with the snacks we just miss, but here I like the 消しゴム 消しガム link.

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@soggyboy will you be joining us here??!

:grin:

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Yes!! I already bought volumes 2 and 3 so I will read that many at least and then decide on continuing. I already had bought some volumes of Goosebumps as well, so I want to make some progress on the volume I had already started before I return to this series. Hoping I’ll see some gains in terms of reading speed soon so I can progress faster on these reads.

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no pressure, keep it fun :smiling_face:

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OK, I’m testing out listening to these stories audio-only to see what my comprehension is like. I listened to the first story from vol. 2, here’s my impression of what (i think) happened in the story:

Book 2 chapter 1

Our main guy is a thief who is having some kind of trouble related to running away (he is too old?). He finds the Zenitendou and buys the phantom thief roll. (looked up the title before starting the story) He becomes a great thief who can steal without being noticed! But then a police officer catches him (?) and, when questioned by confused thief guy, reveals that he, too, bought a sweet from the Zenitendou (hero pudding?) which made him be such a good police officer that it cancelled out the magic of the first sweet. (this is kind of my assumption haha i didnt catch this clearly at all)

What I’m missing by my estimation: I didn’t understand Beniko’s warning, and especially the second half of the story was harder to understand. I’ll read the story later and see if I was right about the plot… was I close?

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Holy smokes, that is great comprehension just from listening, yeah, you got it!! :partying_face:

Book 2 Ch 1 comments

older than he used to be, so he’s feeling it, that it’s getting harder to flee

yep (from memory)

I would have to go back and check - this is just from memory, but I seem to remember her warning was not to get too audacious or something like that. I just remember getting the sense of - you can be a great thief, but if you stick your head up too high, and become a legendary thief, then you might collide with someone else. That detail is a bit hazy. And then he goes on, as you understood, to become a great thief. And he becomes more and more daring - which ends up being his undoing as he ends up crossing paths with the police officer (or detective? I don’t remember). In effect, when the police officer catches a legendary thief, that fulfills the police officer’s wish. And that could happen because the the thief had been warned that the sweet made him undetectable - but not to the greatest extent. Or something like that. Because if he was just shoplifting and doing small petty theft, catching that kind of thief wouldn’t have fulfilled the wish of the officer who had the hero sweet, it would have been too normal.

my comments (so excited you’re this far to discuss!)

I really like this one because one person’s fortune is another person’s misfortune, and it is the first story to explore what happens when someone’s wish isn’t exactly morally “right”. This is where the wheels in my head started spinning a bit for the first time with this series. I started to see the series as an exploration of getting any wish you want delivered. It’s so true that a) we don’t really know what will make us ultimately happy and b) sometimes fulfilling a wish/goal turns our life in an unexpected direction that may be good or bad for unanticipated reasons. So whereas before, I always read it a bit as very loose moral lessons for kids, from this point it started to seem a lot more wide open. Any wish might be fulfilled - not just the “correct” ones, and every wish has some breaks applied, although often not in a very useful way. I don’t remember if it’s the end of book 2 or 3 when the next step up in complexity of this theme happens, but I like it!

I’m thinking maybe it is best if I somehow gradually train my listening comprehension on these like you started doing, because although my appetite for reading with this little kanji is narrowing, my appetite for the stories themselves is still as great as ever mid-way through book 4.

I’ll keep an eye out (or let me know if you plan it) for when you read/listen to Ch 2. I would totally listen to it again to discuss! I remember you said that one was tricky on your first listen… I just went back and looked at my notes. OMG that is one of my all time favourites :star_struck: there is some specialised vocab in that one. I can totally see why you got lost. I remember now when reading it I did some intensive reading, especially at the beginning and end. I suspect if you read the intro with lookups as needed (up to when she first tries out the sweet) you just might get most of it from there. And then after you finish it, a bit of reading and lookups to get the twist at the end.

No rush (Naruto and Goosebumps ahem), just tag me whenever you like!

I just repurposed my first comment here as a home post. If you think of doing the same, maybe we could ask the mods to make the first post a wiki to link to those. Then, for example, when someone gets around to chapters we’ve already read they can easily find them. I stopped adding comments here from Bk 2 Ch 4, but I would keep that up again if it looks like the thread has a bit of life left in it!

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Woooooo!!

To be fair, it doesn’t take that much to comprehend the gist of a story in these children’s books. Maybe only like 60-70% comprehension to be following the plot.

Book 2 chapter 1

I actually got lost during the conversation between the police officer and the thief, because at first I didn’t realize it was two separate guys talking. Then I was still confused, until my brain decided to remember that けいさつ means police and I just learned it on wanikani! Suddenly the whole conversation retroactively made sense.

Ahhhhh, this makes sense.

Yes! It’s cool, especially seeing two different Zenitendou customers interact. I was really surprised to see that happen, but it makes perfect sense to expand the world in that way. I agree with all you’re saying about how any wish can conceivably be fulfilled by Beniko. That opens it up so much more. Also, in terms of brakes on the wish, it seems like they’re a little stronger when the customers are kids. Adults seem to have worse misfortune when they run afoul of the Zenitendou. (Like, the thieves from the haunted ice chapter got followed by ghosts for their entire lives :joy:)

I feel like what you’re saying about the point not really being moral lessons ties into our confusion with the very first chapter, how the girl actually gets rewarded because she eats the human candy too soon and is a star swimmer the rest of her life. It kind of shows that this series isn’t necessarily about cause and effect punishment but a more open ended kind of exploration. The Zenitendou feels very classic in that way, like something from a folk tale, where it’s not necessarily telling you what’s right to do, it’s just saying that you better read the instructions/heed the warning. Anything else that happens is your fault.

I’m sure you could listen to these audio only since you’ve already read so many. I can see a few ways to train listening… You could relisten to stories you’ve already read, or you could listen ahead without reading, then read the volume afterwards to check comprehension. You could also listen and read at the same time with new stories.

Yes, I’ll definitely need to read this one after trying audio only once. Here’s what I got:

Book 2 chapter 2

Our hero’s mom is sick ): so her wish is to heal her! She gets the Doctor whatever (I forgot what the sweet was called) which comes with glasses and bottles or something. Anyways she puts on the glasses and with them on she can see a different color smoke around the head of sick people. There’s also a voice that tells her which medicine to make based on which color smoke. She goes out and heals a bunch of people of their ailments while consulting the voice thing, yay!! (here I’m thinking, wow, I’m basically the best at Japanese ever??) Then one day she happens upon some guy who has something to do with baseball. Something something… something something… Genki drink… something something… the genki drink is not the genki drink but it’s orange juice instead… something something baseball teams…
So yeah, totally lost me there. :sweat_smile:

Sounds like a good idea! I’ll for sure comment every time I finish a story.

:face_with_peeking_eye: Not guilty!! It wasn’t me that started all those books!!

But yeah, my plan is to finish this volume of Goosebumps then read the second volume of Zenitendou. Not sure if I will try listening to the rest of the book 2 stories first or not. It’s a good challenge, but it gets frustrating when the comprehension dips too low.

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I’ve a few chapters left of my current book then going back to this series to read it from book one, so I’ll be joining in by the end of August at the latest.

I’ll be reading and listening to these.

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Lol I had to relisten to that story’s ending to feel like I understood what happened, it suddenly gets harder lolol. But I liked this chapter so I actually remember what happens, if you wanted to know and try and relisten.

ending

The doctor guy is having his patients stolen by her, so he’s jealous. So he purposefully makes her fall and trades the medicine for juice. He tells the opposing baseball team, hey I made you a tonic. The girl also tells her baseball team that she made them a tonic and…nothing happens lol. The glasses let her know that it was just juice somehow. Then we see the other team of young guys go on the field acting all weird. They lose to the old guy team. The young guys blame the doctor guy for tricking them, and he quickly says nooo it’s bc the little girl! I stole it so it’s her fault! Lmao. Anyways we find out that if someone other than the intended target drinks it, it doesn’t work and has a bad effect.

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Ahhhh, I told myself I wasn’t going to peek at ending spoilers but… I did anyways. :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:

Book 2 ch2 ending

That makes so much sense. I knew there was something going on with two teams, and giving the drink to one team vs the other team, but it got so confusing trying to follow it, and I didn’t catch the results of the drink either. I knew one team had lost due to some chicanery, but couldn’t tell if it was the good guys or the bad guys.

I may still read through this one before re-listening, we’ll see

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yay!

How do we tag mods here actually to make the first post a wiki? I just tried @ moderators and it tells me no

Bk 2 Ch 1

oh, I love that feeling!!

mm, I like that connection back to the swimmer one - yes, you’re right this framework fits that way better!

These are all great ideas! Since I’m far enough in now to have started forgetting some details, relistening is actually really fun and relaxing! (At first when I tried it, it felt a bit boring, since when I read the stories I also did some rereading). And the other two options work well, so it feels nice that there are different tools depending on mood :slight_smile:

I listened to the start of Bk 2 Ch 2 and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I’ll definitely be relistening to my favourites. There are enough I won’t feel bad about skipping some of the less liked ones. And I think I’m just getting good enough to listen first, too. I think you’re right 60-70% is actually plenty to get the gist and sometimes that’s all you want unless it’s a really intriguing story. There are a couple dotted about with more uniquely school-age problems that I’m not hugely invested in.

Bk 2 ch 2

I mean, actually you’re not wrong :joy: I see you’ve seen the ending now. The whole development is really endearing how she puts so much effort into helping the team, so you’ll probably enjoy the relisten and catching that.

And major kudos for getting the first half from listening!

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Finished my other book and now have my full set of this series so I’ve restarted book 1 (I didn’t manage to finish it with the bookclub previously). Once I’m finished that one, I’ll start posting my thoughts/ understanding of the others as I read them. :slightly_smiling_face: I also intend to listen to them as well as read them for additional listening practice.

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Yay, it’s a party! I saw your collection in one of the other threads, wow, you went all out!! I just have 3 volumes at the moment.

I listened to book 2 chapter 3 yesterday and had the same issue of not understanding the second half of the story as well as the first.

Book 2 ch 3

I was mainly shocked by the part where she asked the fortune telling sweet where the Zenitendou is! It’s honestly such a smart idea that I was actually expecting it to work. Then I didn’t understand what happened next. It seemed that she found a Zenitendou, (the same one? different?) but the shopkeeper didn’t seem to be Beniko. And I didn’t understand what happened to her at the end. I’m a little worried something horrible happened to her for daring to mess with the Zenitendou! But it’s fine, I should be starting this book in a week or two so I’m actually kind of excited to get the details on all these stories.

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Yeah, I kinda did :sweat_smile:
I thought it would be a good idea for getting used to new vocabulary and sentence patterns while still having easy enough content I can read extensively at work between calls that’s still a bit challenging too (very challenging for me since I’m understanding less than I thought but I’ll re-read intensively later).

I also kinda like the way it reminds me of stuff I read as a kid, where the “adventure” changed with each chapter but the overall theme was the same.

I’m just reading the first chapter of the first book again, only understand what’s happening because I read it before :joy:

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bk 2 ch 3

I’ll give you some hints, then you won’t be tempted to see it all :slight_smile:
My notes are here, with not too many spoilers, but I’ll try to give you some hints from what I remember.

Did you understand the rules for this sweet and that the sweet connects her to a fox spirit? That’s important but a bit hard to understand if I remember right. If I remember correctly she’s not supposed to go against or disrespect the fox spirit, I’ll have to listen again now to see.

She was asking again and again I think because she wanted to demand/ask that they don’t sell that sweet to anyone else as then she wouldn’t be so popular if someone else could do that. The key chain / fox spirit kept telling her 凶 which would have been really hard to get from the audio book. She doesn’t understand what that means either… so she goes looking for it anyway, uh-oh.

I don’t think it’s possible to get this from the audiobook, you have to see the kanji as the reading is the same - 銭転堂. So yes, it’s a different one and you’re right the shopkeeper is not Beniko.

:face_with_hand_over_mouth: we finally get our little shop of horrors ending (well not really but it’s close). So maybe listen again and believe what you hear!

technically it was the fox spirit she annoyed. It’s after that drama that Beniko appears.

I think if you’re interested in listening again, those hints will get you to understand the ending.

This would be fun actually if you catch up to where I am for us to both listen to the same one for the first time and compare our understanding before reading to see what happened :smile:

Also, I finished listening to bk 2 ch 2 and thought all the male voices were impossible to understand! That chapter was way tougher for listening than anything else from this series I’ve listened to so far. If I remember right from reading, the men use some slang that tripped me up, but still, I thought their voices were also less clear / faster.

finally, I sent a message to get the first post turned into a wiki

I love that about these, too! I generally read pretty extensively as well. I probably only read 1-2 chapters per book very intensively with a lot of lookups. Otherwise, like you said, these are great to just get used to reading a lot of words and sentence patterns in an interesting way.

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