mitrac’s Zenitendo home post
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.
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 
ち先生 is just so cute and I love how she (progression part) just innocently tries so hard to help everyone.
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!
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We find out there are rules, so Yodomi shouldn’t interfere with Beniko’s customers’ actions.
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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?
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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.
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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)
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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
Book 5
Book 5 so far (no spoilers here, I just blurred some of my opinions) - I loved the prologue and how first story started, but the ending felt contrived. I didn’t care for the premise and MC in the 2nd story. I have high hopes for the 3rd one which I’ve started!
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
I’m currently on Book 5
