I listened to the first three Prologues again and I’m not sure I see a pattern, I’m interested in what you noticed @CatDQ !
bk 2 ch 5 thoughts
Kudos I would not have gotten just from listening that the guy looking for Beniko was the beautician! I’m pretty sure that would have flown by me if I hadn’t read it, and the names in this one were really tough for me to catch in the audio. Also the ending was tough for me listening despite having read it.
I love the scene where he follows Beniko into the supermarket and is trying to secretly watch her and (spoiler tags on anything I’m not sure you got) she ends up greeting him like a customer. I liked the solution for the capsule vending machine as well that it only accepts that day’s lucky coin
He was driving erratically and ended up crashing his car. It flipped over, but he got out unharmed, ranting about a sweet shop owner out to get him
The guy with the revenge cards freaks out that he caused an accident and burns the cards. Then there’s a scene cut to Beniko (transition confusing in audio) who laughs about it. From memory, because I couldn’t get it in the audio, she mentions that her customers through their own choices can spoil their luck or something like that.
one thing I liked about this one was that once the MC realised that his actions with the cards 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 darker for Beniko, and to fit her interests a bit more than her customer’s…
I think it helps that I finished the first book fairly recently, so whenever they finally said his first name it seemed familiar. Also I caught a word that started with 美 and with ‘beauty’ in combination with the name ringing a bell I deduced it was mr. hairdresser. It’s kind of funny what pieces your brain will latch onto when listening only, it’s like puzzle mode.
Ahhhhhhh, okay. I was like, did he die??? But that seemed too dark.
Yeah, that’s interesting. I like the stories where the customer rejects the sweet because it’s kind of different.
After starting to read book 4, I think the link between prologues I thought was there is purely a coincidence as it doesn’t seem to repeat in Book 4.
Let me re-read them again this weekend and make sure I picked things up correctly (I’m just home at around 11:45pm and tomorrow is my long shift with late finish but I’ll read them after work on Saturday). I may have misinterpreted them.
I’m finding this with each book, actually, my impressions of what’s going on are continually shifting. It’s one thing that keeps me going with this series - what I find interesting about the stories and prologues and epilogues, is that they introduce new things that are changing my interpretation all the time. So I notice I made a lot of assumptions in Book 1 where I was grappling a bit in the dark - who is Beniko and what is her goal? And gradually gradually we learn more and more.
Not sure it's really a spoiler, but thoughts about the direction of book 4 overall on this point
The character changed a lot in book 4 right!? Not totally unexpected, since it was foreshadowed in one of the book 3 stories if I remember right, but book 4 really runs with the expanded world.
So finished reading chapter 1 but my impressions of Beniko has shifted. I kind of feel like there is a bit of rivalry and competition going on here, not all in good fun though, and I’m starting to feel the series becoming a bit darker over all. I know we’ve had the odd darker chapter here and there, but I feel like it’s becoming more apparent though that may just be my interpretation of it with me only getting the gist of most of the stories with how I’m reading them.
Edit: I think the additional character from the prologue was introduced in book 3 iirc, and I get the impression she is a more malevolent character than Beniko is.
I do quite like the fact the world seems to be expanding at a slightly alarming rate and I think there is much more influence from these “beings” (not sure yet what to call Beniko and the other similar characters, though I do believe they aren’t human, oni or gods, not sure why I think that though).
That’s just first impressions though as I’m still reading these at work between calls without using a dictionary so can’t check info on unknown words. After work tomorrow is when I start breaking everything down to understand it as much as possible staring with book 1 again (though I will be re-reading all the prologues again before the rest of book 1 so I can check my theory.) I will still be extensively reading book 4 while at work though possibly at a slower pace.
I’m getting a bit confused now what happened when the guide book is coming in handy!
To get the details we’re talking about I needed a lot of lookups at exactly all those story points when I read it the first time. And my memory was fuzzy so I just went back to spot check a few things. Overall you’ve got it right and I’ve just put in some of the major detail to help.
I’m trying to keep it spoiler light. I don’t say on any one topic if more is coming or which parts of the plot or world develop since that in itself gives something away.
Spoilers spanning books 3 and beginning of 4
I had to go back to check how this rivalry was set up as it was a bit gradual. It was the Book 3 Prologue where we meet Beniko’s rival よどみ of the たたりめ堂. Although at that point I’m pretty sure we don’t know they’re rivals. Maybe, I’d need to read it again but I think we find that out in the book 3 epilogue. Although there is at least a hint as we find out she makes her sweets from the ill fortune bugs that come out of the vials Beniko puts the payment coins in. The good ones become the golden cats and the bad ones become these black oozy creatures that run away.
Book 3 epilogue
It’s the book 3 epilogue where Yodomi confronts Beniko and we get the start of the rivalry. It wasn’t too specific, but it shows they have different visions of why they do what they do and how much they respectively care about their customers.
Yodomi confronted Beniko since Beniko’s sweet in Ch 1 counteracted the effect of Yodomi’s in the prologue
book 4 prologue +ch1
Haha, me too! I think before I thought she was mostly benevolent. I still think she has overall good intentions, but this showed more of a neutral stance if that makes sense.
That’s right, right from Ch 1 here we see how the characters get caught in it.
Yes! Very much explicitly darker, the key is in her word choice in payment and how that payment plays out.
Generally
Her payment is the ill will that results from her sweets. And she (literally) extracts her payment at the time it all goes wrong.
Specifically in ch 1
Specifics: When the boy freaks out when the teacher asks him to explain his correct answers on the test, Yodomi reappears and there is a black fluid she extracts from him. I wasn’t sure is that was the sweet or the ill will, maybe both
Yeah, I didn’t quite understand the shop or owner name at that time but it is something I’ll be re-reading.
Yeah, I think that’s right then we see more in the book 4 prologue.
This was where I started to feel that there was more of a difference between them and that maybe Beniko’s intentions aren’t as clear cut as they first seemed.
This is where I kind of missed a bit and didn’t realise the interaction was because of this.
I kind of got the ill will part as payment, hence why I felt she was more of a malicious “person” but didn’t realise that’s what was in the picture (nor did I quite get that from what I did understand but that was more a “I need to look up these words” issue than an issue with how it was presented.
I am liking how this is shaping up and I am finding that I’m understanding more of the grammar and words without look ups as time goes on, just from getting the idea of what is happening.
I really do need to sit down and do some intensive reading though to try to pick up all the bits I’ve missed.
Edit: just re-read book 1 epilogue
Did not notice this the first time
The bit about the bugs (不幸虫) coming out the vials instead of the lucky cats. And Beniko mentions when speaking about the bugs, ‘in this contest, it’s the Zenitendo’s loss’ = pg 147, end of 9th sentence in - この勝負は、銭天堂の負けでござんすね。At least that’s my understanding of it.
I loved the book 1 epilogue! Yes, that is my understanding as well.
For me, this shows Beniko does genuinely at least desire the best outcome for her customers, and she uses the gain (the golden cats) to make more sweets, and the loss is those bugs getting used by her rival. But in each story (well most of them, there are some sneaky interventions) she stops short of ensuring they have good fortune, they have to be moderately sensible for that to happen. Also, the potentially good fortune she gives isn’t necessarily good ethics, like the thief and a few others. This is the more neutral stance I meant. Whereas Yodomi so far shows quite a lot of malevolence.
It will really crystalise your understanding of the rivalry and Beniko’s actions, and I think where you are is great timing for doing that!
The interesting thing is the Book 4 prologue is 100% from Yodomi’s perspective, not an interaction with Beniko, but you might need some lookups to get that. There is a trick there that surprised me
I’m also wanting to go back from book 1 and reread more intensively, but not sure when I’ll start that. Right now I’ve been wanting to reread (intensively) the end of Book 4 since there were some developments I’m unsure about. I started Book 5 and am enjoying the direction it’s taking so far. But I’ve stagnated a bit and haven’t done a lot of concentrated reading in Japanese in the last two weeks.
and @soggyboy I’ve linked to the start of these conversations in my home post, so when you get to this point it should be easy for you to catch up on this side conversation that you’re better off skipping for now!
I’ve only re-read the prologue and epilogue of book 1, will do the others over the next few days but I’m not sure I’ve the patience this weekend to re-read everything or even start on re-reading the chapters as well but I am off in a few weeks so think I will set aside time then to re-read from book 1 and cement my understanding of everything. I’m also not quite at the stage of understanding it while listening but maybe I could tie all that in together to practice both. Wish I had more hours in the day on my off days
I’m only on the second story in book 4 atm, didn’t read much yesterday.
Also agree with all your world comments from book 1-4 though there are some details I’ve missed until I’ve read your comments.
Slightly off topic:
I know it might sound stupid but I’m kind of unsure how to keep track of translations in a way the story makes sense when I’m not understanding everything. So, what I’m picking up from the stories so far is just what I can understand without translating. My brain is just understanding it and building a picture in my head, but when I translate it, I don’t get that picture which makes it more difficult for me to actually understand.
I can understand individual words and certain grammar inherently but when translating, it doesn’t always make sense to me.
(If that makes sense, great. If not, feel free to ignore it as I’ve no idea how else to explain my weird thought process ).
There’s no rush anyway! The main thing is to enjoy it
thoughts on reading styles
Actually I know what you mean! I think (at least for me) that’s a good sign that it’s happening. I think we have pretty similar reading styles.
What I call extensive reading, which is what I think you mean by reading without translating: First, I do some reading without lookups or translating internally. It’s just reading, and that might be a couple of pages or a whole chapter. But I read as long as I can build up a nice picture. I agree this is really nice and makes it easier to make sense of everything.
What I call intensive reading, if I understand you correctly, what you call translating: No matter what, I do that as a second step if needed. I’ll first read extensively to get the overall picture in my head, then I’ll do lookups, etc to refine the picture if needed. But yeah, in my experience if I just start a passage and look everything up, I also don’t develop an overall picture and it is much harder to make progress.
So I’m not sure how close my experience is to yours, but if it is, maybe just always doing your non-translating reading first will help you to keep the overall understanding in your head while adding to the understanding with a read that includes lookups/translating.
I love these books so much because they were the first ones where I became able to just read and build up a picture without having to filter it through English or lookups.
Here's my process fwiw
Read a passage or the story extensively (no lookups, or only very very few)
If I understand, keep going!
If I missed something that seemed interesting, I’ll reread that passage or story again intensively soon after (with lookups of enough to improve my overall understanding)
I almost always intensively read the prologue and epilogue because they have a lot of world building and are harder for me.
In the story, if I think I missed it, I might read passages intensively to make sure I understand the character’s problem, the sweet, the sweet’s small print, and the resolution.
If I missed something didn’t seem interesting, I may or may not bother with lookups. I don’t look up all the mimetic words.
Much later (i.e., the conversations with you and soggy) - listen to a story I have already read and understood well because that is almost twice as fast as me rereading it!
In general, I find my understanding is good enough, now I just press ahead with my extensive reading, and my intensive reading (to fill in gaps) lags behind. I aspire to listen to a story before reading it, but since this is my “cuddle up in bed and enjoy reading” book, so far that idea hasn’t taken off. Whereas, listening to a story I already understand is a pretty relaxing activity I might do now and then after lunch or after work.
Sorry, was trying to reply earlier then family arrived
Reply regarding reading styles
Yeah, I’m reading extensively just trying to understand what I can and there are parts I’m not able to, but since I’m reading between calls at work where I’m not allowed me phone or such, I can’t look anything up.
I was keeping track of unknown words on a email but it was becoming a pain to have to try to figure out what kanji etc were being used as I can only type in romaji at work.
When at home, if I am struggling, I’ll look up the odd word or grammar point but I’m getting used to just reading and trying to figure it out.
For the parts I’ve gone back and re-read, I’ve been looking up the words I don’t know (so reading intensively) but it’s only sections, not full chapters. The rest of my understanding has come from reading the comments on that particular chapter and finding out what I’ve missed.
Sometimes though, even if I’m reading intensively, there are parts I don’t understand, so for those I do feel I need to try to translate the full sentences to try to figure out what is going on, but that’s where I struggle with understanding the most.
I have done reading before where I’ve read extensively then a second time intensively but I only really have the patience to do that for short sections at a time or I get bored very quickly, which is why I usually leave it at least a few months then re-read the whole thing.
I feel the same, these are the first native level books I’ve managed to actually read and understand enough of to get the story without having to look up a large number of words.
I did find that after several reads of the ミラーさん novels I could understand most of it but still had to look some stuff up (first time I only understood a few words and some very short sentences) and even when I tried reeding キノの旅 and Zoo book 1, I was only understanding small parts by reading intensively and I’ve missed massive chunks of those stories.
I have been trying to listen to the stories before reading them but most of the time I pick up very little from the listening. I’ve found atm that my listening skills are only properly engaged when I’m being asked to listen for specific information and I need to respond. I am working on that though.
How interesting, that sounds quite similar in our approach to this series, except I don’t have the added distraction of tryingto read between calls - that sounds tough. I can totally identify with this:
I also just do intensive reading for sections, although rarely, like for Bk 4 prologue +Ch 1 for some reason I was so interested I read all of it intensively. And at the moment I’m having an intensive reading lull and not reading much at all.
I listened to the last chapter and the epilogue of book 2!
Book 2 ch 6- hospitality tea
Ok, my mental focus while I was listening was not the best today, but I think I got the main arc of the story.
Our protagonist likes to have nice tea parties but she’s lonely and has no one to entertain. She goes to the cake shop to buy something (materials for the tea stuff?) and is intimidated by the worker guy there. She goes home but on the way home realizes she forgot to buy tea!! Enter Beniko.
When you make tea with おもてなしティー and pour it into the cups, someone will appear to have conversation with. The first person to appear is Santa??? (This seemed so random?) They have a great time though and she has fun with all the further people who appear. The only catch is that when they finish drinking their tea they disappear.
When she gets to her last serving of tea, she wishes for someone in real life who will stay and not disappear (or something like that). The shop worker from earlier appears and tells her a story about how he started working there in order to get a girl? But she never noticed him. (was the girl our protagonist?) Anyways when the tea has been drunk he’s still there and they live happily ever after.
WK is having a readathon this weekend so I think I’ll try finishing my read (with lookups) of this volume.
You might want to discover these spoilers yourself while reading it intensively, but I’ll put them in just in case, as it’s quite important to the overall story. The key thing I think you both missed I’ve spoilered so you can choose
There’s something key from the beginning that is easy to miss. First, here’s the background you already mostly got: she’s generally happy, but when she gets lonely she goes shopping. This is where she happens to buy the new tablecloth and tea set (but forgot she ran out of tea, hence Beniko). But after the new tablecloth/tea set and before Beniko, she stopped to get some cake. Here’s the key part: she relates that the guy who owns the cake shop bullied her when they were younger. At some point his family moved away and she was so happy about that. And now as adults, she doesn’t like seeing him, but he sells the best cakes, so she still visits his shop. She pretends she doesn’t recognise him, and he hasn’t revealed whether he recognises her.
so random that literal Santa shows up, I agree
So now you’re probably realising, yes, you were so tantalisingly close, it was just the spoiler from the beginning that you missed. He knew from their childhood that she had a sweet tooth, and his big plan was to win her back that way. There is a word play (if I remember right…) as well that his tea shop is called Midori and her name is Midori (in the book I think the shop might have used katakana). Later edit: oops, I didn’t remember right, the tea shop is called Verde, which is Italian for green
Their meeting is really sweet. She doesn’t really think it’s the “real” him and after an extended awkward silence they have a heart to heart about their younger years. I listened to half of it recently but need to finish - I don’t remember who started, perhaps she gets brave enough to start. Anyway, his full story is really heartfelt, although indirect, about how he really liked a girl when they were school kids, and his bullying was his mistaken way to get her attention (that theme comes up in a lot of the Fushigi bullying stories, maybe it’s some kind of Japanese bullying trope?). And he knew she had a sweet tooth and therefore started the bakery so he could still be close to her. It’s after this that she decides not to let him finish the tea. They agree to make a fabulous dinner together that evening and the rest is history.
I like the subtlety of it. Aside from the childhood details, the rest of it deals with adult themes in a very adult way, especially for a children’s book.
I did get some of this knowing the vocab from some of the short story graded readers but I didn’t get the full info first time, it was more when I was listening to it and picked up certain vocab though still don’t know the full story.
spoiler for book 2 chapter 6
I did get that she stopped him from drinking the rest but didn’t know why til I read some of the spoilers above
I’ve finished reading the Inari Senbei and Music Snack chapters! I don’t think I had anything to add about the inari senbei chapter, I think because I listened to it twice so I got pretty much all of the story.
Book 2 ch 4: Music Snack
The main thing I missed listening to this chapter was that it’s actually a competition, not just a regular performance, that he has his stage fright experience with.
Which I really enjoy because it’s a loan word from French! I like when loanwords aren’t English, adds a little spice to my Japanese reading haha.
Also traumatizing because I did a bunch of music competitions as a kid and those things are terrifying Hibiki I feel your pain.
I realized that he only had eaten the Mozart snack, which means if he had continued, he would have only been able to play Mozart forever! That would have gotten old pretty quickly I feel, because he wouldn’t have been able to do anything with his skills. (Wouldn’t have been able to go to music school with entrance requirements for pieces etc). I guess all he could have done was continue to play concerts of only Mozart.
Edit: I just remembered I had one more thing to add. When Beniko shows up at his green room and all the people that were in the hallway are lying on the ground around her! That was kind of creepy of her.
the guide book is coming in handy!
Wish I had more hours in the day on my off days 
).
the spoilers but I’m holding off for now because I think I’ll just read the story pretty soon.
