This is the thread for chapter 1, 第一部：五月, a part of the かがみの孤城 book club.
As this is a read at your own pace club, please be sure to have your discussions in the correct thread, and don’t discuss anything that has not occurred by the of the chapter in this thread. As always, please also be considerate about spoilers and put anything that feels like a spoiler behind spoiler tags or in a drop down.
Ok, I am finally getting started! I read to the first marked page division which is on page 27 of the hardback copy.
So far I am finding the language to be pretty straightforward, although there are a couple lines here and there where I’m like ‘this may be poetic/meaningful writing in a way I’m not really grasping yet.’ But I just tell myself I can always reread the book later and get more out of it if I want to! 
Kanji lookups have been pretty sparse, I pretty much know all the non-furigana’d kanji (WK L35) so that’s a nice treat too.
I am enjoying it so far, slow scene setting type stuff. I feel like the atmosphere of Kokoro’s shut-in life and how it just kind of continues on without much change is coming across. Also, the way the adults in her life don’t seem to know what to do with her depression. I think this may be the first Japanese book I’ve read that actually is more like literature and not just light entertainment, so I’m also enjoying that feeling! I feel like such a grown up language learner.
Finished the chapter!
Gosh, I stopped last time right before she actually got to enter the mirror. I liked that she ran away the first time and then the next time everyone was kind of like ugh, it’s that running away girl. 
I also appreciated that the next day she actually got ready and put clothes on and did her hair, kind of felt like the magical castle is already helping her depression.
Also, I’m listening to japanese HP on audiobook right now so I was kind of startled when she brought up that one of the kids looks like Ron. 
「シンプルな罰だ。狼に食われる」
Wait, I thought we were done reading werewolf survival game
Overall I liked this first chapter, I think it gets right to the point with entering the mirror world, introducing the rules (ooh mysterious key and granting wishes), and starting to get to know the other kids. I have chosen Ponytail Girl as my favorite character for absolutely no reason.
Also, here’s all the names and readings I wrote down for this chapter:
| kanji | kana |
|---|---|
| 安西こころ | あんざいこころ |
| 雪科 | ゆきしな |
| 喜多島先生 | きたじま |
| 伊田先生 | いだ |
| 沙月 | さつき |
| 墨田 | すみだ |
| 東条萌 | とうじょうもえ |
| 理音 | リオン |
| 嬉野 | ウレシノ |
Pretty sure Subaru was my fave cause the voice actor sounded nice and I was like “oh, car name!” 
Finished the chapter as well. My copy has like dozens of instances with this 吞 (ie 吞まれて) kanji which I can’t find in any of my dictionaries? I think it’s a chinese character, not japanese. I wonder if something went wrong while converting this to read on my tablet. It’s still understandable from context but it’s kind of driving me crazy…
I wonder why ウレシノ gave his last name only. If it’s for privacy, an unique last name would be worse surely, and well, I doubt a middle schooler would care that much about hiding his identity in these circumstances.
I hope I can keep all these characters straight.
It’s one of the less common ways to write it, but it is Japanese. I noticed it’s mostly used with the nuance of something being gulped up or swallowed rather than drunk (for example: 息を呑む)
It’s really weird it’s not showing up in any of your dictionaries
Some book clubs with lots of characters have a wiki for character names and big details (spoilered by chapter). I don’t know if that’s something that organizers would be interested in here? @shitsurei
okay now that both of you have mentioned it, my popup dictionary on my browser does find result. But I have the same dictionaries installed on my tablet! Maybe a bug on the reader I use 
I’ll try to figue it out later.
I am happy for a character name list. I have not started the chapter yet, but the top posts should be wikis if anyone wants to add that to chapters that they’ve read so far. Spoiler courtesy for that and all that please 
There may be a character list in the old WK club that we could steal…
If it has spoilers lemme know I can steal it and properly weed those out as someone who has already read the book!
I thought it could be about the 2010 reform (of 常用漢字, only 15 years ago), but this Kanji isn’t a part of 常用漢字.
In any case, LN normally use new forms, which may be less common in the Internet or output from IME. (e.g. 剝ぐ). Rarely used because it’s too new, but always used in LNs and such.
For 吞, Japanese Wiktionary says it’s the same as 呑, but rather about preferred designs. (So perhaps, editorial decisions.) I feel that this form, too, is always used in LNs. (perhaps only newly published ones.)
It’s in the old book club’s home thread under a dropdown. I was scared to click it in case it lists too much character information that I don’t know yet
Oh I already copied it over (in the home thread). There’s one spoiler but it’s properly spoiled so long as you don’t go into the wiki in edit mode
Somehow I didn’t think to check in the home thread… Ty!
I also got this impression, but I’m not even sure what exactly gave it to me. It’s not like I can recognize good prose, lol, so maybe the use of metaphor? 
Damn, someone commented on this before I did
I was wondering when ponytail girl only gave her first name if she was like famous or something and didn’t want people to know.
Speaking of names, I liked how マサムネ cut everyone off from commenting about his name. My own name is pretty unremarkable, but I can totally see having a name that people talk about being old when you have to introduce yourself.
My favorite so far is リオン for pretty much the same reason not a car name, but he does have a cool name
Overall I really liked the chapter. This kind of grounded fantasy is definitely a favorite genre of mine, so I was really happy to see that it was kinda what I expected given the cover illustration
