7️⃣ 七回死んだ男 💀 終わり

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Welcome to the final week of 七回死んだ男 !

As a reminder, we are following the below schedule (page counts may vary based on your medium):
Week 1 とりあえず事件のさわりだけでも + 主人公は設定を説明する 19 pages
Week 2 登場人物たちが一堂に会す 24 pages
Week 3 不穏な空気はさらに高まる + そして事件は起きる 47 pages
Week 4 やっぱり事件は起きる + しつこく事件は起きる 38 pages
Week 5 まだまだ事件は起きる 27 pages
Week 6 それでも事件は起きる + 嫌でも事件は起きる 34 pages
Week 7 事件は最後にあがく + そして誰も死ななかったりする 28 pages
Week 8 事件は逆襲する + 螺旋を抜けるとき + 時の螺旋は終わらない 34 pages

I will generally copy this information over thread to thread each week for ease of finding - you can always expect the schedule at the top of any weekly thread :slight_smile:

:policeman: Law and Order :policewoman:

  • Any reveals, for the current chapters must be behind spoilers or detail curtains. When we get further in you don’t need to hide details that were revealed in previous chapters.

  • Questions on vocab, grammar, nuance, and the like are both welcome and encouraged. If you’re not sure if it’s a spoiler, assume it is and use one of the above options to hide the text.

  • You are encouraged to speculate and guess wildly

  • Be kind about other peoples’ wild guesses :sparkling_heart:

  • Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post in the thread for that reading once you have finished it. I advise not reading ahead in the threads as you may see spoilers.

To gauge participation - a poll!

Are you reading week 8?

  • Yes, I’m planning to read along/am reading along this week
  • I’m reading, but not at the same pace as the club
  • I had no intentions of reading the book, but I desire to click a poll

0 voters

Happy sleuthing! :male_detective:

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why was everyone in this book terrible

is anyone going to talk about the fact that they’re all cousins? No??

There was a moment, one moment, where it seemed like maybe one character would be able to be an adult, when we discovered Tomori thought Qchan was a college senior. But then she just had to go “idc lol” and ruin it.

Were we supposed to feel sorry for Grandpa? Because he was awful. “Boo hoo my one regret is that my daughters don’t get along” well maybe if you didn’t RUIN THEIR LIFES AND PIT THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER. “boo hoo i’m lonely and want my family near me” well maybe you can just offer them jobs at the company without getting them fired first??

At the end when it seemed like everything was working out nicely for everyone, I didn’t like it because these people were awful. Then at the very end when it was like “Gee, I wonder if something like this will happen again at the next family reunion wink” I still didn’t like it, because it made the whole book feel pointless if it’s just going to all happen again. Maybe I’m being unfair but it seems like the book just couldn’t win for me

When I first finished I thought it was “okay” but the more time passes the more the faults rub me the wrong way.

The あとがき/解説s (why were there FIVE) made it clear that this is regarded as the author’s best work, so at least I know to avoid all his other books

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I think it says a lot about how little I like this book that now I’m reading spoilers with 10 pages left to go. I’ll get to them :weary:

The fact that FOUR of the five cousins were trying to get with each other is just so icky to me. And it was ALWAYS presented as a good thing, too.

Also Tomori is what, 24ish? And Q is 高校１ so…16? My god woman. Gross. Side note that I seem to constantly pick up books about older woman/younger guy, though. I had no idea it was such a trope in Japanese novels. I feel less weird about the post-college dudes with cougars than this, though.

Yeah that sympathetic spin was just weird to me. ‘I love my family so much so I will make them miserable and they must rely on me’ 'awww, gramps :heart: ’
wat.

I unfortunately own not only the text but the audiobook for 腕貫探偵 (not on Natively yet) by this author and I have to debate whether or not it’s worth it to try to read it super fast (audio at 2x?) or just view that money as lost :sob: I’m also never going to buy his books again. It’s a shame because it’s a cool concept! I actually am reading (in English) The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and it’s a similar concept but executed very well. I actually heard about it first from a Japanese booktuber :sweat_smile:

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Yeah, in the あとがきs whenever they mentioned one of this other works I was like “Hey, that sounds kinda cool–WAIT NO STOP”

boop
EDIT: Is there a Japanese translation? I was actually randomly looking into that the other day and didn’t see one

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I might check your review after I finish! I’m about halfway done, I had to pause it to keep up with my other readings (I’m in 4 book clubs right now I think?).

But this is the Japanese version, イヴリン嬢は七回殺される

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I apologize for this recommendation and for making everyone suffer. :face_holding_back_tears: What are Japanese seeing in this book? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Having not read the book but just followed the conversations I am quite intrigued by the reactions :grin: it definitely sounds like the psychology of everyone was very weird in this novel. Since I am a fan of the Christie style psychological mystery, it definitely wouldn’t be one for me!

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We all voted for it and I even already owned the book :sweat_smile:

I’m was thrown by how casually some dynamics (incest, high schoolers getting married to adults, sexism, etc) were accepted by the characters. Maybe the book is supposed to be taken wholly as comedy? I have no idea.

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Okay off-topic and major Evelyn Hardcastle spoilers but after finishing I always interpreted the seven (and a half) deaths as being the deaths caused by Evelyn, not the deaths of “Evelyn” in the loops, so slightly sad that the Japanese title doesn’t preserve that

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I am realising that our tastes do not seem to match. At all. :rofl:

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That’s actually very useful though! You can avoid the books I give high ratings to and potentially I can avoid your high rated ones? We can be inverse like buddies :rofl:

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Done! Whew; let me get my thoughts out before I read anyone else’s.

Overall, I thought the book was okay. A bit long-winded at the beginning, and definitely too long-winded at the end. The author could have definitely benefited from a snappier ending. I did not read all five afterwords, hahaha. That has to be the record for most number I’ve ever seen at the end of a book. Did anyone read them? Anything interesting in there?

The author’s excuse for the missing day felt just like that: an excuse. That was probably my most :\ moment of the book; it really felt like he was trying to pull a gotcha on all the people me who guessed his little plot twist early. “Oh, you probably just fell and broke your neck Qchan. Not that anyone can prove it now lolol”. C’mon man.

Other than that, I ended up being a little underwhelmed on the execution of the “murders”. It was a good idea, but just inexpertly done imo. Maybe if there had been more personalization for each murder, more clues, more variety on motive instead of “let’s all blame Tomori”…

I guess that’s another thing: this was a mystery book with no detective, ultimately. Poor Qchan stumbled upon the right answer; Tomori would’ve totally gotten away with it had she been the actual mastermind.

Despite all that above, I didn’t hate the book; it was okay. I like time travel, I like murder, I enjoyed the family and all their issues. It was just the execution of it all.

Okay, onto reading others’ thoughts!

Interestingly, I had the fewest issues with this. :thinking: Probably because I thought they all deserved each other, haha.

Right? The man didn’t have a single redeeming moment. He was selfish until the very end. Granted, it ended up being a bit of a self-fulfilling loop there: the only reason anyone besides Qchan and Kotono cared for him was because of his money. The only reason this book happened is because Qchan is a decent human being, haha.

I gotta say, it was pretty funny when he died and Luna/Fujitaka were present and her first thought is, “oh no, my inheritance :(((”

Ah, I’ve read that! It’s so good! Be sure to read The Devil and the Dark Water after! It’s got a bit of a slow start, but it’s so good!

I didn’t. :person_shrugging: And you never know how a book’s gonna turn out; the marketing blurb is just there to get you to buy the book, not to accurately represent it.

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hey now, I wanted to blame her because I deeply appreciate an unhappy ending, and Q’s love interest murdering his grandpa would do that for me! :joy:

:eyes: will add it to my list, thanks! When I started reading the title I thought you were about to suggest The Devil in the White City though and was like, “uhh…I do enjoy 1800s true crime but that’s a bit of a jump in theme, no?” :joy:

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Hahaha. Also a good book for sure! I’ll save those recommendations for our true crime/historical nonfiction book clubs though. :wink:

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Going offfffff topic but everyone who was reading the book has finished now so:

I have some true crime reading in Japanese I’m hoping to get to this year. Personal / work life has gotten pretty busy so my reading plans have been thrown into disarray, but if any of these sound interesting happy to do a one-shot club down the line!

^ That one I can attest is quite difficult. I tried reading it last year but the 1920s newspaper excerpts were pretty rough.

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Excellent, thanks for the recs! I’ll have to check them out and get back to you!

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Personally, I have issues with true crime, so I steer clear, but I appreciate the thought and wish everyone fun, if the one-shot happens. :slight_smile:

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I get that. I usually stick to very, very old true crime (1800s) to avoid some of the ethical issues that are present with more recent cases, but I’ve had trouble locating those in Japanese. I can see why people wouldn’t like it across the board, though.

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