Hello and welcome! We are preparing once again to enter the world of murder, intrigue, and…high school? The scariest part honestly.
As a reminder, we are following the below schedule (page counts may vary based on your medium): Week 1: Misc + 1.1, 1.2 (29 pages)
Week 2: 1.3, 1.4 (26 pages)
Week 3: 1.5, 1.6 (40 pages)
Week 4: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 (43 pages)
Week 5: 2.4, 2.5 (32 pages)
Week 6: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3(34 pages)
Week 7: 3.4, 3.5 (37 pages)
Week 8: 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 挑戦 (56 pages)
Week 9+10 (EXTENDED WEEK): 5.1 - end (78 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
Law and Order
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
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 1?
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
It’s actually pretty common for audiobooks voiced by just one person! I’d say it seems more common for English audiobooks than Japanese - Japanese ones tend more towards audio drama style where they hire multiple voice actors.
It’s my first audiobook ever and I really didn’t expect it. I would not have been surprised by having multiple voice actors (since I know about the 本好き drama CDs for instance), but I’m just amazed at the ability of humans to change their voice.
(Fun fact, looking more into that sent me in a strange rabbit hole on Youtube ending in a place with stuff like “girl voice trolling” and now my video recommendations are very strange; what have I done).
I love that there’s a character list - I’m currently reading a book which is driving me crazy with the number of characters that keep being introduced so it’s nice not to keep having to note down the readings for everyone’s names!
I just finished the other book I was reading last night, though, so I suppose that’s fortunate timing. Now if only Amazon had a sale on the ebook as well…
I just finished as well! I already found myself flipping to the list of characters and the maps frequently, so I’m glad to have the physical copy for convenience.
Some quick early speculation:
Based on the description of the story given in the teaser before the table of contents, it seems like 佐川 is being framed for this. If so, that fact she arrived early would have to be planned, so maybe some involvement from that teacher? Or another student in the class who arranged it somehow?
I thought I’d keep notes this time, try to not miss any details that might prove to be important later on, but it’s only the beginning and my notes are already chaotic, so I doubt they’ll be useful in any way.
The victim’s meeting in the prologue was with a man, right? Or is この男 referring to someone else? I bet the prologue will make more sense when we’ve read more.
I’m very intrigued by 袴田’s table tennis phobia. Oh wait, I just checked the character list, and he has the same surname as 柚乃. Older brother possibly? She seemed pretty observant too, so maybe they’ll work together to solve this?
Yeah, I’m betting on some kind of family connection. I initially thought father but I think they said he’s only 25-ish? My question is, is he just afraid 柚乃 had to see the body, or afraid she’ll become a suspect? …or maybe… afraid she did it?
More realistically I’m expecting 柚乃 will be leaking some investigation info to whatever student she enlists to help solve the case. That would be a fun dynamic
The teaser on the first page says 柚乃 asks him to solve the case to prove 佐川’s innocence. I also think it’s funny how his entry in the character list only describes him as 二年生。駄目人間。 lol
I should probably go back and check the character list again One of the downsides of an ebook for sure, flipping back to diagrams and earlier passages doesn’t feel nearly so fluid.
袴田 even says something to that effect himself, at this stage he (we) should only collect information, it’s a mistake to start trying to make sense of limited data that might make him (us) jump to all the wrong conclusions.
So true. I wonder if it might be worth adding them to the OP for easy access after all?
Joining the audiobook listen-along group! It’s on the EU audible store, so lucky.
It’s on unlimited, so I got lucky twice~~
I quite liked this first part - I’m not sure how I feel about stretching out this 1st chapter over 3 weeks since I really want to know more about what’s going on, haha. But it is a bit long. 我慢我慢~
Things I’m wondering about:
the blonde student hanging out at the back of the gym
the 2nd year student ranking 1st place (‘umigame’)
袴田’s past trauma? & relation with 柚乃 (estranged family?)
Personally checking back to the character list in the ebook would take me less ‘out of the experience’, so to speak, than having to open a forum thread. In my ebook the 登場人物 has its own entry in the ‘quick move menu’ thing, and the kindle remembers your last spot for a bit, so it wouldn’t take long to move between my place in the text and the list.
But I guess it’s possible someone might like to keep it open in a tab for quick reference. Not all ebooks have an actually useful quick move menu.
It seems like Sagawa’s habit of being the first to arrive was well-known, so it could be accounted for to a certain extent. The class getting out slightly earlier than usual might not have been expected, but it’s also possible that her framing wasn’t intentional.
I think all the 男s and 少年s in the prologue referred to the victims. No hints that easily!
My money is on older brother, and I think mostly just him not wanting Yuno involved in a murder case at all (for obvious reasons), and maybe with a side of not wanting to have to mix their personal relationship/dynamic with a cop-witness/suspect dynamic.
Yeah, detective novels with character lists typically have amusing descriptions for the detective.
I’m using an ebook (Kindle), and idk if it has a set 登場人物 mark, but I can bookmark pages, and bookmarked pages can be viewed without officially moving to them. This is what I do with all character lists and diagrams in all the books I read, and it’s waaaay more convenient and easier to reference than in a paper book.
Anyway, my guess for the blonde student is the culprit sent her a fake anonymous love note so she’d be a witness to who entered/left the gym as well as “guard” the windows in that side.
Hi again all! I’ve finally started the book; it’s taken me a bit to get other obligations out of the way, but I’m finally on the road to murder.
As mentioned before, I decided to listen to the audiobook as I read along in an attempt to work on my pitiful listening skills; having finished the prologue, I can’t say yet whether this will speed me up or slow me down, at least initially. I’m pausing to look up words I don’t know, which is fine, but I also have to pause to think about what I’ve read/heard and process it; I think this is quicker than my brain normally reads, so I’m having to adjust. I think it’ll be a net positive in the end, though, and I’m hoping that I won’t need to sit and think so much once I get into the swing of things.
Can’t comment on any of the speculation yet, given that I’ve only just cleared the prologue, but I would like to chime in re:whether or not to list the characters in the home post. I would be in favor myself; while I’m also reading the ebook and there is a handy character list I can jump to, all the characters are spread across four pages that I have to carefully examine to find the name I’m looking for, and it’s already a pain.
Two votes for a character list then. I’ll make the main post of the home thread a wiki, but I probably won’t have time today to update it, though. If no one gets to it before I do I’ll update it when I can!
Holy crap, took a quick listen to 1.1 before I have to get back to work stuff, and I’m with @Naphthalene; it’s amazing how the narrator can totally change her voice!
Law and Order 
One of the downsides of an ebook for sure, flipping back to diagrams and earlier passages doesn’t feel nearly so fluid.
