We are following the below schedule (page counts may vary based on your medium):
Week
Up to
Approximate Pages
Approx. Percent
Paperback page
Week 1 - Feb 10
Read until Chapter 1, part 4
33
9%
Week 2 - Feb 17
Read until Chapter 1, part 7
39
18%
Week 3 - Feb 24
Read to end of Chapter 1
28
25%
Week 4 - Mar 03
Read until Chapter 2, part 3
30
32%
Week 5 - Mar 10
Read until Chapter 2, part 5
35
40%
Week 6 - Mar 17
Read until Chapter 2, part 7
29
46%
Week 7 - Mar 24
Read until Chapter 3, part 2
25
52%
Week 8 - Mar 31
Read until Chapter 3, part 5
38
61%
Week 9 - Apr 7
Read until Chapter 3, part 8
28
67%
Week 10 - Apr 14
Read to end of Chapter 4
46
78%
Week 11 - Apr 21
Read until 謎 part 3
40
87%
Week 12 - Apr 28
through end of epilogue
46
100%
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 10 of 眼球堂の殺人?
Yes, I’m planning to read along/am reading along this week
Something interesting is happening. I quite liked the « symmetrical » murders, and 平川 and 造道 turning on 藍子 and 十和田. But this happens… 75% into the book, which is way, way too late. And now we have to wait a whole week for the big reveal !
Nice pacing, btw !
Yes finally something happens and Towada actually tried to see if anyone opens the door haha. But I still feel the write used too many words just to explain the paper and door. The book should have been 200pages instead for so little plot development.
Agree the pacing on this is terrible. I think honestly a different author could write the same pace and I’d enjoy it more, though. Like if there were more character interactions, more conversations with theories that didn’t feel ridiculous, more back stories coming out to reveal potential motives…something. As it stands I’ve very much forgotten who all the dead people are aside from being various 先生
Anyways, seems like this is all going to have to do with geometry and eyeballs…and presumably we’ll find out whether the architect’s child was male or female
Haha yes, I had to refer to the characters’s name and occupation at the front to figure out who’s who. Who do you think is more likely to be the killer? I can’t decide haha…
I finally made some real progress and made it to the end of this week. It really did pick up slowly from chapter 2, but much more noticeably from the halfway point. Way too late.
I’m reasonably enjoying the latter half of the book, but with how slow the start was and how irritating the slow pace still is at times, it’s not a book I’d recommend.
I came to see if anyone had any interesting theories before continuing into he 謎解き portion. I’m totally lost. For all I know it could be 藍子. With all the talk about how the ground holds so much water, that theory someone had at the beginning with water levels causing the doors to look seems quite plausible. There was a sentence about the drainage system of the inner basin as well…
Yay!!! Finished with ch 4. What can I say… nothing. Still as boring as ever, still flooded with つつ without any action. I gave up on thoroughly reading this book and just skimmed. Don’t care about unknown kanji, don’t care about unknown words, don’t care about what is (not) happening. Can’t wait to finish it simply for my “read a boring 500+ pages novel in japanese” challenge
Currently over on WK they just started a club for 硝子の塔の殺人 which is around 500 and really quite a fun book. Kind of meta mystery? I read it years ago and am relistening to the audiobook with them.
怒り (has 上・下) is a bit weaker as a mystery but the characters are phenomenal, really well fleshed out.
ハサミ男 is just over 500 and I loved it, if you have a dark sense of humor it’s great.
And finally, レベル7 went a little bit too long in my opinion, but it delivered well for like 80% of the book.
怒り… Watched movie adaptation at cinema and it was sick in a very negative way a scene of bulky murican soldiers assaulting a tiny girl was just incredibly painful to watch
ハサミ男 sounds interesting too and I have a dark sense of humour he he
レベル7 oh 宮部 みゆき! I’ve been wanting to read her works for so long Korean covers are dope as usual, native ones…not so much
Thanks for recs!! I’ll definetely check some out
Ah yeah, that scene is also in the book although I don’t remember it being given a ton of detail - just focus on the impact to her and her friend who found out about it. There was however a really dubious consent shower sex scene between two of the mains which I wasn’t fond of.
I think we were robbed of it in the movie(thank god tbh) but I don’t want to give 怒り another chance. However, if you have some fast-paced, unhinged, interesting short/medium length novels to share, I’m interested
p.s. looked at your faves on natively. Absolutely loved 告白, read it in translation and thinking about rereading in jp, eyeing 64 but I’m a bit hesitant bc of vocab
64 and 半落ち are both fabulous books, but yeah, 横山 does not hold back on vocabulary. At least he is using it artfully and not just flaunting that he knows big words like this book seemed to do
For shorter books 告白 is definitely great. I recently read 死神の浮力 and really liked it, I kept laughing reading it. It’s a little bit on the absurdist side and has less mystery.
チュベローズで待ってる AGE22 certainly fits fast paced and unhinged. It started out good and then just slide into insanity. I didn’t read the second book (I got kinda annoyed by it) but I have heard it goes even farther into WTF-land.
仮面病棟 and its sequel are really fast paced and enjoyable. Same author as 硝子の塔 (I’ve read a TON of his books and while they’re not all winners he’s generally a ‘safe’ option)
Law and Order 
Korean covers are dope as usual, native ones…not so much
