Please blur/hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: text here (that’s [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, the story, cultural things or literally anything else related to the book — ask! There is really no need to be hesitant. If it’s something you are wondering about, chances are someone else will be thankful you asked first, lots of people enjoy answering questions, you learn something new, and the thread gets more lively. It’s a win-win on all fronts!
It’s still too early to lose participants, so please continue holding yourselves back, werewolves.
Participation Poll
I’m reading along
I have fallen behind and I’m planning to catch up later
Well, that was quite an introduction. Calls himself “The Count”, refuses to elaborate. That’s not suspicious at all.
And now we know how the book establishes urgency for the kids.
Also damn, that sheep painting.
人間の手足を持ち、洋服を着た羊たちの絵だ。
Me: “Haha. That’s slightly creepy I guess.”
羊たちは五人おり、その中の一人がほかの四人に指さされている。
Me: “Isn’t that a little bit too on th–”
指さされた羊のすぐそばには血にぬれたギロチン。
Me:
Also, I wonder what’s up with the missing letters from ORIHARA. RHR is left, so starting with the first, every second letter is missing. Seems strangely regular, and an interesting detail to include at all, but I have no idea what to do with or (or with the remaining OIAA).
I’m glad that we didn’t have to hem and haw over, is the count good actually for 2-3 chapters. Nope, the grownups are missing, you’re playing a werewolf game while I drink my tea menacingly. Let’s go.
Speaking of the grownups missing, there’s no universe that I would have gone upstairs, let alone to sleep, without seeing one of them and hearing that things had worked out. And that’s leaving aside whole haunted mansion and creepy count vibes
I didn’t notice that much detail, but I did notice that what is missing isn’t adjacent. It’s also all of the vowels
I know we don’t have the rules yet, but, I’m guessing we can cross the count off of our werewolf list if he’s the one that’s starting the game? Like, “guess who’s the werewolf all you people who aren’t me and who already know each other, oh wow, how did you guess it was me?”
I think it’s “and then”, chaining the two verbs into a sequence. As in (literally) “I’m not gonna do things like [grabbing/catching/picking up] and then eating you.”
Oh man, that one took me a bit to figure out even with a translator, so you’re in good company.
Page 17
I think the name tags the two adults are wearing aren’t printed or written as a whole, but they are somehow made out of single letters. I don’t know if those letters are pinned to their clothes one by one, or if they are somehow fastened to a magnetic or otherwise sticky name tag, or behind a foil or whatever, but the point is that you have letters and you can build name tags from them.
Having that context - maybe it makes sense now? If not, here is the (literal) translation:
“Since (those) letters can be taken off one by one, I also lined up up my name ‘HAYATO’ (on one of those nametags) during the camp.”
(Without any evidence) I assumed it was kinda like how marquee letters work. I’m not familiar with name tags like that, but that combined with the missing letters gave me that impression?
That’s a possibility, yeah! If that’s the case, the missing letters would definitely be like that on purpose, considering that you’d have to remove pretty much all letters to remove every second one.
It felt very intentional, and the narration took the time to be very specific about the name tags and the missing letters which is part of what gave me the impression I think.
Woah, that did escalate quickly! Really fun vibes at the ending with the count saying creepy villain things and drinking tea.
Also, how about the painting?? The sheep had human arms and legs?
Ok I did laugh at the ギロチン
I totally skimmed past this when I read it, but now that you all mention it, I was confused by 並べる being used to refer to letters on a nametag, and was thinking I must be missing some meaning of the verb. I feel like sometimes with language learning when something is kind of unexpected I have a hard time believing what I’m reading, like, that can’t possibly be the right meaning.
Also would like to note that we spent a long time describing how ヤマネ is wearing a dress because her clothes got wet in the river, versus the other kids who are wearing 動きやすい clothes. Chekhov’s 動きにくい dress??
Time for week 3, in which the children will surely discover that Werewolf Game is just the name of a popular board game that their two caretakers have set up in the next room over, and the bloody clothing is from a clumsy encounter with an unexpectedly sharp knife during an attempt to prepare breakfast. Definitely!
Either way, I’m sure it’ll all end well, if we just keep reading!!
