After each chapter you are brought back to the menu to select the next chapter to play, so it should be easy to tell when you have reached the stopping point. This week covers the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2.
Discussion Guidelines
Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s portion (however early they occur), like so: text here (that’s: [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).
Don’t hesitate to ask questions! I know that some of you might be feeling shy, or don’t want to bother others with their questions, but you don’t have to worry: People love answering questions. You’re making the thread more lively, and you’re also helping anyone who has the same questions. So please, ask a lot of them!
Join the conversation — it’s fun!
Participation Poll
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m planning to catch up later
I’m skipping this VN
The club has already finished, and I’m reading this VN now
Ok, this chapter kind of irritated me. Both of them know that they speak different languages but still talk over each other instead of listening?? And they don’t try the trick with writing down characters like the woman did in ch 2? Where is the common sense?
Also it annoyed me that they tried to be considerate of each other but immediately gave up and resented the other when they didn’t somehow magically read each other’s minds… I hoped Xiaoran would be at least more self-aware since he’s an actual adult but no luck.
(Speaking of which, I don’t think I got the reason why Xiaoran keeps saying it’s not his fault that he didn’t pass the college examinations, did I miss that?)
Anyway maybe they will be more sensible in chapter 4, I hope they don’t spend too much time on this sort of miscommunication >.>
Actually, ch 4 was pretty short.
Ch 4 and overall thoughts
No luck on the communication part. Why is everyone so judgmental in this VN?? It’s kind of ironic that Xiaoran is looking down on Japanese people for being too sheltered and inconsiderate when he is making extremely broad assumptions about everyone himself.
I feel like you could write a story about language barriers without pitting people against each other. Making them antagonistic because ~reasons~ for conflict feels cheap and disingenuous.
Well, maybe I’m just being too critical and this is the point of the story. Though this VN is not exactly endearing me to either MC right now.
Yeah, that annoyed me too. Even if you think the other person speaks your language a little… why would you use complicated sentences? It felt like it took a really long time until one of them finally used slow, simple words and gestures. They also seem to have pen and paper, so they could try to draw things… and showing that you discovered a washing machine or that the light is not working would be far more effective than just saying it in your native language (although I guess at that point she was storming off anyway, so he’s forgiven ).
I don’t think it was mentioned yet.
Apart from their frustrating tendency to keep trying to communicate via words that the other clearly doesn’t understand, I don’t think that part was particularly unrealistic.
They are both freshly far from home, and had a hard and long day (full of setbacks in her case) and later a rough and cold night, I assume - they must be very exhausted, both in part 3 and 4. She is pretty young, and probably the first time far from home and on her own in a foreign city, which is probably overwhelming enough. And even more than for her, everything around Xiaoran is foreign to him, and he has barely anyone he can talk to. They don’t share the same culture nor language, and are suddenly more or less forced to live with each other.
With all that’s going on there, I’m not surprised at all that they are easily irritated and not exactly their best selves at the moment.
That said, I hope they discover the existence of dictionaries soon, or at least find a better way of communicating.
Yeah, that might work. At least a bit better than what they’re doing currently.
I assume the real estate agent lady actually knows a bit his language though, and she just doesn’t speak it for whatever reason. She apparently even told him the same that she told Kanna regarding the cat (“Please tell me if you see a black cat”), which seems a bit hard to do if you just blindly hope that kanji meanings connect.
Hmm, assuming that that would translate to something like “黒猫を見たら、教えてくれて” a speaker of Chinese would see “黒猫(black cat)見(see)教(teach)” which doesn’t seem that implausible to get the meaning out of, given context. And I assume a native Chinese speaker would know the more obscure uses of certain hanzi that might fit better. Certainly parsing classical chinese requires a similar amount of abstract thinking
Though you have a point, earlier she somehow got across the idea that the two of them need to live together and split the wages, which is even more abstract Then again I’ve heard of native chinese speakers reading wikipedia pages in japanese and managing to get the gist of things so maybe character knowledge is just OP
Was thinking the same thing, not to the point where I was too annoyed by it, but oh well, I imagine it’ll only make the eventual consideration and understanding even sweeter.
These chapters have further confirmed that this would be a dream living situation for me. Night shift room and a cat? What more could one ask for?
I think 「お前が追い出さなくても、遅かれ早かれ風俗にでも行くさ」 is the first time I’ve seen that Aかれ grammar construction in the wild. Also, what an optimistic man…
Ah yeah so definitely they are at least playing at it being for land speculation. Although I do wonder if that’s really what it is or not given the cat stuff. (Maybe I am overthinking the cat thing in a way similar to thinking eating motions mean you want a spoon instead of food)
I do think they probably could have handled the communication better - but they did hit a pretty abstract problem for their first one. Probably would be tricky to pantomime your way into saying you need to go talk to the land-lady to get the water and electricity fixed - and the frustration from that bled through into them failing to communicate even simple things.
Reply
From a slightly different angle specifically about the assumptions: Far from being cheap and disingenuous, I find this kind of just honest. I’d be really shocked if there is a person alive who’s never had a thought like this about “people who’ve got it way luckier than me”. Especially in a moment of frustration, or when you’re so far removed from people with a similar background as you I think this kind of self-pitying/jealous thought is totally natural and relatable.
What you do with the thoughts is another question entirely - and I hope he can move past them to having more productive thoughts for his sake and ours as the readers (especially because it’s relatable)
And yeah, I really hope they find some better method of trying to communicate soon too
Tinfoil hat time: that they’re protecting the property from development not because they’re land sharks - but to protect the cat’s little home. I even went so far as to wonder if the cat might not really be a cat
It’s probably just a cute cat and the lady/guy are just trying to do the land speculation thing though haha
Edit: as a cat myself maybe I am predisposed to assume the plot centers around the cat
My tinfoil hat theory until one of the main characters actually sees and touches the cat is that it’s a ghost or spirit. It seems to be very good at hiding at least…
(Btw, you can make multi-paragraph spoilers if you put the spoiler opening/closing tags in separate lines.)
I’m echoing everyone here, but the miscommunication here truly is pain. It’s like they both don’t even want to bother when they talk over each other instead of using gestures or learning simple phrases like “good morning” from each other. I’ve surprised they’ve haven’t even done the whole “Me, Tarzan, You Jane” introduction! I get being bitter over the bento and not wanting to give up a candle you paid for, but at least leave the blanket you found in the closet…
I will say that they are both relatively young and haven’t had much exposure to other cultures, at a time where tourists/expats weren’t as prevalent as they are now. Also, I’ve seen my MIL continue to speak Japanese to English-speaking waiters, but slower, as if the other party will then magically understand her, so maybe it’s not too far off from reality lol.
Hoping they finally take the time to communicate soon. It’s stressing me out that they aren’t being more efficient with their chores and home squatting schedule. I don’t get why they can’t be away from the place at the same time though. The place would have been left empty at times if only one person took the job.
As for the cat… I wonder if it’s an actual cat or something supernatural in the story.
2 Likes
As an Amazon Associate, Natively earns from qualifying purchases through any Amazon links on the site.
(Visual Novel Reading Club)
).
but let’s hope they come up with something else… Maybe they will bond over the cat lol.
Then again I’ve heard of native chinese speakers reading wikipedia pages in japanese and managing to get the gist of things so maybe character knowledge is just OP
