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 4?
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
Thanks to the audiobook, I am nearly caught up. my listening is so much better than my reading…
Overall, it feels a looooooot easier than the last book. 32 feels too high at the moment, but maybe it gets more difficult. The story is kinda slow… or is that just me?
I listened to both last week and this week in a single sitting, with new headphones, and I could hear the “changes in volume” people were talking about. I guess it’s when the reader re-recorded something?.
I’m not sure whether there are actual changes in volume (apart from where characters actually yell, of course), but there are definitely some very shrill-voiced female characters in there.
It’s a lower quality audiobook and it has younger female characters which some narrators like to indicate via…very high voices.
Agree @Biblio it’s a bit slow and 32 also feels high, although given how many books I’m reading lately in the mid-high 30s where I’m like “hmm, that feels oddly high” I’m wondering if the 30s are turning into my new 20s and I can’t judge difficulty there as well anymore
@Naphthalene Yeah, re-recordings are a big cause of volume flux, and also just like…voice change? There’s a reasonably high quality series I listened to in English, but it was probably over 100 hours long in total and there would be occasional “oh, this was definitely a sloppy edit snuck in. His voice sounds totally different and the mixing has changed” moments.
Right, finished this week’s portion. It’s still slow, and it’s still dry.
I don’t know whether it’s the audio that gives this impression, but I thought the detectives were depicted a little too much like fumbling fools. And I can’t believe that it can be accepted procedure in any civilized country to gather a bunch of students and let them discuss theories in front of your main suspect, however plausible these theories sound. Oh well. I’m not even sure whether it’s done for humorous effect or not. But they could at least take the little know-it-all aside and interview him properly, instead of stamping their feet petulantly and insist they’ve got their suspect bang to rights in front of everyone.
Cold logic is all fine and good, but I’m not buying it that there’s no way someone would leave an umbrella behind when it’s raining hard. It’s true that whenever I’ve seen rain in Japanese media it’s always something to be avoided at all costs, but I’m sure no one will actually melt in the rain. What if someone heard terrible news, and had to leave in a panic, never even paying the rain any mind? What if after the umbrella got wet on the toilet floor, the owner thought it too yucky to touch? What if it was someone else’s umbrella, hidden there as a prank? What if this umbrella was a gift from a girlfriend, and was discarded there out of spite after a fight? What if the reason no one came forward to claim the umbrella was that they didn’t want to be involved with the crime, even if they had nothing to do with it? Not everyone acts logically, not everything is calculated.
Same. That’s really annoying for me. I already thought it was a stretch in the detective books I was reading as a kid, but as an adult, it’s just bizarre.
I mean, I have experienced very strong rain in Japan before. To the point of being drenched even with an umbrella. That being said, as you said, there might still be reasons to abandon it behind.
I agree, but actually I almost had the opposite reaction at first. Earlier in chapter one, I thought they did pretty decent interrogations, and even though 仙堂’s reaction to 柚乃 overhearing them was oddly small, I thought he gave off cool chill detective vibes (though maybe he’s trying to act a little too chill). Then at the start of 2.3 he finally tells her she’s gone too far when she bursts in, which seems like a fair reaction, and is also upset at a new person being brought into the case, but is willing to hear 天馬’s theory once he realizes there’s some logical basis to it. All of this points towards cool chill detective for me. Then he lost all that momentum when he started desperately defending his theory about 佐川 with no proper reasoning right in front of her. It seemed like he lost characterization here just to give 天馬 his dramatic mic drop moment.
Yes, that what I meant to say. They were doing pretty good up to that point, except for ignoring a bunch of stuff (like the traces going to the back exit… you’re seriously just going to forget about that??) Plus ignoring stuff just appearing out of thin air around the time of the murder felt a bit unprofessional, but I can understand wanting to rush to a likely solution, at least at first. Not wanting to budge from there, though…
Well… it’s detective literature written in the country where 名探偵コナン exists. Maybe I am too used to this, but I am just like “Yeah, that’s Japanese pulp detective fiction for you.” and am not bothered.
You are right. People will carry their bags over their heads when it is raining. The umbrella use rate is also much higher than in other countries. The rain described in the book was a heavy rain though.
Yes, the narrator is good and able to perform very different voices. I addition to high pitch, some characters voices have louder volume that Mel’s it irritating. I typed this previously on a PT keyboard and the autocorrect went wild. Sorry.
Caught up to this week’s reading and yeah, I’m the same more or less. It’s not my most thrilling read but I’m approaching it like I would re-reading Nancy Drew or something else aimed at kids. It’s just kind of good fun once I accepted what it would not be.
(Whoops, this wasn’t supposed to be a reply to Naphthalene.)
Dang, you guys have high standards for excitement. I mean, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat or anything, but stuff is still happening. I’d say this is moving quicker than 十角館の殺人 was at this point; it took forever anyone for to die. All we had was a bunch of nerds walking around. D: And 島田 acting suspicious.
I’ll give you that one. They were fine up until 裏染 ran in.
Re:audio, I definitely noticed the places where they had to cut in retakes; it was super obvious. The narrator even dropped her 裏染 voice at one point.
This one got right to the action, I’ll give it that!
I think maybe a somewhat disappointing thing is the lack of depth to the characters. I feel like I know very little about the victim or why anyone would want to kill him, and the relationships between other characters hasn’t really been explored either.
I’m not really so upset so much as feeling a little let down on that front.
Law and Order 
my listening is so much better than my reading… 
32 feels too high at the moment, but maybe it gets more difficult. 
The story is kinda slow… or is that just me?
