Week 6 👻 Medium 🔮

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Welcome to the sixth week of Medium 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠!

Home thread for announcements, wiki, etc
→ See all posts for this club

We are following the below schedule (page counts may vary based on your medium):

Week Up to Approximate Pages Percent Paperback page
Week 1 * - last sentence ending 最後になった 31 8% 40
Week 2 * - last sentence ending 視ていたのだろう 26 14% 67
Week 3 * - last sentence ending 明かしてください 26 19% 94
Week 4 end of 第一話 24 24% 118
Week 5 * - last sentence ending じいぅと見つめていた 28 31% 155
Week 6 * - last sentence ending 席に立った 25 37% 181
Week 7 end of 第二話 29 43% 210
Week 8 * - last sentence ending 女の子です 29 49% 242
Week 9 * - last sentence ending 見つかったそうです 33 56% 275
Week 10 * - last sentence ending 愛しげに抱きしめた 33 64% 317
Week 11 * - last sentence ending はそう判断した 26 70% 344
Week 12 English sentence containing “Iced coffee” 29 76% 372
Week 13 English sentence containing “Grimoire” 29 81% 402
Week 14 * - last sentence ending その経緯を知りたいです 44 90% 455
Week 15 until 解説 29 96% 474

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 :slight_smile:

:policeman: Law and Order :policewoman:

  • 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 :sparkling_heart:
  • 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 6 of Medium?

  • 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’m just following the discussion :popcorn:
0 voters

Happy sleuthing! :male_detective:

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I like how the plot is shaping up this week. It looks like the initial “the murderer is definitely X” might have been the author faking us out. My guess is it’s none of our three suspects after all :slight_smile: At any rate, I find it hard to believe it was 新谷 – you’d have to be a seriously professional murderer to be able to do someone in and then clean up all in ten minutes, and be confident enough you hadn’t got blood on your white nightgown to then spend half an hour having tea and a chat with two other people…

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You know, I hadn’t considered the white nightgown aspect (I was too busy being amused by how our noble narrator described it) but that’s a good point. I can’t even trust myself to eat things with chili oil wearing a white shirt, much less murder someone.

I’m very curious what the one guy (I’ve forgotten names already) was feeling so guilty about if not murdering the author. Perhaps he was the one having an affair with the author! /s

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And how hard he was looking away.

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Yes, the story is really picking up compared to the ‘intro’ story! What kind of ‘bad energy’ could there be from Bessho? Maybe something to do with writing? My suspicions are now going to the first person (Arimoto?) who went to the toilet. Perhaps they killed the writer, and then Bessho saw the corpse and took avantage of the situation, by stealing a manuscript or something? I do love wild speculation :grin:

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Other than the ridiculous scene where the narrator needed to look away from the oh-so-sexy nightgown (hard eye roll) , this week’s reading was interesting enough.

There were supposed to be 5 guests staying the night, right? So with the three who went to the toilet (and all spent ages there), and the two in the living room, that accounts for all of them, right? In which case, I’d also suspect the first one, for the only reason that we seem to have discounted him from the suspect list too quickly. Also, who had already read the book to know about the symbol? Unless the writer openly discussed it before publication, I suppose it would only be his publisher. Oh, or his cleaner, she seems to like taking a peek. But there were no footprints outside. Maybe she cleaned them up? :thinking:

Note to self (and whoever else needs it): This week ends at the end of track 17.

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Meanwhile, my only regret is that, during the first story, when two characters (I already forgot their names, I am garbage) were often together, my first reaction was to think they were (secretly) a couple and I was wrong. This time, when 新谷 is introduced as a former student 黒越 somehow just keep around, my instinct was also to think they must be a thing, just before stopping myself since, no, common, it doesn’t have to be. Well, frick it. I won’t stop myself anymore. I’m gonna ship “them” in the third part, whoever they are.

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Ended up finishing the story this week. I’ll save my full thoughts for next week’s thread, but golly, it sure is uncanny how Hisui looks beautiful no matter how she does her clothes/makeup.

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