Any spoilers, 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.
Always mention where you are in the book when discussing, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting! But please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That can be part of the discussion too and I’m sure some folks would be happy to help.
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.
Read half the reading before tapping out for the day, couldn’t maintain focus. But glad of the plot developments.
Re Kiryu-kun, I’m guessing his dad is actually unemployed but hiding it from his family or something…
I am finding this a very difficult read partially because it is so introspective
and sort of vague and partially because Nanako’s voice is extremely meandering and odd, even if the actual vocab is not too bad, it just gives me a headache to read trying to figure everything out. It was a good idea to read it at the same time as 不思議駄菓子屋 because it sort of balances it out a bit, but I have to say this is multiple times more draining.
Welp I cried a little bit when her parents showed up.
And I think this week gives some weight to at @Jiell 's conjecture that a lot of this might be going on in Nanoka’s head.
I’m not gonna lie, when I heard that they were putting up caution tape I was worried that Minami-san had fallen or maybe even jumped. Her having never existed is a lot easier to deal with
Oh that thought didn’t even cross my mind, I just took what he said at face value
I think that was @freddyg, though my prediction isn’t too far from that. (I lean more on something supernatural, time travel through dreams style, going on)
Also, not going to lie, I really thought Nanokas parents were going to die this chapter. So relieved they didn’t
Ohh I also didn’t think of that! Surely there is something going on with his father, or he wouldn’t get mentioned repeatedly.
I read 銭天堂 ~1.5 years ago, and I remember it being significantly easier to read. To the point that 2 Natively levels of difference feels wrong. Nanokas metaphors throw me for a loop each time.
I agree with you. I read 銭天堂 considerably later than また、同じ夢を見ていた and I found, I had a harder time with it, despite being further along in my studies. Tbf, I was fairly bored with 銭天堂, so that might have added to how “hard” it felt.
tbf I read 銭天堂, while I am only listening to this one. Maybe that’s why it feels harder to me, looking up words or phrases is a lot more annoying and I only really do it if I have to.
I have replayed some sections >5 times, just to properly hear whats being said I don’t remember putting that much effort into any sentence from 銭天堂.
Haha makes sense. The only one I remember myself really being invested in was the last story.
It will be interesting to see if the gradings on these book changes after the book clubs are done
while the vocab for 不思議駄菓子屋 is much more varied the main thing is the lack of long run-on sentences and all the stories are relatively predictable (well, if you’re used to the story shapes) so the possibility spaces are smaller. And occasionally Nanoka will come out with a strange simile so you’re like ‘wait, are you seriously talking about corn soup right now- oh it’s a metaphor’
I don’t personally have any prediction of much magical realism going on, but i keep getting lost in sentences, so who knows
Surprising developments for me here. I took it as a fact that the parents would not be joining the speech session. Further, I assumed that we would be reading more about her interacting with (and possibly helping) Minami.
I felt like things got quite interesting this week - I have to admit, that with most of the previous weeks, I didn’t feel like I was really into the story yet - it did get better when Nanoka was talking to Minami about her parents, but that was about it.
However, I was quite intrigued with the supernatural tone of the end of the chapter - I hadn’t considered the possible supernatural elements associated to the title of the book to actually play a role in the story. I really wonder what’s going on with Minami, and as others said, how much of it is happening in Nanoka’s head, or what is actually going on..
Her jumping was also literally what crossed my mind, so I was also pleasantly surprised the story didn’t go that way.
I didn’t expect the parents either (did get a bit touched that they came tho)nor that Minami would “disappear” so soon.
After she proclaims that her happiness is that her mom and dad are here right now:
私は、アバズレさんとの約束を破ってしまいました。
What was that promise again?
That would make him not coming to the parent-child-day doubly sad…
But if that’s the case, why would she suddenly discover that the handkerchief is missing, and why would she forget the story? And why wouldn’t she just make up that she’s meeting Minami-san elsewhere?
Same! My current hypothesis is that Minami-san was some kind of weird story-writing, wrist-cutting ghost that vanished once the location she was haunting got demolished.
What I can’t make sense of though is Nanoka selectively forgotting things. Like… she doesn’t remember the story (which seems very unlike her), but e.g. she didn’t forget what Minami-san’s school uniform looked like. I’m not sure what to make of that, and the suddenly vanishing handkerchief is a bit puzzling as well.
Also, uh… I hope Nanoka’s other friends are more of the corporal/living variety.
Haha, yeah. The moment they mentioned the caution tape I was like “Oh no…”, followed by instant relief when I learnt it was actually about.
Yeah, 「まるでコーンスープにコーンが一粒も入っていなかった時のように味わいました。」! This book had a lot of great sentences so far, but I think this might well be my favourite.
1: I got goosebumps when I realized that Minami was never real. And that means that the argument between Minami and Nacchan, was all just Nacchan’s inner turmoil… If Minami was imaginary, then maybe Abazure and grandma are imaginary too? Minami seemed like a high school version of Nacchan, so I wonder if Minami, Abazure, and grandma are all just Nacchan imagining herself throughout her life.
2: That corn soup metaphor? Yeah, I’m totally gonna use that.
3: Glad to know I’m not the only one who immediately thought Minami jumped.
Wait, did I miss something completely?
Others wrote, too, that they assumed this to be the case, and while I thought it might be possible, I would not have assumed so myself.
While I am generally fine with just enjoying the ride (), I am curious now: Is it written somewhere explicitly (up to the end of this week’s reading only, of course - I have not read the week 9 part yet)?
It was never explicitly stated, we’re just inferring it based on Naccan’s thoughts at the end of the chapter, so it’s not necessarily true. But if it is true, then I also think that’s the reason that Minami never let Nacchan borrow her story.
Nanoka says at the end of the chapter that she never saw Minami again, and various pieces of rather mysterious information: Minami’s school uniform is not one she recognizes from the city, the handkerchief she got from her vanished, and that she suddenly can’t remember Minami’s story, which seems very unlike Nanoka.
The school uniform thing would just be plain weird considering that Minami seems to be on that roof almost daily (is she commuting just to hang out there? ), so a possible explanation would be that she’s a ghost from a different time or something like that.
The vanishing handkerchief and memory are even more weird. A physical object chooses just that moment to disappear? And Nanoka suddenly has very specific memory loss on something that is important to her? That’s not usually something that happens when you cannot meet a normal human friend anymore.
Pages
Pages
), I am curious now: Is it written somewhere explicitly (up to the end of this week’s reading only, of course - I have not read the week 9 part yet)?