Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, 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’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
“Mei, it’s best just not to comment on Iwanagahime’s appearence.”
”Mei, I need to to be back in time to be picked up.”
I kept expecting these comments to be foreshadowing for later on the chapter
Overall, through this chapter I found my personal interest in the book is starting to dwindle. I fee like I am read more for the sake of completion. I wish there was more of an overarching conflict or a through line to the story. Like even in Honzuki (which I am just using an example, since I think most people were in that book club) (spoilers) when I had to suffer through 30 pages of soup making, there was still the overarching plot of will マイン make a book, and what will she try next to do it?”
Also, in 神様たちのお伊勢参り’s case, because of Mai’s 仕方がない attitude towards every aspect of the world around her, even scenes which are very beautiful or magical lose some of their impact for me. I am not saying this is bad or unrealistic attitude for her character have given the circumstances. Just as a reader it can make things feel lackluster and unimportant(?), especially it’s in first person narration.
But I am very curious to hear if anybody is having a different experience!
I was expecting for most of the last two weeks that Mei’s “don’t think too much, rush ahead and do stuff” attitude was going to land her in trouble, in the classic “character impetuously does something they think is good without consulting anybody, turns out to cause problem/upset, story resolution is fixing things and reconciliation” plot arc, but no. Not that I object, but somehow the early parts of the chapter felt like they were foreshadowing this kind of development but it just didn’t happen…
Hmm, I’m not sure if I’d say my overall interest is decreasing. For me, it feels like when you start a new manga series which is episodic, but soon starts developing an overarching story/arcs, you know? So it just feels like I need to give it some more time until we enter some kind of arc.
To be honest, I’m quite a fan of episodic series/stories, so that might be why I’m not bothered by it. And I felt I could relate much more to this chapter then to the last one, so it was enjoyable for me. At the same time, I’m also not sure if I have enough stimulus to continue reading the book series after the first volume.
I really like 石長姫. On the funny side, I think it’s unintentional, but having 石長姫 say bad relationships (for you) will naturally go away, immediately followed by “well, I have to go” made me laugh
Right, I also feel like we need to learn more about the “world”/setting before anything can really happen. That being said, I don’t mind episodic stories.
Maybe character motivation would have been a better chose of words on my end. I don’t want to come across as a “if the main character isn’t telling me their traumatic backstory by page 30 what is even the point” type of reader. World building and characterization of the characters is important and best done gradually.
On the whole, I don’t mind episodic story telling (three of my favorite manga series fall into this category), but I guess I prefer with novels in particular if there is still something the main character is working towards or against. It doesn’t need to stay the same or even be anything epic—it could be completely emotionally or personality driven. Just something. For example…in Spirited Away I can appreciate the time taken to establish the world of the bath house and the type of customers who visit it. But there is still the unresolved tension of Chihiro’s parents.
That being said I can appreciate that 2/3rds in might be a bit too soon to judge or come to conclusions about things just yet.
First things first, I liked this chapter the best so far. 石長様 was lovely and I enjoyed getting to know her character. I also liked that Mei got a bit of character development.
As for the overall story, I feel the same way as most people in this thread! This book feels very passive (?) so far since Mei doesn’t really have a purpose or a goal. Also, there hasn’t really been enough character development for her/Ten/San, so I’m not particularly attached to any of them.
I’ll definitely finish the book since it’s been a very breezy read for me, but I’m not sure how interested I am in continuing with the lack of world building. I was super excited for mythology (in the vein of ノラガミ or 神様はじめました) and I feel like that’s not really happening here.
So… I accidentally finished the book. Was listening to it while building some Lego and suddenly it was done.
I definitely enjoyed the later chapters more than the earlier ones, and since it’s so easy to listen to I might as well continue with the audiobooks. It’s nice to know that the series at least is finished.
true, I was playing catch up and then just ended up finishing it in 2 days. Honestly, my brain was like… wow… we fast… words go vroooom. It’s nice to have something easy on the schedule for once.
