あなたも殺人犯になれる! ❗ (IBC) - Week 3

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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あなたも殺人犯になれる! :exclamation:
Intermediate Book Club
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41GF53P6MAL

Week 3 November 4th, 2023
Chapter(s) #4 & #5
Start page 31
End page 48
Page count 18
Previous week week 2
Next week week 4

Vocabulary

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
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Name Hiragana reading Notes first mentioned in
赤川次郎 あかがわじろう the author cover
岡本聡美 おかもとさとみ main character, manga course participant chapter 1
箱根 はこね town in Kanagawa chapter 1
戸沢 とざわ secretary general from S Publishing chapter 1
七ツ谷むらさき ななつたにむらさき the female manga teacher chapter 1
菅野尚子 すがのなおこ course participant chapter 1
山名武三 やまなたけぞう the prisoner chapter 2
田所隆 たどころたかし the police officer chapter 2
中島 なかじま local policeman chapter 2
ミキ みき middle school student chapter 3
笠原信二 かさはらしんじ ミキ’s father, course participant chapter 3
百合子 ゆりこ ミキ’s mother chapter 3
宇部果林 うべかりん course participant,『か』of 『カバカ』 chapter 4
馬場しのぶ ばばしのぶ course participant,『ば』of 『カバカ』 chapter 4
加藤ジュン かとうじゅん course participant,『か』of 『カバカ』 chapter 4
富田丈一 とみたじょういち 尚子’s fiancé (full name in chapter 5) chapter 4
堺法行 さかいのりゆき course participant chapter 5
相沢弥生 あいざわやよい course participant chapter 5

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Chapter 4

Pfew that was tought, I think it took me more than an hour for just this chapter.
I was fully expecting a detective or the criminal to get out of the car on the parking lot, not a fiance! :astonished:
It was a bit hard to follow the dialog between the 3 persons, not sure exactly who is saying what but I think I got the gist.

Question:

三人の女の子がパッと身を寄せ合い、「ワーッ」と、 ハ(。)モ(。)る。

Not sure why the emphasis on ハモ?

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Chapter 4

A few challenging expressions so far, but I’m only half way through. I was wondering about this one:

「あのドライバーさん？ そうね。でも、腕は確かって感じ」

Not sure what she means in the end about his arms? Is that some expression? The translation just gave me the literal meaning.

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Reply

Translation gave me “he’s good at what he does” but maybe someone can find a useful link confirming that.
Also a tip on how to search for that? Expression + 意味
?

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It’s often sufficient just to search for the expression; in this case that gives me a hinative page where somebody confirms that it means ‘skillful, competent’, and a dictionary page that links it to the closely related 腕の確か. If that doesn’t work then throwing in 意味 into the search terms can help; and add の if it’s a kanji only term and the results are full of Chinese pages.

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Chapter 5

Wow, people dynamics are in full swing already :rofl: Fiancé showing up and following the group, wife breaking up with her husband… interesting! :blush:
The one thing that I find really aggravating is the “stupid policeman” trope though… and in such a blatant way! Why don’t they keep the guy handcuffed and everything??

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Chapter 5

Yay, finished reading this chapter in around one hour too but at least this one didn’t feel confusing at all!
Progressing slowly with introducing the characters, looking forward to the two stories connecting and things starting.
Many cool expressions in this chapter:
タヌキ寝入り
一段落
一からやり直したい

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chapter 5

I really like the new characters, they seem interesting to me. I like 相沢弥生 already!

question:

「少女漫画家になったら、さぞ可愛い女の子たちと仲良くできるんでしょうね !」

When I first read this, this sounded like an accusation of pedophilia to me… But maybe (hopefully!) that’s a bit of a stretch? It might also be just an accusation of cheating :upside_down_face:
(But seriously, am I reading this right?)

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Chapter 5

I think 可愛い女の子たち means “cute girls” but in this context we are not talking about cute 8 year olds, definitely cute 18+ girls, so just an accusation of cheating I would say :slight_smile:

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Chapters 4 and 5

Okay I think I’m now getting into the swing of things! Chapter 4 had a lot of the back and forth with かばか and a lot of their expressions were hard to understand, but chapter 5 felt very straightforward and I got through it very quickly! I lik how fast the background drama is developing and how it will be setting up what I hope is a very interesting training camp!!

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Chapter 5

I enjoyed the back and forth between 山名 and the police officers.
Useful to learn a new meaning for ごめん as in はごめんだ I hope that X doesn’t happen, I don’t want X
「また事故に遭うのはごめんだ」

I was unsure about the bit immediately after
あの東京の田所という刑事の話が大げさでも何でもないのだと中島も知っていた。

Even if that Tokyo detective Tadokoro’s story is an exaggeration, it doesn’t matter? thought Nakajima??
I thought on first reading that Nakajima was dismissing Tadokoro’s concern (he seemed earlier not to be too worried.
But then the next sentence seems to describing this mild mannered and compliant man as a cold blooded killer. (Is this perhaps the writer interjecting rather than Nakajima’s thoughts, or is Nakajima really

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It is not an exaggeration

EDIT: Literally this would be “it is neither an exaggeration nor anything”, see also 〜でも 〜でも (JLPT N4) | Bunpro – Japanese Grammar Explained
I must confess I don’t particularly like their example and translation for the negative case, but at least this is the grammar point in question.

Nakajima knew that, too.

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I haven’t finished this weeks reading yet, so if I’m repeating something from the spoiler posts excuse me!!

I am liking the reading so far, getting to know more about all the characters. I got the impression this will be less about manga and more about the mystery aspect of things. But I noticed, because I’m currently reading Nozaki-kun (with the book club!!) there is some manga-making vocabulary that I instantly knew and didn’t need to look up. I mean, I guess it’s not super useful vocab, but it’s cool and a good feeling because I thought I’d never see it/need it again for anything else :slightly_smiling_face:

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Chapter 4 & 5 thoughts:

I hadn’t had trouble with the perspective switching up until now, but it finally got me in chapter 5. Ok the microphone’s being passed again, wait what who’s thinking about not knowing things and separating from their husband?? Had to do a re-read.

Thinking on all the new character intros, I was surprised we hadn’t focused much on 聡美 since chapter 1, but then decided perhaps her light touch as main character is intentional. It seems like she’s meant to be the straight man/normal person to all the more dramatic, manga-style characters in this class. She seems like a sensible type, and does also liken 笠原 to a manga character right at the start of the book. I only just noticed it!

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I’m a bit behind now, hopefully fixing that soon. Wow, these characters really have a lot going on.

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