Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
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.
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.
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).
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.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’m reading this book after the club has finished
I’m no longer reading the book
0voters
If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have read this part.”
Story 13 is also inspired by a kabuki play, this time 忍夜恋曲者 (which is read しのびよるこいはくせもの, obviously ). I found a kabuki website with a plot summary in English or if you prefer the reading challenge in Japanese.
I haven’t read the short story yet; I am hoping that it features the giant frog from the kabuki play…
Edit having read the short story – I think the reading experience in this one probably differs rather depending on whether you have the kabuki play in the back of your mind, so pick for yourself whether you want to look it up before or after.
I liked this one. I suspect the reading experience would have been rather different if I hadn’t just read the kabuki plot summary and knew the ending scene featured the princess sitting on a giant frog staring intensely at her male antagonist, especially since the story only gradually dribbles out description of ガムちゃん…
Does the 大宅さん she’s had a date with get mentioned in any of the other stories? Not having an electronic copy of the book it’s trickier for me to search.
Little details I liked: the idea it would be much easier if you could just get food at a local canteen sometimes; that her ideal is “ガムちゃん and me and someone and someone”; that she has to do a lot of laundry.
Story 12. I found this story very tiring and with little substance. So there’s one efficient team of ten people in that mysterious ghost company who help out wherever needed, and they are also very competitive in company-wide competitions. They usually win, but this time it was a dance competition and they lost to a team with more experience. So? What am I missing? And what’s the connection to the kabuki play?
Maybe there’s more if you actually know the play rather than relying on Wikipedia, but it felt to me like a case where the author had pulled out a handful of elements and mixed them into her own story: dance; competitiveness (the play has a drinking competition with a guy), Sarashina-hime and her retinue of female attendants; maple leaves.
A much more readable story this one, I liked it much more.
For the longest time, I was sure ガムちゃん was a cat Then thought some sort of slimy monster. Only after reading the kabuki summary did I realize ガムちゃん was a frog. And the narrator works for that same company, under fox lady.
A quick search showed no results in the book so far. I don’t know if he makes an appearance later.
Story 13: Incidentally, I’m guessing that it’s ガムちゃん in the little illustration on the page at the back that lists all the sources of inspiration for the stories (p253 in the paperback version).
I thought of ガマちゃん as a cat, too, although I wondered a bit over its sliminess that is mentioned several times. The English version of the story mentions its true identity at the very end of the story saying ‘Keeping up with the washing is no joke when you live with an enormous toad.’ I think that the hint in the Japanese version was ガムちゃん’s first name ガマ which designates also a toad.
I discarded the cat idea after the sliminess was mentioned. I guess the basic hint for the nature of ガムちゃん was the description of colours and patterns, plus long tongue and sliminess. And for the Japanese readers, prior knowledge of the kabuki play? Interesting how English translations tend to spell things out. I’ve seen it in both this book and Eugenia. In Eugenia I don’t think it was needed at all, but here some cultural background is indeed necessary to understand the references.
It’s on one of the last pages of the ebook. I have the ebook too. You should have a “chapter” in the table of contents titled 各作品のモチーフ一覧
Same. It just didn’t come to life for me the way some of the other stories did. Perhaps we’ll see more of this team later on and we’ll get the pay-off then? It would be a weirdly inconsequential story otherwise.
Also, it said something about a picture at the end of the story, but I don’t see any picture (at least not in the Kindle version). Is there a picture in the physical book…?
Toadzilla has since been euthanised, as is standard practice in Australia for the pests, and will be donated to the Queensland Museum.
Edit: Okay, apparently cane toads are invaders that endanger local wildlife, so I suppose it’s justified. But still : amazing discovery of unique specimen of known species → killed it!
I hate cane toads with a passion. They basically wipe out the native wildlife - mammals such as quolls eat them and die, and they compete with native frog species. They also kill a fair number of pet dogs.
). I found a kabuki website with a plot summary 
Then thought some sort of slimy monster. Only after reading the kabuki summary did I realize ガムちゃん was a frog. And the narrator works for that same company, under fox lady.
→ killed it! 