かがみの孤城 🪞 Week 14

Intermediate Book Club: Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: TUGUMI・Next: おばちゃんたちのいるところ
かがみの孤城 Home Thread: かがみの孤城 (Kagami no Kojou) Book Club

Week 14

Start date: February 19th, 2022

This week we are reading the 十一月 chapter.
End page (bunko): 357
End percentage (bunko): 86
End page (tanko): 257
End phrase: …街に、みんながいる。

Previous week: かがみの孤城 🪞 Week 13
Next week: かがみの孤城 🪞 Week 15

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number. If you are reading the ebook version mention the percentage.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

Read Aloud

We will be reading on Sundays at 10:30PM Japan time (reading the previous week’s content). Here is the time in your local time zone:

2022-02-27T13:30:00Z

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along (up to this week’s end page)
  • I’m already reading ahead (beyond this week’s end page)
  • I’ve read this book already and I’m here for discussion
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t yet reached this week’s starting page
  • I’m no longer reading the book

0 voters

2 Likes

Well, I certainly hadn’t expected my prediction from last week to come true this quickly… :sweat_smile:

Now I’m really curious how soon they will meet up outside the castle. And I also wonder how the search for the key will continue. For now, it seems like they have little reason to search for it, but there will surely be some twist later that gives them a reason to look for it again…

3 Likes

I haven’t finished the chapter yet, so I’m putting off reading spoilers, but is anyone else starting to suspect that the mirrors cause time travel? This would explain why the class sizes are different, and why the castle inhabitants who went to the same elementary schools don’t recognize each other. It may also explain why hair dye is way more shocking to some people-- perhaps some people are from a time when it was much rarer?

4 Likes

I’ve definitely been thinking that this is a possibility.

3 Likes

And I bet ウレシノ’s reaction to こころ’s description of 喜多嶋先生as “pretty” is because, in ウレシノ’s time, she’s quite old.

2 Likes

That had not occurred to me, but now that you mention it:
:exploding_head:
Having said that, my own thought after this chapter is that maybe 喜多嶋先生 and オオカミ様 have some sort of connection.
Who knows? But I am finally starting to find the book intriguing.

3 Likes

Ooh… Maybe? There was the mysterious mention of a friend who told her about マサムネ、 and then we skipped over that, even though for こころ it was 気になる。maybe the “friend” is オオカミさま?or, with the possibility of time travel, it could also be Kokoro herself, but in Kokoro’s future (based on various clues, I suspect Masamune is the furthest in the future and Fuuka is furthest in the past.)

3 Likes

One question about this chapter.

表情を固めたマサムネはじめ、誰も、何も言えなかった。

Is this a typo? Shouldn’t it be マサムネはじめ?

1 Like

I can vaguely remember the sentence, but I’m trying to find it for the context. Whereabouts was it? (How far along during the week’s reading, or which scene?)

For what it’s worth I read it to mean the same as をはじめ and didn’t catch the discrepancy until you pointed it out. Whether it’s a typo or a valid shortening I couldn’t say. I feel like that could be normal in speech but it seems a little weird coming from the narrator.

1 Like

Maybe about halfway through the chapter, between two of those fleur-de-lis thingies. It’s when they are talking about what elementary schools they went to.

That’s exactly what I was thinking. In dialog or even thoughts it might make sense, but not during narration.

2 Likes

For what it’s worth (maybe you already talked about it in the read-aloud), it’s the same in the physical book and after looking at some example sentences for (を)はじめ, I see what you mean.

1 Like

Finally caught up! (again :sweat_smile:) We are almost done anyway but hopefully I can keep to the schedule for the second volume.

Definitely have thought this could be possible with all the discrepancies there seem to be, but I wonder if there is any other way of justifying those? In case it is the case, I’m really curious about the role it would have in the story. Only one way to find out!

The book is really interesting right now :eyes:

4 Likes

Welcome back! Think you’ll come for the read aloud since you’re all caught up? (Did I ask that last time too? :sweat_smile:)

You did! Actually I just checked out the time and it’s nooot the greatest for me but we’ll see what happens come Sunday. Wait, the read aloud is for Week 15, right? Haven’t read that yet but will do shortly :eyes:

It’ll be for week 15, yeah. Hope to see you back there at some point!

1 Like

Well, as the song goes

Well, you know November has come, and it’s gone away.

I’ve been waiting to make that reference since I saw the table of contents, don’t judge me… Also, lyrics online say that it’s “when it’s gone away”, so it doesn’t even make sense.

My guess may be completely wrong (or already proved right where the club is), but I think
they are all on different timelines (which is why there are so many students not attending school “at the same time”). That also explains why マサムネ has games that are slightly ahead of こころ, more than that he is betatesting them (although it might also be the case). I would not be surprised if アキ’s family name was 喜多島 (could be フウカ as well, but there was nothing about her voice, and her description matches アキ better, I feel), which would explain her certainty about the fact that something happened to こころ (as well as the weird interaction they had when they first met and she said she is also from 雪科第5; also the tea bags she brought as present).
So, if that’s the case, some of them already met :slight_smile:

(I’m only halfway through the chapter, though, but I couldn’t stop myself from posting)

Edit: I feel that my theory is immediately confirmed by the discrepancy in class numbers. However, that makes it sound like フウカ is from the past, so maybe she is 喜多島 after all?

Edit2: Oh, there was also the hint that スバル was never compared to Ron from the Harry Potter series. If he is from the future, that series is probably a bit too old at that point. And フウカ had never seen the chocolates こころ gave her for her birthday despite the fact it just comes from the combini. I guess the closing on the 30th of March is because one (or more) of them is on a leap year?

Edit3: Their conversation is making it painfully obvious. If it’s revealed by the end of the chapter, I guess I will just look stupid. :upside_down_face:

Edit4: okay, no reveal, good. Anyway, compared to こころ, フウカ is in the past and 嬉野 is in the future (I think he didn’t register 喜多島 as pretty since she is too old in his time). Not super sure about スバル and アキ. They know the same shops that こころ is unaware of, but that might just be because they live nearby. Meanwhile, アキ doesn’t know カレオ, which is fairly recent for こころ, so アキ is either in the past or far enough in the future for it to have changed name (or closed).

8 Likes