かがみの孤城 (Kagami no Kojou) Book Club

Thx for the heads up

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Week 25 is here! After this week, there are only three more weeks left, so we are nearing the end! (Some of you have already reached the end of course :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:).

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In the Week 25 thread we noticed that I am currently the only one who is still sticking to the schedule so I’m not sure if sticking to the schedule still makes much sense. A number of people have already finished the book early, but some might still be catching up.

I propose that I turn the week 25 thread into a thread for the full remainder of the 三月 chapter and that I create the last thread (for the 閉城 chapter and epilogue) this weekend so that we finish two weeks early. (I wouldn’t mind finishing early.)

Here’s a poll to gather opinions on this:

  • The shortened schedule sounds like a good idea. I’m up for discussing the end next week!
  • I would prefer that we stick to the original schedule.
  • I’m fine either way.

0 voters

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I’m about a week and a half behind, and I would like to finish with the group (even if the majority of the group has sped ahead!). But I should be done with くすりや by the end of the week so I could definitely speed up after that. Perhaps split the difference and finish a week early?

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There’s always a poll option missing :sweat_smile:

If no one votes for sticking with the original schedule, then I think splitting the difference makes sense.

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I’m currently ‘on schedule’ but I was behind most of the time and I’ve considered speeding up now that I’m here so I’m fine with whatever.

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There are two people participating in the read aloud who didn’t vote in the last weekly poll who I believe are following the schedule. Additionally, we’re struggling to read this much in the read aloud as-is (and discussed splitting the final week into two read aloud sessions because it’s so long). So you’re welcome to change the schedule if you want, but then I guess we’ll just do our own thing for the read aloud.

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I voted for sticking with the schedule as is, because I am usually only finishing each section at the very end of the week, and I don’t like to read any of the thread until I have finished in case there are spoilers. Which means that if you have a thread which covers multiple weeks of the read aloud schedule, I won’t be able to read any of the comments for several weeks. :cry:

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No worries! With the current state of the poll I expect that we will just stick with the original schedule.

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I closed the poll and we’re sticking with the original schedule, so here is week 26 and we’re finishing the 三月 chapter!

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This is my third comment in a row again. Can someone else add a comment before I have to post the final thread next week?

And it’s time for the penultimate thread! This week the first half of the 閉城 chapter is on the schedule. We’re really approaching the end now!

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Hmmmmm… ok :sweat_smile:

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I was wondering for the last week: do we want to have a separate spoiler thread where we can discuss everything in the book without using spoiler tags to avoid the hassle? Do we need a separate thread for that in case someone wants to ask questions without accidentally seeing spoilers for the very end?

I’m not sure what you all want so here’s another poll :slightly_smiling_face:. You can choose multiple options if you are fine with more than one of the solutions.

  • Create two threads (one for the last week like normal and a separate spoiler thread for the book as a whole)
  • Create one thread and just don’t bother with spoiler tags in that thread
  • Create only one thread and do use spoiler tags like normal

0 voters

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I feel like there isn’t much left to discuss/spoil in that last part :thinking:
That being said, in terms of organization, it feels nicer to have two thread, I guess? I think we usually discuss the whole book in the main thread (the re:zero group being the only exception I know), but it’s indeed better to have a place where we don’t need to use spoiler tags.

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Option 4: Create the last thread following the normal rules and join us all for the read aloud of the epilogue and subsequent book discussion on June 19th. :slight_smile:

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Well, it’s the final week for the forum threads. The poll has spoken against the separate spoiler thread (and we will use spoiler tags), so here is the final week’s thread!

Don’t forget that the read aloud sessions are continuing a little longer and as mentioned by @seanblue above, there will be a read aloud of the epilogue and subsequent book discussion on Discord on June 19th!
(link to discord: Japanese Book Club)

Congratulations everyone for making it to the end. Enjoy!

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With the end of the final week, it is time for the final polls!

Did you read かがみの孤城?
  • I finished it
  • I’m still reading and I plan on finishing it
  • I don’t plan to finish it
  • I never even started it

0 voters

If you read the book, how would you rate it on a 5 point scale? (1: hated it, 5: loved it)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Unsure / Didn’t finish

0 voters

If you read the book, how would you rate its difficulty?
  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Moderate effort
  • Significant effort
  • So much effort my head might explode
  • I don’t know

0 voters

Looking back, we started the club seven months ago (on November 6) with 29 participants according to the week 1 poll and a thread with 124 comments in the first week :smiley:. At the halfway point there were around 10 people participating and in this last week we had 12.

Thank you everyone who participated!

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I guess I’m in the liminal space of: not currently reading it but plan to get back to it at some point

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By the way, we are starting our read aloud session early today (in about 20 minutes) and will be finishing the rest of the book. We will not be meeting next week.

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There’s finally a trailer for the anime! Two short ones actually: 映画『かがみの孤城』超特報映像【2022年冬 全国公開】 - YouTube and 映画『かがみの孤城』特報映像【12月23日(金)全国公開】 - YouTube

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