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 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.
Character names
Full Name
Details
嵯峨愁二郎
Our protagonist
槐
Explains the rules of the game
双葉
Young girl our protagonist picks up at start fo the game
響陣
上方 dialect speaking stranger that is friendly to us?
化野四蔵
one of the 義兄弟, seems scary bad, participating in the game
衣笠彩八
only female 義兄弟, participating in the game
カムイコチャ
Ainu we encountered during the game
橡
Handler of us, checks points at checkpoints
貫地谷無骨
Legendary warrior known for liking to slash everyone
Our party decided to run an experiment on the three captives to see what (if anything) would happen to them: One was handed over to the police without his tag, the second one was handed over with the tag still on, and the third one stayed with the group and also kept his tag, but no other points. To observe this, the group decided to split up again: Shuujirou and Futaba kept walking on, while Kyoujin remained behind to observe the state of affairs (as he used to work as a spy and was good in disguise and changing voices, this choice was rather obvious).
The next town was really crowded, and Shuujirou managed to spot Bukotsu (whom he knew but hadn’t come across during the rallye yet). He tried to steer away from him, but this kept him so busy that he didn’t notice somebody else snatching Futaba from his side! It was one of his foster brothers, Sansuke.
He tried to chase him but he couldn’t proceed fast enough, and also Bukotsu got in his way, who was entertaining himself with killing random people in the roadside. While Shuujirou was still thinking about stepping in, Ukyou appeared on the stage and protected the people. When he learned that Futaba had disappeared once again, he was shocked and urged Shuujirou to try to rescue her.
Chapter 9
We get a long, long interlude where we learn about Ukyou’s upbringing and family relations and his reason for participating. Then, as soon as we had familiarized ourselves with him, we learn that he had lost agains Bukotsu and was now dead! That pretty much packed a punch at the end of this volume.
That means that we are left with the following cliffhangers:
What will happen to our three prisoners? How will they be treated by the organizers?
What about Kyoujin? Will he face any trouble during his experiment, or when catching up with the others?
What about Futaba? Will Shuujirou be able to rescue her again?
As well as all the others who are part of the game and who we met already.
I finally caught up to my reading again and finished the book. I have to say chapter 9 didn’t make it easy to finish it.
I really don’t know why the author decided to put such a chapter as the final chapter of the book. It kinda soured my opinion of the book.
Chapter 9 complaint
The long section about 右京s past, this lord and that alliance, and he’s actually really strong but doesn’t show it because secret technique passed down maybe to protect the emperor… it goes on and on for what is 100% pointless information. It might be more interesting if you read about some of these people in school and know a little bit of context. But we honestly have no connection to this random warrior and a whole chapter is dedicated to his backstory o_O. Are you serious?
At least you took it better than I did
Chapter 8 on the other hand was nice to read. Exactly what I kinda expected from the book. Scheming, making plans, interspersed with some action here and there. Would have been such a nice jumping of point for the second novel with the goal of getting the kidnapped futaba back from the grasps of 三助 which we have (other than 右京) at least some connection to already. While following what happens on kyoujins side inbetween.
It’s really hard for me to rate this book. The difficulty can be really high because of the vocabulary used. If you haven’t read a beginning meiji period piece before, word lookups will be frequent. Some even need additional research since they don’t show up in typical everyday dictionaries.
Some of the chapters are great to read with decent pacing and an interesting story to follow, but then you have chapters that stop the momentum completely (chapter 9, or the one where we jumped to カムイコチャ) and it can be hard to recover from that.
I would say it also strongly depends on how interested the reader is in older Japan and the power dynamics of these times.
For me personally, I’d rate the book at a low score of 2/5. I don’t think I’ll continue with the story without first brushing up more on the times and getting more comfortable with period vocabulary, before thinking of slogging through another chapter 9 .
@NicoleIsEnough Thank you for all the posts you made and the summaries for each week. I thoroughly enjoyed reading what you wrote.
ASIDE:
I also watched most of the Netflix drama (will finish the rest now). I think the pacing of it is better. It does front-load some information that I expect only gets discussed in the later books. It also changes other things for the purpose of putting in more action. Sometimes they fight against like 50+ people for show value. The happenings in book 1 “very roughly” correspond to the first 3 episodes.
Isn’t he the guy who saved Futaba the first time around?
Didn’t double-check tbh, but from his description and everything I was very convinced it is the same person.
Now you can of course say “why put in all this information as he gets killed immediately!” and I cannot argue with that
Yes he’s the same guy. But having saved futaba once, which was one page in some chapter I wouldn’t exactly describe as knowing the guy. We had more information on 無骨, カムイコチャ, all the brothers and sisters, the guy who’s name I forgot that hunts the brothers and sisters, and many more people compared to him. So getting his (in my opinion pretty boring) backstory wasn’t exactly thrilling to me.
Killing him off instantly after was then the icing on the cake…
Week 9
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