キノの旅 Week 11 Discussion

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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キノの旅 Home Thread

Chapter 5 (2/2)

Kino's Journey
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Start Date: May 18
Previous Chapter: Week 10
Next Chapter: Week 12

Week 11 Reading: Chapter 5 (2/2)
Until end of chapter: p.198 (でもそれは別の話だ。)

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Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
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Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m no longer reading the book
  • I’m skipping this book

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2 Likes
キノの旅 Home Thread (Intermediate Book Club)
#2

I think a lot of people have already read this part. You can now unleash your comments :stuck_out_tongue:

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#3

My theory was that elder-キノ was actually an older brother. Didn’t he mention leaving home at 12? And then an addition to that theory is that he’s broke his 3-days-in-one-place rule by coming back, hence that he was doomed to die.

#4

Sad to see this chapter end. :sweat_smile:

I’d be happy to read another flashback chapter or 5, particularly about the guy they’d meet in the forest.

A question that lingered with me for a bit, did Hermes ever find out that Kino is not the one he originally talked to, that repaired him? Does he actually know and is in denial about Kinos death? (:stuck_out_tongue:)

Have all the people who put they’re up to date in the poll actually read this week’s part already?

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#5

I’m only halfway through.

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#6

Well! Typically I look words up as I go, but when I started this chapter one evening, I was only planning to skim the first half and come back to it later. But I couldn’t put it down! I only looked up one word that seemed really critical to the plot, so maybe I’ve missed a few nuances, but definitely my favourite chapter so far.

I confess I had no idea of xxxxxちゃん’s identity until the end of the chapter. I thought the traveller was our current Kino meeting (by rebuilding) our current Hermes. Thus I was completely shocked by the casual brutality of the father intending to kill his own daughter, and then at Kino’s death [me: what? what? NO WAY!!!] (especially after all the death dodging in the last chapter) and the way they just shrugged it off. So yeah, lots of emotional kick in this chapter, for me. And having commented during the “on the rails” chapter that it was ironic that Kino never went back to see her family, I now understand perfectly why she has no option but to keep travelling.

10 Likes
#7

Random conjecture: Kino went insane after seeing her parents kill the original Kino, imagined the motorbike was talking and ran away on it. The rest of the stories we have read are Kino’s now crazed understanding of journeys to perfectly normal countries on a normal motorcycle. :wink:

12 Likes
#8

:open_mouth:

1 Like
#9

Follow up:

In chapter four Kino was actually in jail for shooting random people, including a street musician, and escaped by causing an uprising among prisoners.

9 Likes
#10

:open_mouth:

…

∑(ﾟДﾟ)

1 Like
#11

Well, I thought old Kino would actually become her teacher and that she had taken his name as a form of respect. Or for some practical reason, like the passport. The real reason felt a bit underwhelming. It’s also funny that they got lost in a forest after that. Like the prologue/epilogue and chapter 3. What’s up with Kino and forests?

4 Likes
#12

I absolutely think Kino went insane and imagines Hermes talking. Maybe everything else that happens actually happens (her country can’t be the only weird one), but she still hears a voice that isn’t there.

I’m really curious if most people figured out the twist or not. I saw the 2003 anime a while back, so even though I didn’t remember any of the details of the chapter, I did remember that there was a previous Kino and the Kino we know met him previously. Though even if I didn’t already know, the way Kino spoke in this chapter was pretty different, so it felt obvious to me (though it’s possible I was only noticing since I already knew).

This was easily the best chapter so far. The last line alone could be enough for me to buy the next book or two, assuming I can confirm that the story that takes place after this chapter is in one of them.

By the way, is there a typo in the last sentence of the chapter? For 尽くせない, the 尽 has the furigana つく instead of just つ.

6 Likes
[2022] 多読/extensive reading challenge
#13

Yeah, the think that convinced me was the use of 男 to describe his gender in the part we read last week.

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#14

I was almost 100% sure that the girl was our Kino and this male Kino was another character more or less since the beginning of the chapter, like the first few lines. Though I don’t know how much of that was due to knowing our Kino is actually a girl :man_shrugging:

And yeah, I agree that it was the best chapter so far.

PS: I checked and it seems the く in 尽くす can either go in the kanji or as okurigana. Some words have that flexibility.

PPS: That’s not what you meant :sweat_smile: I see it now. That’s most definitely a typo.

4 Likes
#15

There’s another one, too, I think. I remember finding too, let’s check if that wasn’t a dream…
On page 194 in the physical book, after they escape the village und Kino let Hermes fall - where it says おどけるような声を、私は仰向けで空を見ながら聞いた。
The furigana for 仰向け says おおむけ instead of あおむけ

Typos aside, the end also made me very curious about this man who taught her how to survive. That would be the master alluded to in chapter 4, when she thought how it’s difficult to win without killing, yes?

If anyone knows what volume it’s in…

6 Likes
#16

Quick google search says the character is introduced in volume 2.

5 Likes
#17

:open_mouth:

Guess I’ll try to find it after all!

#18

While I didn’t actually expect current Kino’s dad to try to kill current Kino(I guess the people in Kino’s country were even crazier than I thought they were), most of the rest of it went pretty similarly to how I guessed it would last week. .

And like some other people said, I think I’ll probably also get volume 2.

There didn’t seem to be much reason for the story to be from XXXXX’s perspective unless she was a character we already knew about, which doesn’t really leave a lot of options in this book, so I personally figured it out from that

2 Likes
#19

I’m really curious if most people figured out the twist or not.

I'm dumb (spoiler)

Dummy checking in. I had no idea until the end. I even read it wrong and thought that both of them got stabbed, then I was surprised when they escape and there wasn’t anything about Kino tending to her stab wound :woman_shrugging: I got it on my second reading though.

2 Likes
#20
Summary

I had to reread the paragraph to get that too. It was a little confusing.

1 Like