コンビニ人間: Week 10 Discussion

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コンビニ人間 Home Thread

Week 10

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Start Date: August 31st
Previous Thread: Week 9
Next Chapter: Week 11

Reading:

End Page (PB) End Page (HB) End % End Phrase Pages
121 112 71% 私のかけがえのない同志だった。 10

Word lists - Learn the vocabulary for コンビニ人間

Discussion Rules

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

Read-along Sessions

Come and read from the previous week’s section, join in the chat about this book or just lurk and listen. Readers of all speeds and abilities welcome - we are here to help each other out. Reading sessions will be held every Sunday at 9:30pm JST.

Week 10 session (in your timezone): Sunday, September 8, 2019 12:30 PM TZ

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading the but I haven’t reached this part yet
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0 voters

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Spoilers until page 114

恵子’s talk with her friends really pulled some heartstrings… Especially towards the page break on p.114 I also read 痛感しながら. Ugh. Really felt like I wanted a short break, too, to let it settle a bit.

Then I read the beginning of the next sentence and had to laugh a bit. 白羽さんを飼い始め, :joy: Some much needed fresh air before the next conversation about her new status as a pet owner. Or that’s what it looks like from the brief glance I gave the next section. Back to reading to find out! :slight_smile:

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May I ask some questions, please?

At 64%

家に白羽さんがいると都合がいい。そう思うのに時間はかからなかった
I’m not sure what そう思うのに means here, or more in general, that second sentence. As far as I understand のに means “despite; although” or “in order to”. However none of those seems to fit very well here. “It didn’t take time (in order to) think that” ? “Despite thinking that, it didn’t take time” ?

At 65%

「いるいる、そういう男……でもそういう人ほど、妙にマメだったり優しかったりして、

I have little idea how to interpret the ほど there. “to the extent of it being such a person”?
I also can’t figure out what マメ means here… none of the definitions I found in jisho or goo seem to make any sense…

At 69%

二人ともどうしてしまったのだろう。
I’m not sure about どうしてしまった here. My best guess for this one is that it means “what’s wrong with these two” but I am not very confident. Is this どうして + しまう? どう + してしまう? scratches head

Any help is appreciated!

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64

That’s a tricky one when you’re not used to it. It isn’t のに, it’s nominalisation の+ particle に
So, yeah “it didn’t take time to (start) think(ing) that way.

65

A boyfriend/husband is マメ if he is kind/caring. I don’t really know where that expression comes from.
Here’s a random page about it:
まめな人の意味＆特徴とは｜マメな男がモテる理由＆相性が良い女性を解説 | Smartlog

ほど in this case means something a bit different than what you said, but that’s basically it.

69

It’s どう＋して＋しまう(it feels a bit weird to connect the last two)
Forgot to answer: yes it’s “what happened to them/ what’s wrong with them”. They should obviously care more about that mighty 20 yen sale instead of boring stuff like where people are living.

Edit for 65: I must be dumb because I can’t find a good resource online for this ほど. Here’s a picture from my 日本語文型辞典

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image866×1154 350 KB

Example sentence 5 follows the same pattern. I hope you can read the explanation below.

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This dictionary seems interesting, I love explanations with sentence patterns. Do you recommend it?

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Definitely! It’s very comprehensive and the explanations are really clear and detailed. It’s a bit heavy (and pricey) but hey, it’s a dictionary after all.
I’ve heard there’s also a version with explanations in English instead, but I like the Japanese one.

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I haven’t read this far so I don’t have that much to add… but could it perhaps be this まめ?

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That seems likely, even though the meaning seems to have changed a bit when it comes to the context of relationships. (Or maybe it’s just that, as a non-native English speaker the nuance feels different, but anyway).
As mentioned in Jisho, that word is always written in kana. I didn’t even know there was kanji for it; they do make sense though.

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Wow, that’s an interesting one. I’ll have keep that in mind when のに doesn’t seem to make sense.

Hmmm, when I search マメ in Katakana, jisho sends me in a different direction (words related to beans, basically), but まめ actually finds that one. Evil katakana traps =._.=

Hmmm so if I understand correctly 「Aほど、B」 means that to the degree that A happens, B increases? In that dictionary example sentence (5) “The more serious a person is, the more stress they accumulate”? Certainly, that fits very well to the sentence I was having trouble with in the book.

Thank you for the help!

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Yes exactly!

I’m glad I could help :smile:

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I’ve been reading along and voting in the polls, but I figured I’d comment something too to show that I’m still here :slight_smile:

Nice to see the konbini again, though it seems like 恵子’s thoughts about it may be starting to change with that last bit… or it may just be her being annoyed right now and not lead to anything, who knows :woman_shrugging: Guess we’ll probably find out later

We don’t have that much left of the book(somewhere between 40 and 50 pages, I think?), so will be interesting to see how it wraps up :slight_smile: Especially since I don’t get the feeling it’s starting to head towards an “ending” yet even though there’s not that much left, though I guess the book is pretty short overall so that’s still like… a fourth of the book, so I guess there’s still room for stuff to happen, and some more concrete plot developments have started happening during the last few weeks.

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I really feel for Keiko, as she tries valiantly to keep the Konbini universe from unravelling!

Then I was looking at photos from my time in Tokyo last year, and I found this one.

Konbini からあげ for the win! :joy:

karaage
karaage1024×768 123 KB

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I didn’t have time to read this week and I finally caught up just before posting the new thread. And I still have 2 more clubs to catch up to :fearful:

About this week’s reading, people being more excited than they should keeps being kind of bittersweet. I really hope she doesn’t take the -get pregnant- advice seriously. What’s up with that…?
On the other hand I found it pretty funny how she reacted to the コンビニ people finding out and asking questions.

Lately I’m starting to find the weekly readings shorter. Is this… p-progress?

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After a very busy few days I finally had time to catch up. I found the part at the konbini to be very entertaining. I wonder if 泉 actually thinks 古倉 and 白羽 are a good match or if she’s just being nice.

Also, I hope that if I ever speak Japanese in Japan my pronunciation isn’t so bad that they have to transcribe it into katakana! :laughing:

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Repeat Club Discussion Starts Here!

##13 March 2021

End Page (PB): 121
End Page (HB): 112
End Kindle Location: 1165
End Phrase: 私のかけがえのない同志だった。

Welcome to Week 10!

Feel free to use past discussion for reference, but please don’t hesitate to post any questions or comments! The more we discuss the more we all learn, and the more fun it is! Also, I strongly recommend setting each week’s thread to “watching” to stay abreast of the discussion. Please try to mark any spoilers as such.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’ll catch up soon
  • I have no intention of catching up or the club has already finished, but I’m using the forums as reference

0 voters

Live Reading Sessions

The next live reading session will be 2021-01-24T03:00:00Z If you haven’t already, join the Japanese Book Club Discord. When the time comes to start, just enter the コンビニ人間 voice channel.

For live readings, we will take turns reading as much as we feel comfortable with (up to ~1 page), then go back and translate a section of our choosing together. Expect sessions to take anywhere from 1-2 hours, but feel free to join late or leave early as your schedule allows. We will be starting promptly at the designated time. Please post any questions regarding live reading session logistics in the Discord channel or on the home thread.

Vocab Sheet

Anybody should feel free to add to the vocab sheet. Read the guidelines on the first sheet- even if a word is not yet included you can use the spreadsheet as a tool to get help.

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. Is it a betrayal for Keiko’s coworkers to take a greater interest in Keiko’s love life than in store affairs? Are they being supportive by embracing her “relationship”, or are they being dismissive or hypocritical?

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Favorite word of the week
ヒモ which means a man who depends on a woman financially I love short words that represent a more complex context.

And after this week’s developments I really hope she doesn’t carry Shihara’s baby! It’s kinda weird… but we’ve been reading this book for 10 weeks now, so I feel like I know Keiko personally and I want her to be happy. That’s a strange effect from a longer book club. If this was in English I would have read the whole book in one afternoon and would have forgotten about it by now. But with the longer time period, I had more time to reflect about the characters, which is a nice change :slight_smile:

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I gotta say, that last part was kind of stressful to read.

Spoilers

I think this is the first time we’ve seen Keiko showing any kind of strong emotion, so her panic at the store about her coworkers finding out about her and Shiraha hits differently. Especially given that they didn’t seem to be reacting that differently from her friends to the news. Did I miss anything in the reading about why it’s so important to her that people at work don’t find about about them, besides Shiraha himself telling her to do so?

Honestly, I can’t blame them, if it was me I’d probably act in a similar manner. Of course it’s unprofessional, but it’s big news, especially coming from Keiko, so I totally see why it’s waay more interesting than selling からあげ棒.

Same here! Plus the discussions on here are part of it for me as well, they make me consider the characters’ motivations far more than if I was reading on my own.

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Oh. I finished this week’s reading already. Could have sworn I still had a few pages to go…

I kinda felt like it was less panic and more confusion about how her personal life can possibly be more important than store work.

I swear, every single time I read that, I read it as Xから、あげ棒…

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To me, the way she threw herself into the からあげ棒 sales had a rather desperate vibe to it, as well as how much attention she was paying to the manager and Izumi still being in the backroom before. I might be misinterpreting things though.

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I agree about the desperate vibe, but I think it was more because コンビニ was in danger and they weren’t helping with the rescue, and not directly because of coworkers finding out about her and Shiraha.

Of course, coworkers finding out is a problem, too, I just don’t think it’s the direct cause of her panic. She’s focusing on the current issue for now - からあげ棒 aren’t ready yet!

My interpretation is that even if he seems oblivious to the fact that he was nearly arrested for stalking/harassment, he more or less is aware that his actions were problematic and he doesn’t want to be uh, detected again by people who have seen him acting in so desperate and wretched way and who know that he was basically kicked from the job.
He didn’t even took his personal belongings from the locker, and he wasn’t picking up the phone, so I assume he really really doesn’t want to be noticed by konbini people again.

Anyway. At first I wasn’t sure what POP means and somehow assumed it’s the batter :grin: It was confusing for a while.
I was wondering a few weeks ago what exactly counts as “preparing” food in the konbini, and after this week’s description it seems @seanblue was right, it seems it’s mainly about heating, considering Keiko brought frozen items with her and that they were able to prepare them so quickly.
seanblue’s quote:

Two questions/doubts:
俺と面識のない人にならいくら話してもいいけれど、コンビニには僕の存在を漏らさないで欲しい。
(Kindle Locations 1127-1128; 68%)

Wait, did Shiraha change his pronoun within one sentence?

「これはね、お釣りが出る商品券だからね。お釣りをお渡ししてね！」
(Kindle Location 1137; 69%)

I was extremely surprised about the fact that you can get お釣り from 商品券. Is it normal in other countries, too?

Plot talk

People at the party hear that Shiraha is fishy, and recommend pregnancy as a solution.
People at work know Shiraha, and they still don’t seem concerned about Keiko safety/well-being. What’s more, 泉さん even says お似合いなんだけど！
Even Keiko herself seems more aware of the issues with her arrangement, calling Shiraha 詐欺師 at the beginning of this week’s reading, than people around her. :stuck_out_tongue:
Seriously, everyone’s reaction is extremely creepy for me.

This time I want to go into the book and shout at them. “Don’t encourage her! She was happy with her previous life! And ffs prepare these からあげ!”

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