コンビニ人間 🍙 Week 2 (IBC Primer)

[TobiasW]

@mo_ji

I think there’s a possibility that it was trying to convey that she’s such a literal person that when people yell “stop” she tries to make that happen too

More serious thoughts on the anecdotes

I was just joking around, although I do think that it’s curious that two of the three anecdotes that were chosen were about her stopping somebody because other people wanted it. No idea why two of them had to have the same theme.

Apart from that, I think what the anecdotes mainly tried to convey was that it’s hard for her to understand other people’s feelings and that she’s lacking what we’d consider “common sense”:

• She doesn’t understand the sadness of the other children, and that wanting to eat the bird is very insensitive (among other things).
• She doesn’t understand that the reason the others want the fight stopped is to prevent more harm.
• She doesn’t understand the shock and shame that pulling down the teacher’s skirt (and underpants, for good measure) will make her feel.

In all of those cases, the only thing she seems to be considering is the “positive” end result: A nice meal, or a quick end to the fight, or stopping the teacher’s ranting and raving.

Unrelatedly, another fun detail is that she doesn’t care about the bird being dead or about knocking out her schoolmates, but she seemed pretty weirded out by the kids killing those flowers. I wonder if it’s because she can’t see what the point of it is, or if she just really likes flowers.

Anyway, lots to think about in this short passage!

[mo_ji]

ohhhh right yes totally agree. my bad it’s hard to tell tones over texts sometimes :D. Looking forward to next week’s part.

[Belerith]

@TobiasW

Unrelatedly, another fun detail is that she doesn’t care about the bird being dead or about knocking out her schoolmates, but she seemed pretty weirded out by the kids killing those flowers. I wonder if it’s because she can’t see what the point of it is, or if she just really likes flowers.

My interpret is that that part is there to show the inconsistency in ‘normal people behavior’ - protag feels the same about killing a bird and killing a flower, these two things are on the same level to her. In contrast, the other kids are shocked and sad about just finding a dead bird, but they nonchalantly commit the act of killing live, healthy flowers. These would seem like contradicting acts to her.

[javerend]

page 15

@snowwater

All I got from it was also that the teacher, who was hysteric, was hitting the attendance sheet on the table and shouting, which made the students cry out. But if I also missed something, please let me know.

@meagstudies

I’m thinking it could be that it’s not said why because Keiko herself doesn’t understand why her teacher’s mad and the reason’s not important, all that’s relevant to her is that everyone wants the teacher to stop.

Yeah, this is also what I was thinking reading it. All of these anecdotes together show that Keiko doesn’t quite understand why people feel the emotions that they do. Neither why the teacher is mad, nor why the students are upset. She can recognize that other people are experiencing emotions, but not the reasons behind them and so acts inappropriately to try to deal situations without understanding those underlying causes.

The choice of these three examples is interesting too, I think, since we get one with her interacting with nature (or at least, social attitudes about nature), one with her peers, and then one with authority. So on no level does she quite understand now to interact with society, and chooses to just find ways to blend in rather than act on her own volition.

[lucylavelle]

I struggled a lot more with this weeks reading, but I got through it in the end!

The anecdotes were an odd combination of amusing and sad (though mostly sad). Although all of Keiko’s actions were quite obviously inappropriate - there was some logic behind each of them!
I’m glad her parents seem to love her despite her oddities.

I’m looking forward to reading more next week!

[frootlooper]

I had a bit more trouble this week as well. I didn’t notice when one anecdote ended an another began at first. It seemed rather sudden to me. And several times I had trouble realizing who was doing the action and had to reread to check the context. For example, the pantsing. I thought at first that’d she’d pulled her own pants down. (What movie did she watch???)

@Belerith

My interpret is that that part is there to show the inconsistency in ‘normal people behavior’ - protag feels the same about killing a bird and killing a flower, these two things are on the same level to her. In contrast, the other kids are shocked and sad about just finding a dead bird, but they nonchalantly commit the act of killing live, healthy flowers. These would seem like contradicting acts to her.

That was the impression I got as well!