Vol 5 ・ シメジシミュレーション

シメジシミュレーション - Vol 5 Discussion Thread :mushroom:

Start Date: 26th Jan 2024
シメジシミュレーション Home Thread: Link
Volume 4: Link


Vocabulary List


Reading Schedule

Start Date Chapter
Jan 27 41
Feb 3 42
Feb 10 43
Feb 17 44
Feb 24 45
Mar 2 46
Mar 9 47
Mar 16 48
Mar 23 49

Purchasing

eBook: Book Walker | Kobo
Physical: CD Japan | Amazon


2 Likes

Chapter 41

Participation poll
  • I’m reading along :eyeglasses: :mushroom:
  • I’m planning to start later :bath:
0 voters
1 Like

I was getting some serious 少女終末旅行 vibes from that chapter. Two girls wandering around a strange world with some giant structures, discovering unusual machines, largely deserted. I did like the image of Majime running down the aisle in her wedding dress!

1 Like
Ch 41

Loving the weird chapter titles

As usual, I have no idea what’s going on, but at some points it seems like Majime and Shimeji-chan are starting some sort of exploration of … their subconsciousness? The world’s subconsciousness? Looking forward to what exactly they find out in this place.

1 Like

Chapter 42

Participation poll
  • I’m reading along :eyeglasses: :mushroom:
  • I’m planning to start later :bath:
0 voters
1 Like
Chapter 42

Yeah, this is how I feel when I read this manga
image

I love this page composition where the canvas doubles as a manga panel.

2 Likes
Chapter 42

More 少女終末旅行 vibes.

星空 - That’s literally the title of the first chapter of 少女終末旅行!

Yes I liked that one in particular, and loved all the art studio panels. I liked the doughnut concept too and I think I managed to understand the science a bit better than Majime!

I liked the way this was set out with the doughnut spanning four panels:

2 Likes

Chapter 43

@Phryne good to have you with us!

Participation poll
  • I’m reading along :eyeglasses: :mushroom:
  • I’m planning to start later :bath:
0 voters
1 Like
Chapter 43

Wow that suddenly flipped from being such a fun flippant chapter to be so intense towards the end.

I was thinking what a long way she has come since being the girl who spent two years hiding from the world in a closet. Especially when she is thinking about all the membranes that separate us from the outside world. At which point she is removing the membrane of her clothes and allowing someone so close to her…

And then the sudden twist at the end. And suddenly she seems all alone again. It felt a very sad end to the chapter.

So difficult to guess where this goes next, especially with only a few chapters to go.

2 Likes
Chapter 43

As always the surrealism is off the charts. It’s raining mandarin? You can eat stuffed toy + faucet soup?

Shimeji’s philosophical musings start to blend with reality in every sense, though I am never too sure if she’s thinking about boundaries because of what’s happening to her, or if what’s happening to her happens because she’s thinking about them. Perhaps a combination of both. Loved that detail at the end where she goes outside the house as if she were passing through a veil of skin.

I also have no idea in what direction this is going…

1 Like
Chapter 43

What precipitated that? She was thinking “I’m disappearing” before it happened. Does she mean that she, as an individual, is ‘disappearing’ as she is allowing someone else into her ‘membrane’? The way that relationships with people we care about all have the power to change us? Or is it some weird thing about the crazy world they inhabit now, where random stuff happens all the time? And she is literally disappearing?

Reading this manga in such tiny bits and pieces over such a long timespan makes it hard to catch the overall drift. I may need to re-read it all in order to truly get it!

2 Likes

Chapter 44

Participation poll
  • I’m reading along :eyeglasses: :mushroom:
  • I haven’t reached this chapter yet :fish:
0 voters
1 Like

Page 49 is a hate crime against Japanese learners :sob:

2 Likes
Chapter 44

Wow this was a tough chapter! Having made it through page 46, I got to page 48, and then page 49!! I have to admit I just read through pages 48 and 49 as quick as I could, without looking anything up and may have missed some of the meaning.

What I got from this chapter:

Shimeji is on her own after leaving Majime in a world which keeps changing periodically. She falls asleep in a very spiral world and wakes up in one much more square and almost like an Escher picture in one panel.

A book appears which is her favourite poetry anthology, and when books appear Yomikawa senpai is surely not far away! I love the way the cat leads her through the door into room of books.

Yomikawa picks up a book and reads an interesting 話. In that tale a terrible epidemic threatens humanity, and to ensure its survival humans find a way to encode human consciousness into a supercomputer, and launch it towards the edge of space. The computer is a 1.2m spindle-shaped object, shaped like a lemon.

Now this would actually be a really interesting explanation for all the weird stuff going on in this manga. And the girls debate whether this could be the true explanation for their reality. But then Yomikawa says it is one of many myths (神話 - that was a cool new word for me) such as the universe being made from the corpse of a giant. And I think comes to the conclusion that they can’t touch the outside of the world, and know for sure - so can’t know what is fairy tale and what is real.

As they walk together they gradually become part of a story is being told like in a book. There’s a discussion about Majime and has she disappeared.

And at the end of the story, Shimeji is alone again, and is sad.

I’d like to find time this week to read this chapter again and see what I missed!

1 Like

Which is some character development for a character that started out as a ひきこもり, right? :grin:

2 Likes

Chapter 45

Participation poll
  • I survived chapter 44 and I’m still reading along :weight_lifting_man:
  • Chapter 44 finished me off, please scatter my ashes at the nearest Kinokuniya :skull:
  • I’m lost in a strange and surreal world. I’m still reading along but I haven’t reached this chapter yet :fish:
0 voters
1 Like

Sitting under a mushroom modelled on the one that grows out of your head, while snow-like flakes that are actually ultra-fine dream structures fall out of the sky, and talking to your sister who has turned into a fish.

Love this manga.

2 Likes

Love the participation poll choices :joy: Chapter 44 was indeed on another level of difficulty.

Chapter 45

Seeing a fish cry has never been this heart-wrenching :cry:

image

2 Likes

Chapter 46

Participation poll
  • I’m reading along :eyeglasses: :mushroom:
  • I haven’t reached this chapter yet :fish:
0 voters
2 Likes
Chapter 46 spoilers

What a chapter.

I have the impression that a lot of what goes on in this chapter is sort of an amplification of Majime-chan’s loneliness. She creates the stuffed toys, and gives them the ability to talk because she wanted friends. Inherently, the stuffed toys also inherit this unfulfillable loneliness, so they make more and more friends until things get out of control

I guess this is how much she misses Shimeji-chan.

2 Likes