I’ve just realised the club has caught up to where I had some plot questions.
General question. Kate is trying to identify the mystery robed shadow. I haven’t seen the anime - what are the Shadows’ voices like - are they specifically male /female?
Ch 57 エミリコ is getting better at Kate’s facial expressions
And formatting issues so posted here
Ch 58
comment
We are told they will clean too on page 87. It is considered the greatest insult.
Yes, in the anime they are specifically male / female, and in general, normal-human sounding.
Start Date: 2023-02-24T15:00:00Z
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So I just watched the first episode of the anime, and having never seen an anime after reading the manga, it was certainly interesting.
The first thing that I noticed was how fast the pacing was, 7 chapters (almost 100 pages) in a single episode. I understand why of course but I wonder if I would have thought the same if I hadn’t first read the manga. Also makes me wonder if people felt this way about other anime series I’ve seen (let me know if you’ve felt this way about other series too lol).
It was interesting to see how they rearranged and combined scenes (for example, merging the scene where Emiliko was hungry, and the one where Kate gave her bread).
The voices they gave them actually sounded a lot like I imagined them. I feel like this isn’t by chance, I can imagine that these studios put a fair amount of effort into picking the right voices. I watched it with subs so I might listen to the dub and see what’s that like too. On another note, I feel like they did a good job with the style, looks very much like the manga.
I briefly went back over the first chapters and I understood what was going on much better than before too. I might go through with the rest of the series (up to where we’re at).
Oh, for sure, anime pacing feels so much faster in comparison. The two I noticed it most heavily with were 五等分の花嫁 and 青春ブタ野郎はバニーガール先輩の夢を見ない. Especially the latter. Three 25 minute episodes on average to cover a 300-ish page light novel that, when I’m seriously focusing on it at the expense of all other reading, still would take me 3 weeks+ 
Could someone help break down the sentence 「心配なのはローズマリーが発端となった事件だということね」
and the bold part here 「真犯人を見つけ出せば処分されないのではないでしょうか」
I tried going over some of the previous content but I still don’t understand exactly why Mia was able to point out the “interesting” part of the map? I guess I missed something.
So, the “stellars” are trying to blame Kate for the soot-monster incident because Edward wants her gone, right? Though if that’s the case I don’t know why they would agree to let Kate try and find the culprit anyways, unless they’re just scared of her lol. And Edward wants her gone because he sees her as a risk to his position, or that he fears her power and knows she’s not on their side? All this clearly goes back a lot of chapters but I haven’t been following the details all that well unfortunately. Though watching the anime may help clear some of this up.
I’m quite enjoying this investigative arc so far lol. The gang out looking for clues like a scooby-doo episode. That last part with John pulling down the shed’s wall was hilarious. Besides our protagonist duo, I’d say John/Shaun and Oliver/Ollie are my favourite characters so far.
心配な = adjective, “worrying/concerning”
の = generic noun “thing”
は = particle
ロープマリーが = Rosemary, subject marker
発端 = origin
と = when, marks origin as a point in time
なった = became
事件だ = incident, copula
ということ = essentially marks the phrase starting with Rosemary as a summary (defining the の earlier in the sentence)
ね = usual softening particle
My take on the sentence in natural English, “The concerning thing is Rosemary was the origin of the incident…”
It leads directly up to the following sentence: "星つき"どう判断するのか… “I wonder how the “Hoshitsuki” judge that…”
処分 = disposal
されない = negative passive form of する
の = nominalizer
ではない = isn’t it
でしょう = right?
Overall interpretation of the sentence, roughly: “If we find the real culprit, she won’t be disposed of, isn’t that right?”
Disclaimer: totally possible I’ve misunderstood something in my own reading, so don’t take this as gospel. If somebody corrects me, odds are good they are right.
She originally wrote the map, if I recall, so if something stands out as different after the soot marks on it, she would know. And she points out that the shape of the soot on there seems to form something that looks like a room.
Edward has animosity towards her, but my impression of the others is that while they are suspicious of her because Edward tells them to be, they don’t actually have anything against her really. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Edward is sharing all of his information, just his suspicions, so they are basically just doing what they think is fair. “She’s suspicious, but if she’s able to prove her innocence, it’s only fair we let her,” is the vibes I’m getting.
They don’t know that she’s outright opposing the whole system at play here.
On the other hand, from his little soot spies, Edward does know that, and that’s why he wants her gone, I think.
I think there are two other reasons the star bearers are working with Kate. One is, her provocation got to them. They don’t want to just be Edward’s underlings who do whatever he says.
And two, Kate showed by making the stalagmites of soot that she’s too valuable to be disposed of without a really good reason. That leads back into your point, where they don’t know that she is actually a rebel against Shadow House.
Start Date: 2023-03-03T15:00:00Z
This gets us to the end of another volume!
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Wait sorry, could you remind me what part that is from? I don’t recall soot covering the map, let alone forming some pattern.
And just to make sure, this の in both sentences I asked about are the same thing right?
Essentially the same thing, yes. Just serving slightly different functions. (One serving as a substitute for a noun; the other turning a verb into a noun). But I’m pretty sure it’s the same の just with different hats
Ah jeez, thank you for providing all those images too, you really didn’t have to. But I appreciate it 
Ah ok, actually that clears it up for me quite nicely, thank you.
We learned something interesting here. John’s memories start around the same time as Shaun’s. Going back to the questions I had earlier, it seems like Shadows really do develop their personalities by interacting with their living dolls, and Kate is weird for having already had one.
Also, we are deep into season 2 of the anime, and we have still not seen what happens at the end of season 1 
I’m beginning to suspect that what happened at the end of season 1 actually comes after all the events of season 2 in the manga. Or maybe the end of season 1 was an anime-only plot point? I’m interested to see.
I didn’t watch the anime adaption, but I heard that the end of the first season deviated from the manga (which is partly why I didn’t bother watching it). So there’s a good chance it was anime only.
