Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Proper Nouns
Name
Hiragana reading
Notes
Kindle location first mentioned
赤川次郎
あかがわじろう
the author
cover
尾田医師
おだいし
Doctor Oda
24
目高組
めだかぐみ
Medaka clan
86
星泉
ほしいずみ
main character, Izumi
170
酒井好子
さかいよしこ
aunt Yoshiko
172
星貴志
ほしたかし
main character’s father, Takashi
179
酒井呈一
さかいていいち
Uncle (Yoshiko’s husband)
201
知子
ともこ
Tomoko (?Izumi’s mother)
211
奥沢哲夫
おくざわてつお
Classmate of Izumi, Tetsuo (son of an executive, smart dresser, family expect him home for dinner on time)
251
渡辺周平
わたなべしゅうへい
Classmate of Izumi, Shuhei (stocky, bowlegged, loves Judo)
251
竹内智生
たけうちともお
Classmate of Izumi, Tomo. (Smart, heading for Tokyo university, wears glasses)
261
マユミ
-
mysterious woman in Izumi’s apartment
348
三浦久子
みうらひさこ
Miss Miura, teacher
357
保科校長
ほしなこうちょう
Headteacher Hoshina
368
和子
かずこ
classmate,
433
健次
けんじ
Kenji, Medaka gang member, short, unbalanced (brought the doctor in the car in the prologue), chews gum
555
英樹
ひでき
Hideki, Medaka gang member, skinny and unhealthy looking, wears thick glasses
556
武
たけし
Takeshi, Medaka gang member, stocky and overweight
558
佐久間
さくま
Sakuma, Medaka second in command, unusually tall (‘beanpole’), in 50s
558
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Participation
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0voters
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If I’d chosen the breakpoint at the end of this week’s section deliberately, I don’t think I could have picked a better spot…
(but actually, it was just determined by the kindle %)
On the subject of breakpoints, how are people feeling about them? The kindle% approach gives us a nice steady workload each week, but slightly less natural points to stop (week 2 actually ended in the middle of a sentence ). Now that I actually have the physical book I can help with finding good breaks for the schedule for the second half of the book, if that’s helpful.
Good question.
I think that we should certainly be able to make the breakpoints occur at more natural points as we go on through the book. (We don’t have a schedule yet as the hope is that we might speed up a bit)
そいえば
Next week we have 14 pages, then 20 the following week (it is extra long to take us to the end of the first section of the book).
How about we change the end point for next week to ~17 pages? Then we will have 2 slightly longer weeks rather than one shorter and one longer. @pm215 do you think you could find a natural break point around page 79 (assuming you have the same page numbers, or around half way to the end of the chapter if not)??
The nicest breakpoint would be right at the start of page 81, which is the end of section 4 of chapter 1. But that would be 18.5 and 15.5 pages. For an even split of 17/17 we can stop in the middle of p79 at 食事どころではなかったのだから当然だ。
I think putting a break at the end of a paragraph would OK, at least better than in the middle of a sentence. Reading on Bookwalker, and page number would be different. Device-dependent as well.
Looks to me as if there is support for changing next week’s end point to the end of the section. (I’ve read ahead, and it is very manageable and not-too-tricky. Ends on another minor-cliffhanger [not literally, like that last chapter of あんたも殺人犯になれる]. Unless there is a flurry of opposition in the next couple of days, I’ll make that change.
Just finished week 3 reading. X_x, a little behind but I’ve got time to catch back up this week. I bought a physical copy to go along with my digital copy and look what it came with:
I also fell behind! I did the week 3 reading yesterday. Reading it in one sitting was quite a lot But now that I know I can do it, I may try to read week 4 in one go tonight to make sure I don’t fall behind again.
Same. I read week 3 over the weekend and week 4 today.
The cast is getting quite large again. In 殺人犯, I had the problem that I couldn’t keep the side characters straight, so I guess I’ll just have to start taking notes this time or something .
Mmm, I can’t remember which of the three classmates is which, or which of the yakuza is which except the leader… Luckily it doesn’t matter much since they all seem to largely play to their stereotypes anyway
When I sat down to read week 3, I realized the only one of Izumi’s male classmates whose name I could remember the reading for was Tetsuo After finishing, I noticed the OP has the names and readings though. Thanks @Domjcw!
I’m sorta ok with the classmates. Tomoo is the smart one and Shuuhei is the stupid one with bad impulse control. I appreciate that both of them have distinct patterns of speaking and behaving that often makes them easy to identify in dialogue. I’m less sure about Tetsuo…he says a lot, but I haven’t really gotten a handle on his character yet. But at least I remember his name.
The Yakuza on the other hand, oh boy. I only just read the section where the 3 henchman are introduced today, and already can’t remember anything about them. Also not sure about Izumi’s female friend and the teachers.
…Ooooh, I only just noticed that the character sheet on this thread now has physical descriptions! Thank you, @Domjcw . This is sure to come in handy.
Finally caught up! And even read a little further by accident. I didn’t forget my promise to help with the vocab sheet either, though no doubt there are still a lot of missing words.
Week 4 thoughts
I loved Sakuma’s recruitment speech at the start of this week’s reading. Maybe just a little because I struggled through it and felt way too satisfied with myself once the meaning of it all clicked. But it was passionate and afterwards, I really felt for those 4 beat up gangsters in their sad small club room!
It got really dark for a moment with Sakuma. The way Izumi decisively took charge in that moment worked well to change the mood. In general the situation with the Medaka group going under and Izumi’s fake confidence in approaching it makes it silly but still kind of believable. Really looking forward to more!
So far I can mostly tell the male classmates apart. Tetsuo doesn’t have Shuuhei’s aggression or Tomoo’s sarcasm but I think of him as the normie/straight man of the three, which helps differentiate him. The yakuza, like others, I’m still struggling with. At least I know Sakuma after this week
No problem, I added in little bits of description to the classmates and Yakuza as I could see them being confusing.
I also find it easy to get the names of 哲夫 and 智生 mixed up!
Last night I read one of Jiro Akagawa’s short stories translated in English “Beat Your Neighbor Out of Doors”. Though only around 20 pages long, there are 13 characters with a name in it. I only remember the names of 7 characters.
It’s possible that the writer’s main genre being mystery is why he creates such a huge cast. With so many characters, it’s hard to know who to trust, keeps us guessing about the culprit.
Yeah, I’d appreciate this also for future breakpoints, often have to find myself scanning to find where the previous week picked off based on approximate percentage, and I’m not so good at skim-reading Japanese still so it takes time.
Yeah, I need to go learn the names as yomitan gives like 4 options per name and I’ve forgotten which it was so I’m basically just seeing them and going “Uhh… name was about to do XYZ”
Anyway, other than names still being a problem, I think this week’s was one of the better sections for my reading ability so far. I didn’t feel like I was doing an extravagant number of lookups for once, and my reading speed has gone up to 0.4 pgs/min . I actually overshot a little to the start of 1-4 just to have a nice wrapping up point, so I guess next week’s assignment for me is just to read section 4.
). Now that I actually have the physical book I can help with finding good breaks for the schedule for the second half of the book, if that’s helpful.
But now that I know I can do it, I may try to read week 4 in one go tonight to make sure I don’t fall behind again.
After finishing, I noticed the OP has the names and readings though. Thanks