セーラー服と機関銃🏫🌺 (IBC) - Week 6

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せーラー服と機関銃
Intermediate book club
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5147UezyT4L

Week 6 23 March 2024
End page 96
End point (kindle) 1197
End phrase 現実のようには思えなかった [end of 第一章]
Pages 15
Previous week Week 5
Next week Week 7
Home Thread せーラー服と機関銃

Vocabulary

Google sheet:

セーラー服と機関銃 vocabulary sheet

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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).

  3. 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
黒木 くろき detective, head of the S section 870
浜口物産 はまぐちぶっさん Hamaguchi trading company 936
浜口 はまぐち Hamaguchi, local Yakuza chief 1,034
野田代議士 のだだいぎし Representative Noda, politician, waiting for Hamaguchi 1,064
— — — —

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
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3 Likes
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How did people find last week? The longest week so far at ~ 19 pages

If that seemed OK, I am going to suggest that we up the pace a little for the next part of the book.

If we go to around 18 pages (plus/minus a page or so to fit with good section endings) that would take us to around 5% a week

  • Happy to go faster
  • Stay the same
  • I don’t mind
0 voters
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This is what I think the “best breakpoints” schedule for chapter 2 would look like:

Week 7: to end of ch2s1 p113 - 17 pages
Week 8: to end of ch2s2 p128 - 15 pages
Week 9: to a subsection break 黒木はニヤリと笑った p145 - 17 pages
Week 10: to end of ch2 p164 - 19 pages

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Sounds perfect to me! Thank you

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week 6 thoughts

Am I the only one who thinks that Hamaguchi’s wholesome response to Izumi’s antics isn’t trustworthy at all? Maybe I’m overly suspicious and he really is a good natured yakuza boss with a heart of gold, but that just turned out too well! Although I don’t necessarily think he’s behind the shooting at the end of the chapter… maybe…

Also, how presumptuous of her underling to drop her out of school without her permission. She needs to lay down the law as a boss asap!!
likeaboss

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week 6 thoughts

I agree, the change was just too extreme :thinking: Though maybe he is just a huge weirdo, who knows :joy:

I loved 泉 throwing water at 浜口. Though it did make me wonder if someone was going to get killed right then and there.

question

「人情、紙の如し、ですな」

Human nature is like paper? Anyone know what’s meant by that?

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Seems to be a variant on a proverb 人情 紙の如し ; in both cases using paper as an example of a very thin and insubstantial thing.

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Ah, thanks, that makes sense! I didn’t know that proverb before

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I laughed out loud when I read that bit!

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Belatedly, a couple of questions and notes from this week

1. Hamaguchi is praising Izumi

それにしちゃ、あれだけ演説ができるとは立派だ

what does それにしちゃ mean here?

2. Medaka gumi's current source of income

ええと……そうですね、Ｃブロックの宝くじ売場の場所代集めです

What exactly do they do?
Are they running some lottery booths?
Are they getting a cut from the lottery ticket sales?

3. Izumi's fortunate lapse

形だけの親分――とは思ったものの、つい負けず嫌いの性分が頭をもたげ、こんなことになってしまう。

I needed some help to unpack this. Something like this?

This wasn’t on purpose. Izumi thought she was just Oyabun in name only, but she had stuck her neck out because her nature was that she didn’t like giving in.

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Hamaguchi is praising Izumi

それにしちゃ === それにしては with the ては contracted. It means “contrary to what was thought or expected" of some situation that’s probably just been described.

Edit: I just realized you might have meant in the context of the sentence :sweat_smile: I went back to look and he’d just described that Izumi was really hungry. So he’s saying that it was amazing that she was able to make that speech because it’s contrary to what he would have expected from someone who’s really hungry.

Medaka gumi's current source of income

I feel like it’s a little vague, but 場所代 implies that they own the space that the lottery operates and collect a fee from them for using it. But since we’re talking the yakuza, possibly it’s a protection fee? :thinking:

Izumi's fortunate lapse

Pretty much. Essentially she’s saying she thought she would be doing nothing as oyabun but ended up doing something by accident. Here’s a rough breakdown:

形だけの親分――とは思った
She had thought that she was boss in name only,
ものの, つい
However, unexpectedly
負けず嫌いの性分が
Her nature that hates to lose
頭をもたげ、
Made itself known (raised its head/stuck its neck out) and
こんなことになってしまう。
it accidentally turned out this way.

7 Likes
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very helpful, thanks!

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@pm215 I’ve pencilled in a couple more potential break points in 第三章 (on the home page). I couldn’t find the page numbers for a couple of them. Do you mind having a look and seeing if there are any better breaks that fit with ~16-20 pages/week?

Week 10 Apr 20 2061 164 end of ch2 19
Week 11 Apr 27 2303 184 第三章 end of section 1 20
Week 12 May 4 2476 199 end of section 2 15
Week 13 May 11 2673 end of section 3
Week 14 May 18 2869 230 end of section 4
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End of section 1 is p185, end of section 2 is p199, end of section 3 is p215, end of section 4 is p230, end of section 5 is p242, end of chapter p262. That would give us 21, 14, 16, 15, 12, 20 pages.

The previous scene break in section 1 is page 179, so stopping there is 15, 20 pages, which isn’t any better for smoothing out the lengths of the first two weeks.

There’s a scene break in section 5 at page 247, so if we stop there instead of at the beginning of section 5 that makes those last two weeks 17, 15 pages instead of 12, 20 pages, which is probably better.

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Thanks!

so here is a draft for the schedule until the end of Chapter 3

Week 10 Apr 20 2061 164 end of ch2 19
Week 11 Apr 27 2303 185 第三章 end of section 1 21
Week 12 May 4 2476 199 end of section 2 14
Week 13 May 11 2673 215 end of section 3 16
Week 14 May 18 2869 230 end of section 4 15
Week 15 May 25 3066 247 どうやらそれだけが理解できた 17
Week 16 Jun 1 3243 262 End of 第三章 15

@pm215 is that the right quote for the end of week 15?

That gives us 6 weeks for Chapter 3 of the book

Assuming we stick at the same-ish pace (and the section endings are similar), we will take 7 weeks to do Chapter 4 and the epilogue and finish about 20th July.
All ok with that? We could speed up and save a week or two, but probably wouldn’t coincide with section endings.

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Yes, that’s the place I had in mind.