For once I’m on time with these announcements (but for anyone participating or looking to read this book, don’t worry if you are not! It’s a worthwhile read either way) so it’s time for week 6 and Episode VI オレンジロビンソンの奇妙なブログ ～ハッピーマザーズダイアリー～! Happy blogging 
1 Like
Finished Episode V キムラヒサコ ～厄災～! This one doesn’t correspond to any existing episode, does it? It didn’t ring any bells for me, and when I looked back through the list, it didn’t seem to be on there. I suppose at the start they say that they’re examining the case and considering making a video about it, so presumably it hasn’t made it into the actual episodes yet, unless there are some easter eggs I’m unaware of, haha.
Thoughts:
The audio at the end was cool! Very appreciative of the transcript, haha, because there’s no way on earth I would have gotten any of the words out of that. What surprised me when actually listening to it was how slowly and calmly it was delivered. When I read the transcript, the urgency of the message paired with the description of the people fleeing lead me to expect a more urgent delivery, but it was so calm. Was the person speaking basically resigned to her fate? Or was she just exhausted/sick/dying and couldn’t muster up the energy for a more spirited warning?
I wonder what was up with キムラヒサコさん… I suppose 逆に we’ll have to wait for an episode to come out about it to find out more, haha, instead of waiting for a book chapter to find out more about an episode.
1 Like
Okay, after mummyvhs pointed out that there’s an easter egg in Hidden Link, I went and rewatched that one (with Japanese subtitles)!
This episode is… not my favorite, admittedly, so I was a bit surprised that anything had gotten me intrigued to revisit it, haha.
Here are some thoughts (spoilers for both the キムラヒサコ chapter and Hidden Link):
First of all, I never would’ve even thought to look here for connections because Hidden Link and the story in this chapter had such totally different vibes! The timelines also don’t quite match up: the photo in Hidden Link is dated 1993/07/26, which is well after the events in the video, which occurred in the 50s. So the photo had to have been hidden in this website long after the events in question occurred, which begs the question of… why?
I wonder what kind of 厄災 happened here, and if Kimura Hisoko is, uh, still around in some fashion (despite her body being found). Either she was a victim of something they’re trying to warn about, or she’s the thing they’re being warned against…
In any case, it’s a bit odd for her to be associated with a missing person case if there is concrete evidence that “キムラヒサコさんの遺体があがりました.”…
A question:
mummyvhs, I went back and looked at your Fake Documentary Q document to see if there were any fan theories or anything tying stuff together that I’d missed, and I noticed your notes said this:
The story in the Kimura chapter concerns a mysterious film that had been dubbed over an older silent-era movie (Pathe-Baby, 1922), showing a car with a megaphone attached and a large group of people seemingly fleeing from something or someone.
I’m a bit confused because I thought it was referring to a specific film format and not a movie?
Here’s the section in question for reference:
一九四四年生まれの新井さんは、取材当時（二〇二三年十二月）で七九歳。もう六十年前なのに、若い頃に観た「パテベビーフィルム」の映像が忘れられないという。
パテベビー（Ｐａｔｈｅ－Ｂａｂｙ）とは「小型のパテ」を意味しており、フランスのパテ社が開発し、一九二二年（大正十一年）に発売された９・５ミリフィルムである。後に８ミリフィルムが登場するまでは、小型映画の主流をなし、個人撮影や家庭内上映向けとしても広く活躍した。
I had a bit of a hard time understanding the specifics when I was reading this haha because it’s been a loooong time since I’ve done anything with physical film and projectors, so I googled “Pathe Baby” and found more info in English, hahaha. Here’s a wikipedia page with a little more info, and a video of someone restoring a 1924 Pathé Baby projector (there’s more info in the description as well).
It’s a neat device! Cool how it made amateur filmmaking more accessible. I didn’t realize that people were able to get access to home cinema technology this early. I wonder how long it took for it to make its way over to Japan?
Wait, I thought to look at the Japanese wikipedia page for 9.5mm film and answered that question myself, hahaha. Looks like it first arrived in 1924! And was on its way out by 1945, which means that it was already obsolete by the time this video would’ve happened. Interesting…
I already messaged you about this earlier, but just in case anyone else is reading this in the future, the chapter corresponds to the Hidden Link episode. At the very end there is a file with her name, and the picture shows what she (supposedly?) looks like.
1 Like
For the question (sorry forgot to add this to the message)
Thanks for looking this up! It’s indeed a type of projector. I will amend the document because I legit thought it was talking about a movie or a genre of movies of some kind (hi I’m Jared, I’m 19 and I never learned how to read).
1 Like
Also (once again I’m late OTL) it’s officially the week of the second to last chapter now, Episode VII フィルムインフェルノ ～いくつかのピース～!
This one was another one of my favs from the book. It’s quite creepy, and there is one word in particular in it that (it’s just a small tease but come back here later) I think, when taken to its extreme, could have a lot of underlying lore consequences for the work. It’s quite creepy, thinking about it. Anyway, have fun 
1 Like
Finished the オレンジロビンソンの奇妙なブログ chapter! This was one of my favorite episodes, so I was curious to see what the chapter added.
Thoughts:
My biggest takeaway from this was I was incredibly amused by the sideways kaomoji, haha! I burst out laughing the first time I saw one:
Western-style sideways smiley emoticons have returned (:
I actually realized when rewatching Obscure (with Japanese subtitles) that I don’t think I noticed the kaomoji at all when watching with English subtitles, because my eyes were glued to the bottom of the screen in order to read the subtitles, and they didn’t include the kaomoji there.
I think that was what I got the most out of rewatching this episode fully in Japanese, just the overall sense of Orange Robinson’s character voice. I had gotten the general idea in English, but some of the flavor is inevitably lost, and I think it was an improved experience hearing the blog read out loud as I followed along, and seeing the kaomoji and such.
Regarding the extra material in the book, I was a bit apprehensive, honestly, of getting more lore, because I felt like this was one of the stronger episodes as it was and I didn’t want more information to give too much away and dilute the scare of the original, but I think it ended up being fine. I don’t know if getting the backstory behind the family really enhanced anything for me, but it also didn’t lessen the scare from the original episode. (I did appreciate how easy that Happy Mother’s Diary blog was to read, though, haha).
I think one of the strongest aspects of this episode was the fact that the ghost or monster or whoever X was had some random guy basically doing their dirty work. I think it’s really horrifying to think that you could be harming someone in your day to day life without even realizing it.
In a sense, it actually reminded me of Tokio Omori’s latest project フィクショナル, which also centers around someone creating all sorts of harmful edited videos as a product of his job… Obviously that character is more culpable than Orange Robinson, but Orange did seem to be aware that what X was using these photos for probably wasn’t good, and that wasn’t enough to stop him from continuing to do it because he needed the work.
Incidentally, the main character of フィクショナル sort of gets haunted by his work in a similar way, or at least his own sense of reality starts breaking down as a result of the reality-scrambling work that he does, just like how Orange Robinson and his boss start seeing that face everywhere after editing it into so many photos.
I think my interpretation for this one is that there wasn’t anything supernatural that happened to Orange and his boss to make them start seeing things and being generally troubled. I think that was pure old-fashioned guilt.
1 Like
The last week is underway! The chapter is Episode VIII 池澤葉子失踪事件 ～母の印影～. If you watched the (by the time of this writing) latest Q episode, you know some of what to expect
I will try and write down my own thoughts on each chapter by the beginning of next week, and I hope in the future other people discover this thread and thus this book and have fun diving into it 
1 Like
Finished reading フィルムインフェルノ ～いくつかのピース～!
Wow, a lot happened in this chapter! Here are my thoughts:
First of all, this quote about M-san’s story:
ただ結局は、「オチがなくて、まとまりに欠ける」という理由で編集長からダメ出しをされてしまい、実際に雑誌へ掲載されたのは、幽霊が出てくるような、わかりやすい体験談で、残念ながら執筆した原稿が世に出ることはなかった。
“オチがなくて、まとまりに欠ける” is me about Mother /j
Speaking more seriously, a lot of what was going on in this chapter didn’t fully click for me until ピース⑤ 渦 (though I could very well still have a wrong idea about what’s happening lol).
Is the cave basically alive?? It seems like it moves in a whirlpool pattern and essentially sucks people down into it (taking them to Hell, maybe? Is that the “Inferno” in question?). So the striped shirt guy who videotaped the hiker seemingly got sucked in, and I’m guessing the rope in the well happened to be dangling over where the cave was located at the time, so they were pulling it not out of the well but out of the cave (and the voices that were heard down there were people in the cave)…
The woman with the daughter and the photos is tricky, but maybe the cave ate part of that room, or that room is located at the center of the whirlpool or something, or the cave is spitting up the photos into that room somehow. Maybe they’re also some sort of lure?
I don’t know what happened to that family to make them, well, Like That, but it definitely sounds like they got trapped on the cave’s moving island… I wonder who were the people who got buried there?
Ichiryo and Tohko definitely seem to know what they’re doing… or at least they seem to have gone into this with intent and knowledge, like following the instructions on the tape to try to navigate the cave, and trying to record because they thought it would protect them. I wonder if they picked that specific time because that was when the cave was supposed to move to another location? Actually, maybe that’s why it suddenly sealed them out, lol.
I have no idea what’s going on with the photo they had. Are they doing this because they’re trying to find those people in the photo?
I feel like this chapter introduced at least as many questions as it answered, haha.
Very curious about this
I also rewatched the Film Inferno episode with Japanese subtitles! This is a pretty long one, but I feel like I had to pause a lot less to get through it because the audio was pretty straightforward.
1 Like
I finished the last chapter and am now done with the book!! 
First of all, this chapter was the most difficult for me by far, for two completely different reasons 
.
Thoughts on 池澤葉子失踪事件 ～母の印影～:
Oh boy, where to even start…
I’ve talked about it a bit here and in the other thread, but this one is probably my least favorite episode of the show. I was actually 逆に more interested in the book chapter for it because I wondered if it would, I guess, redeem the episode for me in a way.
…And it sort of did, and sort of didn’t? 
I guess I understand the episode a lot better now and I feel like I get what it’s trying to do, but I’m not sure that I really like it any better, though I suppose I can respect what it’s attempting.
First of all, here’s what I had to say about the episode before reading the chapter:
I guess the biggest plot twist to me in the book is that there’s not really a strong indication that anything supernatural is happening? Well, besides the initial disappearance of his mother. Though maybe even that is more of a 行方不明展-esque type of 行方不明, where there’s not really any crime or monster or whatever, but the person in question simply wanting to disappear for whatever reason.
Actually, I found out while I was typing this up that the Mother ep was being made right when they were working on 行方不明展, so that might indeed be the vibe Terauchi had in mind for this.
The book adds a lot of context that makes the situation honestly sad to me rather than scary. Ikezawa is clearly in many ways ruining his own life with his family (he leaves them every single weekend!) to hold onto this incredibly tenuous connection to his mother, and he’s too afraid to get actual real answers to his questions by opening it up to a broader investigation, for instance, because he doesn’t want anything to stop the packages from coming. As the episode says at the very end, “それが生き甲斐かの様に”.
Of course a major theme here is the cruelty of people (rather than ghosts or monsters or etc.), and how those anonymous forum users on 2ch or whatever will go to such lengths to ruin the life of a random man just for kicks.
Something that occurred to me is that there is a kind of vulnerability in these missing person posters, which is that they give away your address and phone number, which suddenly opens you up to be the target of this kind of harassment campaign.
I guess one unanswered question for me is why they started harassing him like this? Like, whose idea was it and what was their motivation? The voicemail, too, is interesting because the video is old enough, that kind of content is unlikely to be preserved on the internet or anywhere like that, so someone had to have either manually preserved that interview themself or have known where they could find a copy of it (and had to have known it existed in the first place), so that does suggest someone with some sort of personal connection to Ikezawa…
The other thought I had was that this was some sort of meta-commentary on the theory frenzy happening among Q’s own fanbase, with people drawing all sorts of connections and links between various small details, some more tenuous than others. An interview with Tokio Omori kind of backed up this interpretation.
Omori and Terauchi talk about the Fake Documentary Q book here. Here’s an excerpt from the end where Mother comes up:
――今回収録された6本にはどんな思い入れがありますか。
寺内：うーん、全部思い入れがあるのですが……好きな作品を強いて挙げるなら「【行方不明】この人知りませんか - The Portrait」と、「封印されたフェイクドキュメンタリー - Cursed Video」の2本かな。
大森：僕は、本に「池澤葉子失踪事件」のタイトルで収録されている、「Mother」が一番印象深いですね。「Mother」はちょうど僕は日々思っている「考察ってどうなのかな」という気持ちと、リンクするところがありました。後味も悪いので印象深いです。考察を現実世界に持ち込むと危険性があるよねという話を、Qが言うからこそ面白いと思います。本で読んだ後に映像を見ると、重たいパンチを喰らったみたいなショックを受けるかと。映像と本の違いがこんなふうに出てくるんだと感じました。
So I guess in some ways it’s a cautionary tale about getting too into the theory frenzy, or alternatively it’s a story about how malicious actors online can abuse that theory impulse and send you down all sorts of rabbit holes just by giving you meaningless information that has the appearance of being somehow meaningful.
In a sense, it sort of implicates the Q team themselves, or at least casts doubt on their intentions, and it puts the reader in the position of the victim being exploited in this way. They probably surmised, maybe correctly, that the kind of person who’d be likely to buy this book is the kind of person who’d be really into digging super deep into the lore.
I suppose that’s probably why they chose this to be the note the book ends on, even though it’s a bit of an odd choice because the tone feels so different from the other stories.
I think it invokes a discomfort that is different than the horror that the other episodes invoke. I don’t really like it, but then I don’t think it’s supposed to be a feeling that you like, so maybe that means it succeeded at what it set out to do.
As I mentioned above, I had more trouble with this chapter than the others, for two different reasons. One is that Ikezawa’s leaps in logic were extra hard for me to follow as a language learner because he reached conclusions that didn’t necessarily feel obvious to me, and as that section went on, I started to also get tired of reading all the connections he was finding because they started feeling more and more detached from reality, so it started to feel like there was no point in trying to comprehend them if they were devoid of any sort of meaningful information.
The second is that the 2chan forum slang in the last portion was hard for me to understand at times . I went down a couple google rabbit holes with some phrases that weren’t in any dictionary I had… So my comprehension on the specifics here was less than perfect, but I understood enough to get the gist of what was happening.
Weird chapter!
I guess in the end it did get me thinking, though.
I also rewatched Mother with Japanese subtitles! It’s not my favorite episode and also I was pretty distracted by something else, so there were some words I didn’t bother to look up again and I didn’t exactly have perfect comprehension. Eh, well, sometimes it’s good to do more extensive listening practice, I suppose .
1 Like
Thoughts on the book as a whole:
I enjoyed it overall! I think it’s a fun read if you’ve already seen the show and are interested in the deeper lore behind the episodes. I’m not sure how well it would hold up on its own if you’re coming into it cold, though.
It certainly gives you a lot to think about, and it gave me a reason to revisit the episodes and try watching with Japanese subtitles, which was fun! As a language learner, it was also pretty accessible, with most of the text in the images and such getting reprinted within the body text so it was easy to look things up.
It was the right balance of incentive/reward to struggle, at least where my investment in Q is at and where my general Japanese ability level is at. It was fun to feel like I was uncovering secrets I otherwise wouldn’t have access to, haha.
1 Like
Time for me to also post my thoughts, finally! Divided by chapters, heavy spoilers ahead.
Episode I 封印されたフェイクドキュメンタリー ～続報～
This was the perfect “hook” for the book from the material they had available, and it’s the very first episode on their YouTube channel (though not the first one they filmed, that honor goes to FLOWER OFFERING) so it just felt right.
However, I have mixed feelings on it. Before the book came out (I’m just going to call it the FDQB from now on, as I do in my document), there was a stronger sense (often due to a lack of more information) throughout the series that the Q team were kind of, sort of also the bad guys, or at least had dubious intentions. It was also entirely unclear who they were. The 1st chapter pretty much confirms that the team consists of the real life team behind the series, and that their intentions, as far as all the material they gather in the book goes, are seemingly more noble. Which takes away some mystery and intrigue for me.
On the other hand, I think that the picture jumpscare (if your page layout is playing along) is wonderfully creepy, and that the addition of a cult forming around these pictures (or at least one of them) adds another spooky layer to the video that wasn’t there before.
Episode II BASEMENT ～branch～
I liked this chapter because I like the video itself, but the episode always lacked a little bit of “oomph” for me. Which the FDQB fixed, in my opinion. I actually find the thought that you can be mirrored (?) by these shadowy, otherworldly beings fairly creepy, and I enjoyed the distanced way the narrative was told: reading it I felt like I was a third person outsider hovering near the building and the elevator shaft, occasionally peeking in whenever the prose allowed me to. It reminded me of the feeling that got me into Q in the first place (and which I’ve been missing for a few episodes now): that the team or the supernatural goings-on are deliberately toying with the viewers and only divulging information in little tidbits, ready to pull back the carrot at any given moment.
Episode III SANCTUARY ～ある少年の自由研究～
SANCTUARY is a certified classic in my eyes and one of my favorite episodes, so I had high hopes. I can totally see why someone would dislike this chapter because it does a thing that happens quite a lot throughout the FDQB and which I’d sarcastically call Prometheus-ing (making something less scary by explaining more), but overall I feel more positive about it than negative.
Q doesn’t have many notable child characters, and even though this one would now be an adult, it was still very immersive and interesting for me to see the past world through his eyes. They effectively told the story of an isolated community with a dark past that gets accidentally uncovered by a fastidious schoolboy. Although I think ultimately the criticisms one might have for this chapter hold true. The オチ of the video, as it were, was weakened by the chapter, and as a result the mystery of why the adults don’t want the cult to be talked about was dead on arrival. Nonetheless, I find myself hoping they explore this setting again, against my better judgment.
Episode IV ノーフィクション ～岡崎範子の謎～
They really packed all the chapters about banger episodes into the middle portion of the FDQB, huh? Anyway, NO FICTION is what many people would consider one of Q’s best episodes, and even after reading nearly every interview involving the creators that exists on planet earth, I’m not entirely sure they understand why.
The narrative in NO FICTION is very cruel to Noriko, and as someone suffering from multiple mental illnesses and leading a very lonely life, I can relate to a lot that she goes through. Just at the moment when she feels a little bit safer and like she might be able to open up to these people who have invaded her home to make what is essentially 感動ポルノ about her, the director dies (was it because he disturbed the wet human-shaped thing on the ground in that one room, or because he was rifling through her things in general?). And for the longest time I interpreted the ending to be the “documentary” team spiriting her away to some mental institution or another, while the shadow figures in her doorway look on, almost wistfully.
I like what the chapter added to this emotional journey. I find the binder full of missing child posters immensely creepy, especially in context, and due to my low internet connection the QR code jumpscare with the note left behind by the reporter was all the more powerful and actually had me staring at the screen for a few seconds, fearing what I would see, before the full picture loaded. It reminded me of that meme edit of John Locke from Lost waiting to see a picture of Slowpoke load on the Dharma computer (anyone remember that lol?).
Episode V キムラヒサコ ～厄災～
I would go so far as to call Kimura Hisako the true last 未踏の謎 left in Q that’s genuinely intriguing to me. The name only makes an appearance at the very end of HIDDEN LINK, and then it only leaves more questions. The appearance of the photo shown always reminded me of the way the “rust” that’s covering the photos in FILM INFERNO, but there wasn’t much else to go on otherwise.
In a very smart move, the chapter chose to expand upon the mystery and intrigue, rather than ruin it with superfluous explanations. The description of the old film that shows people fleeing from what is implied to be Hisako as a calamity was very evocative in my opinion, and gave me massive SCP vibes, which I enjoyed a lot. It wasn’t too long and it wasn’t too short. Probably one of the better chapters in this book.
Episode VI オレンジロビンソンの奇妙なブログ ～ハッピーマザーズダイアリー～
I feel like I don’t have much to say about this chapter. It didn’t really scare me or creep me out, but it also wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Back in the day I had a lot of fun putting together the backstory of the family in the photos that OR edits for X, and it was very rewarding to piece together the fact that they were all, in fact, of the same family. Now we got a fully fleshed-out backstory that doesn’t require zooming and enhancing YouTube screenshots like crazy, and I’m not exactly sure how to feel about that.
Overall, it was one of the weaker chapters for me.
Episode VII フィルムインフェルノ ～いくつかのピース～
If I consider what excites me, then this might be my favorite chapter in the book. It weaves together several stories, some of which are quite creepy to me, especially considering the wider implications, and much like the scattered videotapes found in the episode of the same name, they come together to form a vaguely outlined whole that yet leaves the reader with many questions (which is a very good thing).
For its wonderful descriptions of landscapes and figures in the distance, the story of the fisherman gets my seal for the Golden Lens Cap. I found myself drawn into the story and couldn’t stop picturing the island and its ghostly inhabitants in my head. I kept wondering, fearing and daring along with the fisherman, and was rewarded with a very evocative suggestion of a larger, shadowy something that lurks just behind our reality. Much like an actual whirlpool or maelstrom, it felt like that what we were giving glimpses of was merely the tip of the iceberg of potentially cosmic implications, and I love that.
If I take the fisherman story and the family vacation story and put them together in my head, all I see is this central point in time and space (the mentioned トクイテン), around which swirl streams that catch the missing and the deceased, which make them pass over into something else instead of the afterlife or a happy 異世界, some place that, much like the place that Tsunaka vanished to in 正体不明, regards its unwitting (or witting?) passengers with malice and contempt. ゾクゾク
Episode VIII 池澤葉子失踪事件 ～母の印影～
Oh, Mother.
I have to be honest and say that I already did not enjoy the episode itself. When it came out and I had chewed on it for a bit, it just felt like a wish dot com version of NO FICTION to me, and when I looked at opinions from native speakers it quickly solidified the feeling I got that the オチ missing from the YouTube video was done as a marketing strategy. The writing is okay, a bit fragmented at times (which does, however, nicely reflect the mental state of the central figure), but otherwise there isn’t much else to say here for me.
At best this chapter (and YouTube video) read like a damning critique of internet troll culture and things spiraling out of control even if people might have their motives, and at worst it’s making downright fun of fans who love looking into details and analyzing the show frame by frame. I understand that as a creator, it might not be entirely pleasant to have people pick your creation apart in this way, because they will inevitable analyze things that were accidents or have nothing whatsoever to do with the mystery, but on the other hand I just cringe whenever works go “meta” in this way and start involving the audience in non-kayfabe ways that strike me as a bit mean-spirited.
Overall Thoughts
I think I like the book in concept more than I do in execution. I was very, very excited (as nerds tend to be) when it got first announced, which was also a time when I felt more generous towards Q as a fan. It’s a pivotal work, as Ômori rightfully assessed, and it always will be for effectively codifying the mockumentary horror boom of the 2020s in Japan (I would call works like 蓋 the true kickstarters), but the decline in quality (for me personally) has been a bit off-putting. Still, as supplementary information for a beloved series this was a good investment on part of the team, and I imagine sorely needed because Q otherwise doesn’t generate much income. In an interview Minaguchi even complained that Q sometimes gets lumped in with other YouTube shows that paywall their content (especially if the algorithm is involved), so I hope the sales of the book were at least satisfactory.
As I said, I do hate the fingerpointing when it comes to the theorizing. There are many different opinions on this from the creators at the forefront of this horror boom, some which I share, some which I don’t. However, as a fan, I suppose sometimes I can’t help but feel a bit attacked or made fun of. There are some passages of the book that go a little bit too into the 実話 style for my tastes, and some passages that leave the territory that Q is best acquainted with to try and do something new. In some chapters it works out, and in some it doesn’t.
手短いに I’d say that despite my gripes I’m glad the FDQB exists and that I would recommend it to anyone who likes the show and feels like their Japanese level can tackle this (for a more nuanced perspective from someone newer to the language than me, read fallynleaf’s posts above).
1 Like