Man, I was considering listening to the audiobook as I read along, but audible Japan appears to be pickier than their Kindle division in checking for illicit foreigners. :\
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Finished reading the prologue. Interesting setup so far. I’ll need to refresh my Kansai-ben if this keeps up for sure. I don’t have anything much to add to the speculation of what’s going on; it’s been really helpful to review everyone else’s thoughts.
Re: the boy maybe being a ghost - still possible even though he was chatting with the girl; if she’s the spirit medium’s granddaughter, she in theory could have a hint of “the real stuff” in her. Granted, I don’t think that’s the twist; too easy to guess too early.
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Thoughts on 1.1
…I didn’t catch that at all. His mother? Dang. The POV in this first section certainly threw me; that and the Kansai-ben.
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Trying to untangle 1.1
Okay, so let me get this straight. After reading 1.1: 淳 is speaking with his mother, who’s recounting 宗作’s suicide attempt and how 宗作’s father turned up at his apartment out of the blue to save him. 淳’s mother comments,
あの男とは大違いやね。わたしと淳を捨てた
アホとは…
Does this mean that 淳’s mother was 宗作’s dad’s former wife, who left them for some reason? I would want to guess that maybe he left them before meeting his late dead wife, but then why would 淳’s mom keep up with him after 10 years.
Anyway, we then have a section break where 淳 and 宗作 are talking; 淳 says that this conversation takes place a month after 宗作’s failed suicide attempt, in late July. Do I have all that right? So in that case 淳 only heard about the suicide attempt sometime after his conversation with 宗作.
Ah, and I had two questions about sentences at the beginning of 1.1:
父親が周囲に明かした理由はそれなりに納得のいくものだったが、なぜその日その時に息子宅を訪れたのかは、本人にもよく分かっていない。
I presume the bolded it talking about how apparently there was some reason the father was able to sense something was wrong with 宗作, but I’m not sure I’m able to really grasp what is going on in the grammar there.
My next question is at the end of the next sentence:
…夜時間かけて東京部中野区の息子宅まで行った、直接の動機。
What exactly is that 直接 doing to that 動機? And what is 動機 even doing there?
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I just want to say something off topic but which has been bothering me: I think 宗作 is such an ugly name. If you’d put that in front of me no context I would have assumed it meant cult leader or something.
1.1 stuff in reply to eefara - no spoiler tags as under drop
I took this as 淳’s dad walked out on them and she’s saying 宗作’s dad is better. Right before this:
実際いま大事なのは宗作が助かったことだ。数少ない友人が幸運にも死なずに済んだ。その事実こそが肝心だ。 だが、その一方で宗作の父親に感心してもいた。息子の身を案じ、危機一髪で助け出した彼に尊敬の念を覚えていた。
So they’re talking about how great 宗作’s dad is then his mom cuts in and is like, ‘yeah he’s way better than that deadbeat who walked out on us’.
Next bit:
父親が周囲に明かした理由はそれなりに納得のいくものだったが、なぜその日その時に息子宅を訪れたのかは、本人にもよく分かっていない。
Dad had ok/plausible reasons to visit (ones that could convince those around him), but why he chose that day, that time to go visit his son, even he didn’t know.
You might be being thrown off by それなりに which my jp<>jp dict defines as “相応には。問題や不満がないわけではないが、ある程度の満足は得られている様子を表す。”
edit: or maybe 納得のいく threw you? That’s another set phrase: “物事を理解して同意できるさま、満足して心が満たされているさまなどを意味する表現。”
朝九時に兵庫県伊丹市の自宅から電車を乗り継ぎ、四時間かけて東京都中野区の息子宅まで行った、直接の動機。
Tbh I’m not 100% sure here but I kind of put it down to artistic flair. Basically referring up to the previous sentence, what was his ‘direct motive’ (driving motive probably sounds more natural?) for chosing that 9am, 4 hour train ride.
I’ll leave the timeline question for someone else, I went skimming for it but didn’t see it.
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On 1.1
My interpretations were exactly like @pocketcat’s so I don’t have much to add there, other than to assure you that most of these phrases gave me trouble too, and they only made sense after careful rereading and rearranging of my initial assumptions.
I don’t think we know exactly when the conversation with the mother takes place, but I assume it’s before 淳 and 宗作 meet. I see no reason to assume otherwise. 宗作 is rescued from his suicide attempt, moves in with father → 淳’s mother discusses it with her son → 淳 and 宗作 meet. A month passes between the first and last event, and the conversation with mother is somewhere in between. At least that’s what I understood.
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1.1 replies to cat and omk3
Aaah, that makes sense.
Re-reading that sentence, honestly I think 周囲 might’ve been the one throwing me off; I think I was trying to read it as the literal “surroundings” rather than “the people around/near him”. That, and I’m not sure I caught that 納得のいく is a set phrase. 
Thanks for the definitions!
So 直接の動機 here is referring to the previous sentence entirely, not the sentence it’s attached to? I feel like a beginning reader again and being unable to keep more than a single sentence in my head when trying to interpret things. 
Glad it’s not just me! The book doesn’t necessarily feel difficult vocab or grammar-wise, but the shifting and unclear perspectives are definitely throwing me. It feels like a good stretch, though; I’ve probably been slacking on challenging myself with reading lately.
So I’m looking at the last sentence before the scene shift:
実家に戻って来た宗作と再会したのは、奇跡の救出劇から一ヶ月後、七月下旬の日曜のことだった。
(Unrelated, but I just realized how strange it sounds for 淳 to say 「救出劇」. I guess he’s just commenting on how dramatic it all is: “estranged father wakes up and feels something’s wrong! He travels six hours to just barely save his son from committing suicide!!” type thing.)
So isn’t this saying Oh wait; now that I type it out and try to think it through I see what you’re saying. 
So one month after 宗作 returned to his dad’s house is when he and 淳 met up to have the following conversation, and their conversation took place in late July.
Phew; I’m like on page 6 of the book and have so many questions. Can’t wait to read another 6 pages and make sixty two forum posts out of it.
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some more on 1.1
The whole sentence is not really a sentence at all. Everything that precedes 直接の動機 is its description, like a preceding adjective: The direct motive to take that train, etc etc. No verb. The previous sentence says that not even the father himself could properly explain why he went exactly then. (What was) the direct motive for him taking that four-hour train, blah blah. So yes, it’s more like it’s expanding on what the previous sentence is saying. (I feel I’m not explaining it well.)
It gets much more straightforward after this, I found. In the prologue and 1.1 we don’t know where we are or who the key characters are, or anything really. After these are established it flows more easily.
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Nah, I understand what you’re saying! Thanks!
On one hand, I’m a bit relieved. On the other, I really want to improve my reading skills so stuff like this doesn’t trip me up so bad. >.<
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I finished rereading the prologue. I had to revisit the synopsis midway through the first reading because I felt so lost about what was going down.
Part of the confusion stems from the dialect. The story takes place on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, and apparently there’s a variety of dialects in the area. Some of it is similar to the Hiroshima-ben I’m familiar with, and there’s some that I’ve just no idea, and it doesn’t help that we have elderly characters in the mix either.
With those excuses aside, I just want to say I’m really thankful for everyone’s summaries, so I knew what to search for the second time! I ended up understanding a lot more this time around!
Prologue related ramblings
Hiro, seemingly the youngest in the group, is wondering what the adults are doing. He mentions the little girl (Sachika, which is interestingly written in katakana with no kanji) that looked like a princess he was just talking to and searches for in the group of adults. We don’t know what kind of conversation they had or if she really exists…
Then later Hiro recalls an underclassman (Kouki Yamashita) who had quite the interest in supernatural stuff (unlike him), but he left the island. Apparently everyone else Hiro knew has left and that’s the reason why he feels alone (it sounds like there aren’t any inhabitants around his age group and the only people around are older, mostly middle-aged adults and elderly, which is getting quite common for small islands and other inaka locations in Japan). That’s why I don’t pin him as being a ghost, but I do have a bad feeling he’ll be a target or something or someone.
When the interviewer asks “Are you an earthbound spirit?” it feels like a movie moment meant to add suspense. Up until that point, we’re inside Hiro’s head, and the scene cuts to someone asking something like that that almost seems directed at Hiro is a way to pull the audience in. (If I remember correctly, it’s directed at Sunaga or the old lady?) Like maybe Hiro has something to do with it?
Hiro might even be involved somehow but he’s completely unaware (and is pulled back into reality in this scene to illustrate his future unawareness). Maybe Hiro is the one that befriends the vengeful spirit without knowing? Maybe it’s Sachika? At the very least, Hiro doesn’t seem to know her that well so she’s either an outsider or the vengeful spirit maybe? (After reading further, yeah, she’s from Tokyo or rather, been living in Tokyo while her grandmother is surprise - the psychic running the show. So if she’s not a spirit, at the very least, she is the outsider potentially coming to disturb local way of life which is a common trope.)
Sachika seems too seemingly innocent to ignore. Especially when she comes up to Hiro nonchalantly offering to play when he’s obviously trying to calm himself down. A normal person would notice and ask if he’s okay right? At first I thought she was a little girl, but she seems older than Hiro to know about Namie Amuro and for her curls to hang down near his nose.
But reading that part again, Hiro is sitting while she’s standing, right? So they may be close to the same age? Probably around 3rd year JHS or 1st year SHS? The latter makes sense since all of Hiro’s friends left the island, so maybe they got into a high school on the mainland? But does Hiro actually know Sachika or is she supposed to be the granny psychic’s grandchild from Tokyo who came to visit for summer vacation or something? Either way, I don’t trust her.
By the way, is anyone keeping a character list? I tried to mention all the characters so I can refer back to this post later, but if anyone is keeping an official list, that would be super helpful!
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No, I don’t think there is one, but that’s a good idea. Perhaps we could make the home post a wiki @omk3 and add it there for easy reference? (Maybe we could add what dialect the person seems to speak as well.)
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Character list added to the home post, which is now a wiki. Feel free to edit! 
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@eefara, even though what you added is introduced along with the character, I’m not sure we should leave it outside spoiler tags. What do you think?
Here’s a question from chapter 2 that is non-spoilery. A character gets a drink from a vending machine and comments that some time ago 缶ジュースはまだプルタブ代だった。輪っかが取れるやつ。Why? How do juice cans open nowadays?
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I was thinking about that… I wasn’t sure, since it was the first thing mentioned in the first sentence in the first chapter, but I can spoiler it to be safe.
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Thank you. I agree, it is the very first thing mentioned, but it’s still technically a spoiler for anyone who has only read the prologue, I guess. I’m never sure what constitutes a spoiler and what doesn’t, but better to be on the safe side 
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I just hit this scene and wasn’t sure so googled and I think this is what they mean:
vs the modern version:
Assuming that’s the 輪っか that’s being pulled off.
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Finally finished a new part! But actually still a long way to go before I’m done with last week’s section. It’s getting interesting and a bit easier to read. I’m going to unpack stuff as I’m reading because I tend to zone out and skip look ups (since I can get away with it for lower level books).
第一章 part 一 Summary
We learn about a man named Sousaku who was living in Tokyo and who wanted to commit suicide one day, but was saved by his father that decided to go all the way from Hyogo to see him one day.
Jun and his mother are discussing the story, and she thinks it’s a matter of parent intuition that he was saved. Jun thinks it’s all stupid and is overall disinterested in the story. His mother is moved by Sousaku’s (new?) father who obviously cares unlike her former (?) husband that abandoned their family.
By the time they saw Sousaku again, it was a month later on a Sunday in late July. It was inside a station. He was plain looking with stubble on his face and basically the same as he looked 5 years ago during New Year’s. Apparently it’s been a total of 10 years since he left for Tokyo, and Jun is surprised when he suddenly drops his hometown accent.
Sousaku is also 37 at the time of this reunion. He’s not proud of himself living off the government and being unemployed. He wants to work, but as his age, finding a job, particularly a stable company with benefits to hire him is tough. Jun tries to cheer him up, reminding him that he’s a Kyodai University graduate and has an outstanding resume compared to Jun who’s just a small time sweets maker who graduated from a local university.
Sousaku gets annoyed the more he analyzes his life and accuses Jun of trying to insult him by digging up the past. Jun realizes how much Sousaku is really suffering and the resentment he carries frightens Jun.
第一章 part 一 Thoughts and Speculations
From my deduction, this story is an example of one of the former occupants of the island (?) who left the island to become successful in Tokyo, but the reality of the hard way of life there hit him so hard that it drove him to take his life but was saved. Now he harbors a lot of resentment for his choice and unfortunately takes it out on his family (particularly his brother) who lives an easy-paced life.
We know that Sousaku’s father was living in Hyogo at the time of the event, but we don’t know if they live or lived on the island in the prologue. We also know that Jun and Sousaku are probably brothers, but the way their mother was talking, maybe they’re half brothers with different fathers? They don’t seem very close either.
I would’ve guessed that Sousaku was the older brother as he went all the way to Tokyo to be successful, but if Jun’s father left them first and his mother remarried, that might mean Jun is older. That might also be why he stayed in their hometown as it’s traditional for the elder brother and his new family to be taking care of his parents when they reach that age. Maybe Jun is working in his father’s shop and will inherit it down the road. That might also be why Jun doesn’t seem to like Sousaku that much either - he went to a good university and had more options in his life. All of this is just speculation though.
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For some reason I’d assumed they were school pals and not related. I guess I could go back but since I’m almost done with the 2nd week reading I’m going to be lazy and just forge on and assume it will sort itself out through context or explicit conversation later
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I would’ve assumed that if I didn’t wrongly assume they had the same family name
After checking, they don’t, but there was a couple lines that made me think so as well:
When Jun tries to convince Sousaku it’s all going to be okay: 俺もそうやし親父さんもそうや。
If his deadbeat father walked out on his family, then why does it sound like he’s still around and cares about Sousaku if they’re not related? Also, many guys call their dads 親父 if they have that kind of relationship but never 親父さん unless he’s referring to his new (Sousaku’s) father.
It would be normal to use 父ちゃん if they’re friendly or お父さん out of respect, but knowing what we know about Sousaku’s father, he sounds like a cool guy and out of respect, Jun wanted to add さん because he’s not technically his real father. That’s just what it felt like to me.
I think there was another line where Jun uses Kansai-ben when talking about his/their parents when he was talking about them being happy to see him as well, and of course Sousaku thinks he’s too pathetic to see them.
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第一章 part 一 in reply to Hantsuki
I’m not sure where you’re getting that Jun and Sousaku are related, or that their relationship isn’t a good one. I think more details are given in the next part, but what I understood (and still have no reason to doubt in chapter 2) is that Jun and Sousaku are childhood friends, from different families. I didn’t think Sousaku was annoyed with Jun but with himself - he’s pretty miserable, as you’d expect from someone who was driven to suicide. And I didn’t think that Jun was disinterested in the story his mother was telling him - he was just doubting the supernatural and parental instinct elements. If I remember correctly it’s 15 years since Sousaku left his hometown (but I may be misremembering), and 5 years since he and Jun last met. He didn’t have a Tokyo accent back then.
The phrase 俺もそうやし親父さんもそうや (if I remember correctly, I didn’t look it up), was about both Jun and Sousaku’s father believing in Sousaku and his worth, even if he himself didn’t. Sousaku’s self-confidence is so low that he thinks everyone can see he’s worthless and is just humouring him, while laughing behind his back. Not a resentment towards Jun specifically, but actually towards himself.
Ah, thanks, it makes sense! These are the same here too, but for some reason I still regard the new version as a pull tab, even though it’s technically just a lift tab
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