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歴史の時代
I can say 2 things confidently about this story. It was more upbeat than the last one and it was for sure creative. Otherwise, I basically got nothing. . . .
Are both the girls from 常野？ What would be the power? To have lucid dreams together? What does happen after they meet after 10 years? Why does 記美子 watch over 亜希子? Why and how did a 乳母車 turn up in front of the school?
WHAT DID ANYTHING IN THE DREAM(?) MEAN
The war of the different kind of 人形s. The all destroying explosion. Them starting to fly. The 乳母車 with the baby that is maybe 亜希子.
I honestly feel like I understood nothing from this story. I’d like my dreams to be as crazy as that.
It was a smooth and enjoyable read and I didn’t feel bored, but I am for sure confused now.
I took this as being that 亜稀子 is a 常野 but is unaware of it, and 記実子 (who is the older sister from the first story) is here as part of a (multi stage) process of waking 亜稀子 up to her 常野 heritage. On this reading, the “dream” is a sort of vision implanted by 記実子; but as (due to suppressed trauma?) 亜稀子 really doesn’t want to remember, it’s left as a dream, as a foundation for later.
The dream itself I thought was in the first part a rather on the nose “evolution of humanity and the 常野” depiction: the bamboo dolls (the 常野) realise they have special powers, and the iron and bronze dolls (that’s us “normal” folk) attack them for it even though they aren’t harming anybody. The bit where it segues into the baby carriage section I found less clear, but maybe it’s to tell 亜稀子 that she’s important and it’s coming towards time to be “born” as a 常野?
One implication is that 常野 reincarnate, which the previous story also suggested.
I’m assuming a later story will tell us about that later-in-life meeting of 亜稀子 and 記実子, but maybe we’ll be left in the dark.
Ha, I thought so, but when I did a quick search I didn’t get any hits. Was to lazy to jump back to check. Thanks for confirming.
Yes and no. There are also the paper and straw dolls. Or are you proposing these represent neanderthals? And you left out the explosion destroying all of them. Foreshadowing of a future?
Your baby carriage interpretation is interesting. I like it.
Done with 草取り now as well.
Way less abstract than the other story. I flew through this one. What tripped me up a little was the 草 guy using あたし for himself all the time. He didn’t seem feminine at all, anyone have a solid reason for that?
So it seems there are many people who do this cleanup work. What I’m a little unsure about is if everyone can see the plants if they get “awakened” by looking through the binoculars. Personally I’m leaning on our protagonist also being a 常野 person without actually being aware of it. The ending in which our protagonist looks through the kaleidoscope and thinks they might have seen a similar scene as a kid is a strong hint to me for that.
It seems the kaleidoscope can take the “power” away again. So maybe the people cleaning up rotate through who is active. It might help them cope with the situation better mentally if they don’t have to see the plants throughout their whole life.
Also interesting that it wasn’t just plants in the past, animals and even sometimes humans. The way he explained it with the plants being some kind of “reaction” to some kind of “action” was interesting. Though I couldn’t come up with a change in this dynamic that would explain the lack of animals in present times. . . .
I found it interesting how the story tried to weave in natural decay and “that’s the reason there are so many building cleaners” into the story. Got a slight chuckle out of me
I caught up to this week and have a few short thoughts:
歴史の時間
I also took the dolls as some sort of story telling in reaction to Kimiko saying she didn’t believe in natural selection. I also think Akiko is 常野 and has repressed this fact. It definitely seems like some of them have really awful parents (see last story…) and I wonder if all of them have both parents who are from there, or if some are part ‘normal human’ if you will. I expect the 10 years in the future meeting will happen in another story, and I hope it’s in this book and not the later ones haha.
草取り
It seemed like it wasn’t clear it would damage the buildings but they took it out anyways, but it could hurt the people…? I almost wonder if these are the “evolution” of youkai or something.
I noticed that and also thought it weird, but mostly put it down to language not having hard and fast rules. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for a surprise gender reveal
I suspect because they’re in the city and there are fewer animals. Like you have pigeons and domestic animals but maybe in the past it was bears and wild pigs and such?
光の帝国 
week 5
