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Spoiler Courtesy
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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.
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Trigger Warnings
Summary of trigger warnings
Discussion of topics including:
Bullying
Suicide
Abortion
Proper Nouns
Will be added to throughout the book.
Name
Reading
Notes
波多野祥吾
はたの しょうご
Narrator of Part 1 - one of the 6 candidates
嶌衣織
しま いおり
One of the 6 candidates
九賀蒼太
くが そうた
One of the 6 candidates
袴田亮
はかまだ りょう
One of the 6 candidates
矢代つばさ
やしろ つばさ
One of the 6 candidates
森久保公彦
もりくぼ きみひこ
One of the 6 candidates
鴻上達章
こうがみ たつあき
Hiring Manager
相楽ハルキ
さがら はるき
Famous singer
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
I’m reading this book after the club has finished
I’m no longer reading the book
0voters
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Here we go, part 2 of the book! Chapter 1 of this is I think the longest in the whole book, so we’re splitting it in pretty much half.
I’ve put the page number for the break point in the edition I used for page number counts etc. up top, but more than happy to add kindle % or anything else if someone would be so kind as to provide that info.
The break point is about 50% through this chapter, and is right before basically the only line break in that section, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Needed awhile to get into this, because the first parts of the chapter where so text dense and there was a lot of retrospection, which felt a bit tedious. But after the reveal that Shima is not the culprit I got hooked again. The reveal itself made me lol. Hatano was so sure of it in the last chapter, I somehow never questioned the image he had of her at the end of an omniscient criminal mastermind and femme fatale. When in fact, she’s not only not the culprit, but actually the only one of the entitled bunch who doesn’t sit in priority seats.
I liked her POV. There’s something tragically relatable in her eating a konbini salad in her dark apartment for dinner while trying not to admit she’s lonely because her hip but toxic employer makes her work 13 hour shifts and it’s not conducive to a healthy social life.
The mysterious drug using singer from Chapter 1 made an appearance again, so I guess he must still have a role to play. Judging from the fact that Shima is still worried about her envelope after all these years, she probably has a real secret and I wonder if he has a part in it.
Anyone else thinks its weird that again, Shima is still sure that the culprit is someone among the 6 and never even considers that it might be someone from Spira?
Any idea what the passwort is? Yasmine Tea? Moon? DarkSideOfTheMoon123?
I really liked the mood shift this chapter, and the perspective change to 嶌. I liked her character leading up to what happened at the end of part 1, so I’m glad I can go back to liking her again now.
The question is, what made 波多野 so sure that 嶌 was the culprit? Part of me was wondering if maybe he wrote that so that she would be invested and want to find out, on his behalf, who the real culprit was - I’m not sure if 波多野 would do that, though.
I did half think while reading this section - what if it was someone from Spira? They collected all the info, set it out, and wanted to watch how they would deal with it - maybe they wanted 嶌 or 波多野 to make it through, and tried to rig it. And in all that, they genuinely couldn’t find anything that bad about 波多野, and yet that’s part of what led to his downfall compared to the others, by accident on their part. It would be kind of tragic, and fit in with my overarching theory of this book being about the toxicity of the job-hunting process. I think the odds are against this actually being the case, and it’s more likely to be one of the 6, but it would be cool.
Oh, and the moon and Jasmine Tea were my two immediate thoughts for the password as well - I’ll be shocked if it isn’t one of them. Maybe the moon, because the knowledge of that one doesn’t seem to be shared amongst the others like with Jasmine Tea, to the best of my memory.
I already had the same idea a couple of weeks ago (week 3 I think), if only because researching every one, finding out their flaws, researching them, setting up the enveloppe, etc… takes so much time ! As I supposed Spiralink has done its due diligence by the time they get to the final selection, it would be easier for them. But I think it’s somewhat unlikely.
My money is on “Jasmine Tea”
In my kindle edition, this week’s cutoff falls at 59-60%, and around position 100062 in Ttsu-Reader
Very exciting! I had read some reviews that the second part of the book was a bit of a letdown after the adrenaline-filled first part, but for now I’m really liking the book taking its time laying everything out. Very interesting indeed, I had also reconsidered the possibility that someone from Spira prepared the envelope.
Shima didn’t do it, Hatano didn’t do it, it doesn’t make sense for Hakamada to have done it because his secret was way too heavy.
Morikubo is still on my list but why would he accuse Shima if he could just put the blame on Hatano.
Yashiro and Kuga could have done it as well…
I was a sure that the password will be Jasmine Tea, I had already forgotten about the moon part. But that is a very nice guess too.
Finished the part. I was a bit off track with book club, but now I’m finally caught up!
Thoughts
This part I wrote before starting reading the second part:
I was saddened to realize that Hatano was thought to be responsible for these envelopes. I felt as heartbroken as he must have when the real culprit was revealed to him. Unless she isn’t, and this story is deeper, leading us to discover more secrets.
And I’m so glad to find out that she is not the culprit! Although, I wish they talked to each other earlier. It feels like this group discussion left a deep wound on her as well. I love happy endings, so I hope that she’ll find some comfort, as well as Hatano’s sister.
This piece felt like a set up for further development, so not much to say. Only this: I bet that the password is “Jasmine tea”
After reading everyone’s observations, I realised that I forgot to share my thoughts on the real culprit.
I also thought about possibility that it is someone from Spira, but if choosing among these six, I think it ought to be Yashiro. She was the one who said something like “of it was me, then what”, and she used this phrase about her real occupation as well.
And I somehow don’t care what is in the last envelope, but I think it might be the last vital clue. Will it be in the zip archive?
I agree. I think we can rule out Kuga and Hakamada, because both of them made things worse with their reaction to their envelopes. If they had been the culprits, surely they would have used charges against themselves that were easy to refute, and they wouldn’t have chosen this order of opening the envelopes, either. That leaves only Yashiro and Morikubo, and out of those two, I think Yashiro has more clues pointing to her. She was looking around for the envelope before anyone knew it was there, and her interview offers some possible explanations for why she didn’t try to use the accusations to gain more votes (she felt under the weather, and if the part about her feeling like she never stood a chance is true, then maybe she’d given up hope to get the job and just wanted to piss on some people’s shoes).
Another point why I don’t like Morikubo as a culprit, is that he was very convincing during the interview when he blamed Shima for everything. Unless he did it out of spite or something.
I also found the parts where she describes her job’s responsabilities quite hard!
Hehe yes that was a fun surprise. So it was not all for nothing after all.
Yasmine Tea 100%!! In this chapter alone she has drank it twice again. Was a bit frustrating that she didn’t think about it yet, will have to wait for next week I guess.
I just can’t think of a motive, if it’s someone else. The obvious motive is that someone in particular would get the job. But maybe it’s a pretense and the real motive is to reveal one of the secrets that is in the envelop. Maybe 島’s as we don’t know what it is yet?
I agree on 矢代 being the likely culprit, can’t see how it could be the other ones. But can’t really see what was her motive as it doesn’t put herself in the best light for getting the job. Maybe she was just bitter to not accepted by the group and wanted them all to know that they all sucked anyway x) (but then she also needs to hire someone to take a picture of herself, hmm…)
Same, I was convinced it was gonna be Jasmine Tea but now I think the moon makes more sense. Although I went to check and she doesn’t say she loves it, only this: 「なんでだか、昔からなんとなく好きなんだよね、月」
Apart from that my main thought on this half chapter was: password protected zip file, ok. Limited number of tries, not possible (without custom software & a web server or specialized hardware or something). Suspension of disbelief, shattered.
I read this section earlier but lost track of time while on vacation and forgot to post my thoughts.
Summary
I’m liking the twist too that Shima isn’t the culprit! (If, again, these are reliable narrators) in the beginning of this part they were making her so unlikable it caught me off guard when it was revealed.
I’m really curious what is behind the locked ZIP folder and what Shima’s secret was. I am practically screaming at the book though trying to get her to input “jasminetea” for the password.
At this point I think the most likely suspect is someone at Spira. I’m not really sure what their motivation would be, but as I’ve mentioned there have been other things “off” with them.
If somehow it was another student, I’d go with Yashiro. Only because of the comment again about Shima-san not siting in the priority seat on the train, which is something Hatano-san had also refused in the past but Yashiro-san did not, like a litmus test of their goodness.
Maybe Yashiro-san had tried to plan it so Hatano-san would open Shima-san’s but didn’t know he liked her, so the voting ended with everyone still thinking Shima-san was a good person?? But I don’t really think this makes sense so it’s unlikely.
So, if we take everything at face value, we’re supposed to believe that 波多野 left the meeting completely convinced that 嶌 was the culprit, decided to investigate further, incorrectly concluded that he was right, and then left a cryptic message to her despite stating that he wasn’t planning to pursue the culprit. And the details of his investigation are in a locked zip file, but the conclusion itself is in plain text so anyone can read it…
I don’t believe that at all . IMO 波多野 identified the real culprit and is faking his death (he is an 嘘つきな大学生 after all). Maybe he can’t accuse the culprit himself without looking like a weird sore loser, but if he can lure 嶌 into reaching the same conclusion as him, she might be able to do something about it.
You might be able to interpret 犯人、嶌衣織さんへ as 犯人[ を]、嶌衣織さんへ or something tricky like that. If I’m right, the password won’t be something that 嶌 likes since she isn’t the culprit.
I suspect the culprit’s motive wasn’t to get the job for themselves. Instead, they wanted 嶌 to win, while destroying her potential relationship with 波多野 at the same time. Now she’s stuck in an abusive job, lying to herself about whether she likes her life. Maybe her envelope would reveal the crime that made the culprit want to do this to her…
A bunch of are already speculating about that on the Week 6 thread, so get over there .
To sum it up, I’m not really a fan of the theory that Hatano made the password prompt deliberately misleading, because that leads to a serious risk that the file gets permanently locked. It might make sense in combination with him faking his death, though, because in that case, he probably has copies of the contents. Also:
This has the power to instantly convince me of anything.
Alternatively, Hatano read Shima’s envelope. There might be something in there that proves she’s 犯人 of something completely unrelated, making the file label technically correct.
. IMO 波多野 identified the real culprit and is faking his death (he is an 嘘つきな大学生 after all). Maybe he can’t accuse the culprit himself without looking like a weird sore loser, but if he can lure 嶌 into reaching the same conclusion as him, she might be able to do something about it.