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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.
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 - Narrator of Part 2
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
波多野 芳恵
はたの よしえ
Younger sister of 祥吾
鈴江 真希
すずえ まき
Employee at スピラリンクス in Part 2
Participation
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@Boodil in last week’s reading there was this sentence 刹那、脳内で小さな火花が三つほど迸った->刹那 (せつな) and this week there’s a sentence with 輪廻 (りんね) haha, makes me happy
(it’s the name two of the main characters of the Visual Novel ISLAND)
I have mixed feelings about this week… Apparently, I was right, for the wrong reasons, and 九賀 really is the culprit, but to be honest, I find his motive and explanations really lame. And I was really disappointed by the reveal : all of a sudden, we get to chapter 2, and bam !, no more mystery, no more false leads, we have our 犯人. As for how 嶌 apparently got to the solution, the whole thing about ビール vs 発泡酒… maybe it makes sense (that is, this is a common debate for them, because I do know the difference between ビール and 発泡酒） for japanese audiences, but this seems to me such a minuscule thing.
On the other hand, I found this end of the chapter, the whole second interview with 鴻上, absolutely mind-blowing !
That was a loong chapter! A lot of times I feel like this book could have been less dense probably.
I did like how they didn’t reveal right away that 九賀 was already the last person 嶌 was talking with and that she strongly suspected him to be the 犯人. I liked the explanation with the bottles too, wouldn’t have figured it out myself. I also like that it was him, there were a lot of things pointing at him, and the explanation makes sense to me.
Got a big surprised by that too!
The start of chapter 2 feels a lot like what you would expect for the “big reveal at the end of the book” part. Makes me wonder what’s more to come. Two things I have in mind 1) what’s in 嶌’s envelop 2) What’s on the USB. I think the USB will reveal 1), and as someone mentioned, “fair” is a great password candidate, 九賀 said it at least twice in this chapter I believe!
In what way do you mean? Also cool that it was the second interview with him, I went back to check and indeed the first part was called 中野駅近くの喫茶店にて① and this one 中野駅近くの喫茶店にて②, I hadn’t noticed the little ①
Well, As I’ve written, I dislike the way the culprit is revealed probably because I don’t see this book as a mystery novel, but as firstly a social commentary; and as such, the nitpicking about the ビール/発泡酒 felt out of place for me. But the 鴻上 interview is, in my opinion, masterfully written when you consider the criticizing of the system : it’s perfectly cynical, perfectly clear-eyed about the faults of the system, the lack of fairness, the lack of ethics (after all, even if they tried to mean well, experimenting with the 就活生 to find the best candidate without explaining that they would do it and why isn’t fair on them)… and it shows that the whole thing is completely rotten because their attempt at a new method turns out to be an even bigger disaster, because the whole 就活 system brings out the worst instincts in the candidates themselves.
Wow, this one really was long, wasn’t it! Oops…
I enjoyed it so much that it didn’t matter that much, but I’m sure there’s probably some people to whom that doesn’t 100% apply… sorry…
Anyway next week is the final week, so no matter how long it is (even longer), I can’t wait to get through it!
Summary
I think this is my favourite part of the book so far. The reveal itself made sense, but wasn’t world-shattering or anything. But the writing of the atmosphere around it was great.
Agree, I think that part plus this part:
The part where 嶌 talks about losing faith in herself, and seemingly in people in general -
“会議室から出た私は人を信じられなくなり、そして、自分さえも信じられなくなった。”
were really amazing.
I think I said a couple times in earlier weeks that I also thought the book would move towards being a critique of the 新卒採用 system in general, and I was hoping it would go that way. This bit seems to really be the climax of all that, and just look at it from within and out as the deeply flawed setup that it is. Hearing someone who has presumably spent the majority of their career trying to figure out how to improve it state that it’s just impossible, and essentially comes down to no more than a “いい雰囲気” was the exact kind of thing I wanted.
Anyway, that still leaves loose ends - what’s up with 嶌’s secret that even she appears not to know?
My guess: it’s something to do with 相楽ハルキ. I don’t know what it is, or why she wouldn’t know about it, but the fact that she just snapped at 鈴江 in this chapter, yet again, for talking about him, makes me think there’s some involvement between her and him. I vaguely remember something about a 交通事故 involving him I think? Maybe she was affected by that in some way. But I don’t know how that reflects badly on her. Maybe she took revenge? But why would she not know?
I reckon we could do a poll at the end of this week before starting the final part to see what people think the password is (assuming of course that it is entered)! フェア, ジャスミンティー, 月 all as options, can’t remember if there were any else brought up.
The fact that there’s 2 entries left also sets it up for the first one to be a mistake, of course, then raising the tension before she guesses the second one correctly.
It surprized me that the reason Shima found out the real culprit is by the type of the drink on the photos
And I wonder if Hatano actually had the same clue. It was written in the way that he immediately could say that the culprit is Shima by just looking at the photo, but could he even remember which photos were in a trash and which were not? That is pretty long and non-obvious chain of thought
At first it took me off guard that we got the identity of the culprit at the beginning of the chapter, but then I thought it is OK since we still don’t know what was in the Shima’s envelope and in the file. So I’m really looking forward to the last part.
About the interview part, it made perfect sense that this group discussion was just a part of an experiment. It felt exactly that way in the beginning, but later I stared doubting myself.
I actually read the first half of this chapter including the culprit reveal last week and then needed a couple of days to find the motivation to pick up the book again. The motive itself…hm, not sure how I feel about it. I like that it’s thematically consistent with the criticims of the job application culture that is the common theme of the entire book, so I really wanted to make it work for me. But the writing in this part of the chapter didn’t make it easy. After Kuga went on a rant for three pages straight about how great his old highschool friend is and how insulted he was when the friend failed the second interview, all I could think was “dude, you need some hobbies”.
Kuga and his motivations just didn’t feel real to me. The rest of the explanation was a bit better…how he found out about Morikubo’s scam by accident and then went on a hunt for more dirty secrets and got more and more angry in the process…I think maybe I can accept this if I don’t question the logistics of it too hard.
My thoughts exactly. The explanations regarding the type of alcohol felt really overexplained, but this part still didn’t convince me. Also, I don’t get why Shima was so sure from the start that the Smirnoff was the only possible answer and didn’t even consider any alternatives.
I’m also not sure if Shima’s behavior in regards to her envelope makes sense to me, but I’m reserving judgement until the end.
I’m finally back to being on the right chapter and not ahead for a week!
I was on vacation for a week and didn’t read then, which worked out for me.
Summary
I’m on the same page as the majority of people here. Kuga reveal felt like a bit of a let down, but I liked how Shima figured it out and the reveal that he was actually the last interview. Also the interview with the HR guy at the end being commentary on the interview system as a whole.
新卒 in Japan spend their whole 4th year of college (and part of 3rd I believe) interviewing and then prepping for their new job. He was saying how it’s impossible to judge people in a short amount of time, but I feel like they could spend more time with the students like having them try out work before deciding who to hire. EDIT: My other idea would be to put more effort into verifying what students say, eg whether they were actually the leader of X club. I’m not saying these changes are necessary, just disagreeing with him saying that nothing can be changed.
I’m very curious as to what was in Shima’s envelope, and what secret Hatano may have had!
What is the password on the USB left by 波多野?
I know one or two people have gone ahead and read beyond, or finished the book, but feel free to put what you thought the password was before you read to that point
Just in time, I was just about to start reading ahead. Wasn’t sure if I should pick フェア or ジャスミンティー, but then I picked the former, just in case we get a scenario where this is the password but Hatano’s reason for picking it doesn’t convince me. In that case, I’ll be frustrated by the lack of motive but mollified because I was right in the poll.
Completely missed that one. You think it’s a clue? Maybe at the end of the book, they will all wake up in a white meeting room without memories, doomed to do the group discussion over and over again.
You know, part of me thinks 波多野 is not dead and just stuck on an ISLAND somewhere with no memory, but then again, that could only be possible if he had saved the files on a CD instead of a USB key
So 九賀 could have gotten away with it if he had just learned what Smirnoff is at some point in the last 8 years?
And then the author delivers their thesis statement about job interviews in the form of some repetitive, heavy-handed rants.
I don’t really know where the book is going from here. 嶌 seems to be heading towards a breakdown of some sort. I’m not sure if she’ll be trapped in office hell forever, quit and become a construction worker, or blow up Spiralinks’s office.
The focus shifted from investigation to criticism, it took a bit to get used to the change, but all in all I enjoyed this chapter.
I actually think the reasoning with the type of drinks on the pictures makes sense. What I found disappointing though, is that 久賀 knowingly framed the only person who had nothing to be blamed for. That’s not what you call フェア. I understand that it was just “revenge” for his friend, and that he wanted to point out another flaw of the system, too. But it’s just so sad that because of this, 波多野 was driven crazy for the rest of his not too long remaining life (at least that’s how I picture him, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he did just fake his death).
Another thing that just occurred to me (I don’t think this was discussed previously, hope I’m not mistaken). Back then, why did スピラ hire just one student? They were already a big company, so choosing only one out of thousands of applicants doesn’t really make sense, does it?
They had said that it was due to the earthquake that just happened earlier in march 2011 (real event), here is the text received by all candidates after the drinking party:
)
