変な家 🏠 🔍 (IBC)・Week 4

[ekuroe]

変な家
Intermediate Book Club
Home Thread

Week 4	24 August 2024
End page	103
End %	32.6
End phrase	両立するための家だったんです
Next starting heading	二つの側面
Pages	28
Starting location	446
Location count	227
Last week	Week 3
Next week	Week 5

Vocabulary

変な家 🏠🔍

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

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[Boodil]

This week

栗原さん is still so sus. First, he gets just as creative with his theories about the second house as he did with the first, and then he tries to talk the narrator out of going to see the house.

[Sasabonsam]

artistic interpretation of Kurihara at work

This man is a total fruit loop. Love his theories. I wonder if either he’s got some hidden connection to these hypothetical murderers or if this is all going to turn out to be a terrible misunderstanding with a confused architect who’s bad at the job.

@Boodil

栗原さん is still so sus. First, he gets just as creative with his theories about the second house as he did with the first, and then he tries to talk the narrator out of going to see the house.

Yes! Talking him out of looking for any evidence whatsoever and then insisting that the only useful thing they can do is overanalyze the floor plans some more? They’re going full conspiracy theorist

[Boodil]

Stuff

@Sasabonsam

Yes! Talking him out of looking for any evidence whatsoever and then insisting that the only useful thing they can do is overanalyze the floor plans some more? They’re going full conspiracy theorist

Precisely. It would make so much sense to go investigate from the inside, because even at a glance, you might find either evidence that the whole thing is a false alarm (e.g. there are windows in the bedrooms after all, so the real estate company made a mistake with their floor plan) or hints that the wild theories might be true (e.g. suspiciously sturdy doors and locks or obvious recent renovations covering the secret passages). I hope the narrator ignores Kurihara and does it anyway.
At least now we got a look at the outside, and some info from the nosy neighbor.

@Sasabonsam

him

Did we see any hints what the gender of the writer is, yet? When I read the manga, they looked like a woman to me at first because of the long hair and feminine facial features. But in full body shots, you see that they’ve also got a boyish figure and gender-neutral dress style.

This might be a clue that the book will never mention their gender at all, and the manga adaptation is trying to keep the mystery alive.

[Sasabonsam]

The narrator's gender

@Boodil

Did we see any hints what the gender of the writer is, yet?

Oh that’s a good point. I think I might’ve unconsciously assumed male since the only two people who’ve been introduced as friends/friendly are both male, but the narrator’s life doesn’t come up and they speak so neutrally that it’s hard to tell for sure. I haven’t seen the manga version at all before now but you’re right that they look androgynous.

[Cathm2]

Particularly interesting is his comment

comment

of “hmm, maybe there’s someone behind this MAKING them carry out these murders”.

I wonder who that might be?

[simias]

I’m enjoying reading this book so much that I considered joining the “mystery book club” on natively to find more like this but they’re currently reading 50 pages a week for a level 36 book so uh, maybe later.

[simias]

と言わんばかりに means “as if to say”, right? What I don’t get is that it looks like a contraction of 言わない but t don’t know if that’s the true etymology. A quick internet search found several Japanese pages discussing the meaning of the expression but not its origin.

[omk3]

It’s a grammar point, and can be used with any verb, not just 言う.

んばかりに (JLPT N1) | Bunpro

According to Bunpro the etymology is not clear, although most sources I’ve checked say it’s the contracted negative form of the verb

[simias]

Thank you!

Also whatever compelled the use of furigana here is probably the key to this mystery:

[Domjcw]

do you think perhaps the 殺人犯 is on ツイッター?

[simias]

Spoiler this!

[simias]

The fact that “human trafficking” is 人身売買 (jinshin byebye) tickles my dark humour funny bone.

Also new 旧自体 spotted: 摑めない, traditional form of 掴む (itself not jouyou but fairly common in my experience).

殺一家

Exploring the personality of the murderers is interesting, so far they only appeared to be absurdly evil with their Rube Goldberg killing house. I hope the story will give us some explanations as to who or what the 長男 is exactly, surely it’s not just some random kid? That seems so bizarre and unnecessary even if it’s some kind of organized crime gang.

The killing process

What confuses me is that as far as I can tell the discovery of the Saitama house and the 2nd child contradicts one of their earlier theories: originally if I remember correctly they guessed that the murderer would invite people to sleep over and kill them when they went to take a bath.

But now we see that in the Saitama house all rooms were used and they even had to build a new one when they got a child, and in the Tokyo house all rooms were accounted for: the master suite for the parents, the jail room for A-kun and the downstairs room for Hirotochan.

So why would guests ever have a reason to go to the 浴室 if they’re not sleeping over?

三角室

Regarding Kurihara’s theory for the triangle room, I found them a bit more far-fetched than usual. In particular the reasoning that the room was built that way because they couldn’t build foundation on the other part of the garden due to a hidden room underneath.

First of all if you look at his rectangular room drawing, it cuts the garden it two smaller parts which seems awkward regardless of any murdering motive.

Secondly I had come up with two other theories for the room that still seem more reasonable to me:

• Without the room people could see straight into the living room from outside. If they needed to do shady stuff and move bodies around the house it could be a problem. Adding the triangle room effectively obfuscates that in a non-suspicious way.

• I guessed that since they didn’t have an obvious way to dispose of the bodies, they may simply have wanted to bury them in the yard. The triangle room both hides the yard from the entrance side and potentially removes any obvious access to it (there could be a hidden access somewhere) making it very unlikely that anybody would stumble upon a fresh grave. Visitors may not even have realized that there was a yard or that it belonged to this house.

The hidden underground room is basically the same idea but much more complicated. And if you built a secret cellar, wouldn’t you do it under the house and not the yard? Seems a lot less likely to be found through random digging that way. Just have a basement with a hidden door.

• Also adding to Kurihara’s sussy-ness: he says that there is no point investigating there because the bodies must have been moved from said room at some point (but then wasn’t the whole argument for the hidden room that they couldn’t potentially move the bodies by car without being noticed? So how?) but surely you could at least easily ascertain whether there’s actually a structure buried in the garden or not? Just take a shovel and see what’s there, a fire wouldn’t have made the room disappear.

首謀者

@Cathm2

of “hmm, maybe there’s someone behind this MAKING them carry out these murders”.

I wonder who that might be?

We still don’t know why all victims got their wrist removed, maybe it’s some sort of cult/mafia thing where the victims all had an identifying mark on their wrist?

But then surely Miyae-san would have noticed it and connected the dots? Unless she’s in on it somehow and is baiting the narrator and Kirihara into a trap. Actually that seems like a somewhat compelling twist now that I think about it, she seems extremely nice and helpful so far, and it’s impressive that she managed to spot the Saitama murder house by just randomly going through real-estate listings.

[Boodil]

The Katabuchi kids

@simias

I hope the story will give us some explanations as to who or what the 長男 is exactly, surely it’s not just some random kid? That seems so bizarre and unnecessary even if it’s some kind of organized crime gang.

I keep coming back to the theory that the older son is the driving force behind the murders. If he is, I’d assume that the family started to build the Tokyo house when the mother became pregnant again and they added the double-door entryway to the kid’s room partially because they feared the kid might break out and hurt their younger sibling.

As for Hiroto, it sounds like he just started to walk, so he might have been sleeping in his parents’ bedroom so far, leaving the downstairs bedroom as a trap for visitors. Maybe the new move is because now he needs his own bedroom.

Saitama murder process

So why would guests ever have a reason to go to the 浴室 if they’re not sleeping over?

Maybe the basement room really existed and was made to look like a guest bedroom.

Edit: Lunchbreak is over, so I have to speculate about the rest of the points you raised some other time.

[simias]

Katabuchi kids

@Boodil

the family started to build the Tokyo house when the mother became pregnant again and they added the double-door entryway to the kid’s room partially because they feared the kid might break out and hurt their younger sibling.

Oh that’s a very good point, I did notice the lack of double-door in the Saitama house although I suppose you could argue that the parents’ bedroom could effectively serve a similar function since you have to go through it to reach the stairs. There’s a window in it though.

@Boodil

As for Hiroto, it sounds like he just started to walk, so he might have been sleeping in his parents’ bedroom so far, leaving the downstairs bedroom as a trap for visitors.

Plausible but that’s not really the thesis outlined by Kurihara since he argues that the triangle room was built specifically to insulate Hirotochan from the rest of the murder house.

He also mentions that the room is narrow but could accommodate a crib, however it seems really awkward for an adult guest bedroom. Looking at the drawing you couldn’t even fit a bed in there and still be able to open the door.

EDIT: oh you meant the downstair bedroom in the Tokyo house I presume, in which case it does add up but then why go to the trouble of building the triangle room in the previous house if they’re just going to have the baby sleep in their own room. Also that doesn’t explain how they worked in the Saitama house.

[Boodil]

三角室

@simias

EDIT: oh you meant the downstair bedroom in the Tokyo house I presume, in which case it does add up but then why go to the trouble of building the triangle room in the previous house if they’re just going to have the baby sleep in their own room.

Yeah, that’s the one I meant. As for the triangle room, I’m on the fence if I want to buy Kurihara’s theory. The theory itself seems a bit of a stretch to me, so his believability depends on if you assume that he’s supposed to be an author’s mouthpiece who feeds us accurate information. The layout of the Tokyo house is inconsistent anyway, because the downstairs bedroom doesn’t have outside windows. Why would they design it that way if this room and the triangle room were both meant for Hiroto-chan?

Also that doesn’t explain how they worked in the Saitama house.

Leaving Kurihara aside, my first theory was the same you mentioned in your initial post - that the triangle room was meant to block the line of sight into the living room and the back garden. The former seems pretty important to me if we assume that the Saitama house really didn’t have anything like a guest room, because then they might have to do more suspicious stuff within sight of the living room windows.

[Sasabonsam]

I don’t actually buy anything Kurihara is saying currently, but I do think he’s meant to tell us a coherent story. At least, for now. We’re not even halfway through the book yet so I feel like the author is still trying to draw us into believing the conspiracy before we get any significant counter-clues or twists.

The third room in the Tokyo house

@simias

and the downstairs room for Hirotochan.

@simias

@Boodil

As for Hiroto, it sounds like he just started to walk, so he might have been sleeping in his parents’ bedroom so far, leaving the downstairs bedroom as a trap for visitors.

Plausible but that’s not really the thesis outlined by Kurihara since he argues that the triangle room was built specifically to insulate Hirotochan from the rest of the murder house.

I suspect Kurihara is about to go into this in his theories. Hiroto’s room in the Tokyo house will probably be the dressing room next to the parents room. Kurihara mentioned before that it was weird that this room was in full view of the parents’s bed, shower, and bathroom. Well, if they keep the baby in this room, that would mean the parents could have eyes on him at all times.

If Hiroto was placed in the room downstairs, it would be easy for A-kun to have access to him via the murder bathroom. If he’s in the dressing room, both routes A-kun could take would force him get past the parents somehow. Just like the triangle room, too, the dressing room is isolated in a sunny, happy little area away from where the murders happen.

…Making up stories to justify the murder house theory is fun, I can see why Kurihara does it

[leahmaybe]

三角室

I had the exact same first thought about the triangle room being for blocking direct sight lines into the rest of the house while maintaining the facade of a window. I thought it might have been a prototype that then led to the next house being built with all those outer windows. Felt so smart only for the book to go in a completely different direction haha.

[ekuroe]

I still haven’t finished the week 3 reading myself but I’m so impatient to read all these replies will try and make time for some catch up reading tonight

[Buruberimiruku]

So…sticking to my theory,

Summary

the older child is a vampire and the loving parents feed him victims. The younger child hiroto-chan was born as a normal kid (ie. some recessive gene made the older child a vampire sucking killer). The older child can’t be exposed to the sun, so only appeared at the window at night (when the neighbor saw him) The triangle room is bright with lots of windows. This is where hiroto-chan stayed to be safe. Not sure how the left wrist fits in. I confess I did an internet search of hand anatomy and wondered if there might be a unique bone the vampire kid likes to collect…

hmm, typing my theory out like this makes me wonder if i’m distantly related to 栗原さん。。。