☕ 夜カフェ 2 ☕ Offshoot Book Club Chapter 1 Discussion Thread

夜カフェ 2 Book Club - Chapter 1

I hope you guys enjoyed your break! We’re officially back with Hanabi in book 2! This is an offshoot book club for 夜カフェ which we originally read with the Beginners Book Club. Please follow the links below to guide you if you’re not quite ready for chapter 1 of volume 2 yet.

Start date of current chapter: 6th August 2022
Next chapter: Chapter 2
Home thread: 夜カフェ 2 Offshoot Book Club Home Thread
Previous Volume: 夜カフェ 1 Home Thread

Vocabulary List

The vocab list is a community effort, so if you contribute to the list or even just point out a potential error/typo, you’re helping your fellow readers out! It goes without saying, but feel free to peruse the list to help make your reading experience easier! You’re not obligated to contribute but any help you provide is truly appreciated. :slight_smile:

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler] result: texthere
  • If you’re reading ahead, please refrain from mentioning spoilers in future chapters. If you absolutely must comment something, be sure to add a warning (ex: potential spoiler in chapter 3) before hiding the rest of the spoiler under a spoiler tag.
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number and identify whether your book is a physical copy or ebook, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked
  • Feel free to jump in at any point in the discussion - you’re never too late to the party!
  • Sharing your impressions and predictions of the reading are highly encouraged! It’s fun to see if the story pans out the way some of us think. Just be careful not to give away anything if you’re reading ahead. :wink:

Participation Poll

  • I’m reading along
  • I’ve already read this part
  • I’m from the future and reading way later
  • I’m behind and will catch up later

0 voters

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This went better than I expected. I struggled a bit with book 1 and was behind most of the time. I’ve managed to read chapter 1 already this morning (2 hours on a train then 3 hours on a plane has been helpful with this) so I should be able to keep up!

I’ll look back over it and try to pick up a few points I wasn’t clear on, but I understood the story overall. Obviously helped that the first half is summarising bits from book 1.

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The first half (up to about page 20 or so in the paperback version) is mostly Hanabi recollecting all of her experiences and people she met in book 1 so that was a pretty fast read. We also get to see some of Hanabi’s bad habits she still needs to work on like oversleeping and spacing out. Still a cutesy way of reintroducing the protagonist of the series while summarizing the last book.

From page 14, we meet a new character, Ryoma, a deliveryboy who supplies the Yoru Cafe with vegetables that his family grows. He’s the opposite of Yamato in that he’s very outspoken and blunt. He seems like a good match for the fiery Tina.

My favorite exchange in this chapter is on page 21 when Hanabi prepared the hand towel for Ryoma. He comments on how she seems to have more sense than he originally thought (considering she was just standing in the doorway when he was trying to get her to help him lug the vegetables in before). Although I think his comment kind of backfired because he said it in such a straightforward way that it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

But rather than pay attention to the comment, Hanabi is more concerned about how she doesn’t have much of a presence because it surprised him when he realized she was right next to him all of a sudden. Not to mention, she starts to feel a bit down on herself when she thinks about the meaning of her name (referring to toy sparklers which aren’t as strong as real fireworks, suggesting she is as inadequate as she believes herself to be since book 1). Although she’s grown a bit, she’s still not 100% confident in herself.

Speculations based on chapter 1 events

So we have a new male character similar in personality to Tina (while Yamato is more similar to Hanabi in that they both are on the quieter side and keep their thoughts to themselves). Based on how a lot of these slice of life pieces go with some romance to keep things interesting, I predict Ryoma will be Tina’s romantic interest while Yamato is currently Hanabi’s (and Tina is fairly aware of it). The author might even throw a love triangle in this book if Ryoma shows interest towards Hanabi which would cause a falling out between her and Tina as well. I’m sure it’ll be fine but I just hope it doesn’t get too needlessly dramatic. :sweat_smile:

But if Hanabi and Yamato were the ones who grew the most in the last book, I feel like Tina and Ryoma will get their turn in this one. I’m interested to see more on what kind of character Ryoma is and if he has some kind of personal difficulties with his family or friends considering everyone associated with the Yoru Cafe seems to have those experiences.

Does anyone predict something different? Is there something you want to see happen in this book?

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First chapter done! Ryoma really needs to learn to think a bit before he speaks. xD

That was not at all how I read that section. Especially since the kanji in her name is 花美 and not 花火. Seemed more like she understood Tina’s annoyance with him, since he assumed things around names. But I could definitely be wrong.


I’m think there are two mistakes in the vocab sheet, but I wanted to post before touching them to make sure I’m not completely off.

せい, page 17

Right now せい is marked as “height; stature” from 背, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The sentence it is in goes like this:
リョウマ君は、キャップをかぶっていたせいで少しペタッとした髪型をととのえながら、[…]。
If this was せい as height/stature, it would mean that his height/stature is being modified by wearing a cap. Which doesn’t make much sense (maybe a top hat would, but a cap?). While で could be て-form of です and mean “and”, I think it makes more sense to be the means of/how particle, and せい would probably be 所為 (consequence; outcome; result; blame). So it would be more like: While Rouma-kun fixed his hairstyle that was a bit floppy due to wearing a cap (aka the result of wearing a cap), […].

ふきかける, page 20

ふきかける on page 20 is currently thought to be 吹きかける, but even with the “to spray” definition, it doesn’t really fit for me. Because the sentence is talking about Tina returning to the table she’d been wiping down (拭く(ふく)). So I think it is 拭く plus 掛ける (definition 24 on jisho) meaning to have begun doing something but not finished. So Tina is returning to the table she started wiping but hadn’t finished.
[…]、さっさとふきかけのテーブルにもどっていった。

2 Likes

I agree with you about both of these words. For せい, I’m certain it’s the grammar point せいで which means “because of” / “due to” like you said. And 拭きかける makes more sense with the context

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Oh good. I was starting to think maybe I’d been wrong. :sweat_smile:

I didn’t know せい/せいで was a grammar point. I’ve just seen it a lot lately and figured it was this 所為 and was working something like the “result of”. I think in a way this might be the first grammar point I’ve kinda observed and learned through immersion (by looking up the word, but still). :smiley:


I changed both words on the vocab sheet. Hopefully my change of ふきかける to the noun version (that is used in the text) was fine. I just found it sounded better that way.

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You’re totally right! (I just confirmed with my husband if that reassures but you should have more confidence in yourself :blush:)

I usually hear せい in the context of ~のせい blaming someone and always associated as a word to use in a negative situation, so it didn’t cross my mind when I first read it. I also like using Jotoba because it generates previews which helps if you don’t quite know where the word starts and ends or you don’t know the dictionary form of a verb. 背 automatically came up so I quickly assumed that was it.

I didn’t consider this possibility at all, but it sounds right! Thank you for double checking and updating the vocab list!

I think you’re on to something!

I also felt Hanabi was clearly annoyed with him. I finally have the text with me so I can double check, and I think I misremembered who said this line: 「線香花火のハナビかな…」which is said by Ryoma when he decides to associate her name with the toy sparklers. I probably looked at that thinking Hanabi said that and this line that she actually says (before mentioning how it makes her mad) 「線香花火だなんて、か細くて、たよりない感じ。」

So yeah that’s my bad! :sweat_smile: But it makes me feel better that Hanabi isn’t so down on herself anymore.

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Aww thank you. I will try to have more confidence. I’m not always right though, so… xD

If there is something I’ve learnt in Japanese is that those pesky particles go missing when you least expect it. :joy: So that is what I assumed, so happily meagstudies pointed us to the grammar point on Bunpro.

Also, I’d say getting a floppy/hat hair is certainly a negative situation. :joy:

かける is a verb that sticks in my eyes every time I see it so I take notice whenever I see it. :joy: Usually I just ignore it is there and just go with the verb before it and say “yeah something with X, don’t need to figure out more because かける is a versatile little sneak”. (Although I might be thinking slightly stronger words about it. :joy: )


Phew. *wipes off sweat from forehead* Remember how I said I’m often wrong? Yeah, I can easily get these kinds of passages completely wrong and I wasn’t sure if this was one of those times. :grimacing:

Yeah, truly. So little of what happens to her is her fault and yet she seems to blame herself a lot. So her not doing it in this case is great. :partying_face:

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Enjoyed the first one so jumped in on the second one without knowing there was a bookclub, but I will read along with you guys!

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Yay! Welcome aboard! We’re happy to have you reading with us, but there’s no pressure to keep up with the pace or anything. When you’re done with a chapter and you have something to share or ask, feel free to post whenever :wink:

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I feel like Ryouma’s too cute to be called an ikemen. But then, he is in middle school, so I suppose he’ll grow into his looks. Though I feel like I’d have felt the same had I read this in middle school too lol. Granted, the art style is on the cute side, but I can definitely see objectively how Yamato might be called an ikemen, so it’s not due to the art style, or at least not entirely

Anyways, I like Ryouma so far. He seems like he’s definitely neurodivergent, so that’s practically a given with me though lol

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