This is an informal bookclub thread reading 夜警, a horror/suspense by 赤川次郎, that was memorably described in a Natively review as the lovechild of “Jerry Springer and Deathnote”.
Although there is a schedule that I’ll be reading, (the 16 chapters look as if they naturally fit to a rough IBC pace - with ~150 kindle locations/chapter for most) , you should feel free to join at any point and read at your own pace.
I will try to add to the character list as I read (Akagawa tends to have a large number of characters!).
Rough Schedule (but feel free to read at your own pace)
Week
Start Date
Chapter
End location Kindle
Location count
Week 1
4thJan
1 少女
175
152
Week 2
11 Jan
2 にぎわい
401
226
Week 3
18 Jan
3 午前三時
538
137
Week 4
25 Jan
4 混乱
684
146
Week 5
1 Feb
5 階段
824
140
Week 6
8 Feb
6
Week 7
15 Feb
7
Week 8
22 Feb
8
Week 9
1 Mar
9
Week 10
8 Mar
10
Week 11
15 Mar
11
Week 12
22 Mar
12
Week 13
29 Mar
13
Week 14
5 April
14
Week 15
12 April
15
Week 16
19 April
16
Proper Nouns
Name
Hiragana reading
Notes
Kindle location first mentioned
赤川次郎
あかがわじろう
The author
cover
栄田雄一郎
さかえだゆういちろう
Night watchman
26
加藤恵美
かとうえみ
Girlfriend of 栄田
37
恭子
きょうこ
栄田’s younger sister, wants to move to Tokyo
52
加代子
かよこ
栄田’s mother
59
山神
やまがみ
Security guard in the CCTV room at K Hills
145
市川美奈子
いちかわみなこ
local celebrity
285
久保
くぼ
Minako’s manager
295
香川友代
かがわともよ
Wife of a lawyer, lives in an apartment in K Hills
349
香川浩市
かがわこういち
Lawyer, around 50 years old, lives and has an office in K Hills
363
平山祐一
ひらやまゆういち
Doctor, friend of 浩市
467
Vocabulary
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0voters
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0voters
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I can’t promise to keep up with it since I think it’ll overlap with Silent Witch, but this looks interesting. If/when I have the time for it I may come back to this. I’ve heard 赤川次郎 writes dialogue that’s easy to follow so that may be a plus.
I’m just going to be stalking this because I read this book a few years ago and loved it I still own my copy so if there are any weird grammar questions or whatnot I’m available to help
恭子 being the 娘. At most I think this could be an extension of 名詞＋こと＋名詞 described here (Japanese grammar source).
Specifically:
「こと」は、「AことB」 の形で、言い換えによる詳しい説明 をすることができます。
But I almost wonder if it’s a typo for この I’ve seen enough typos in my English books to know they definitely slip through, and this one seems plausible.
thanks @Neba@pocketcat . That Hinative link is very relevant.
Incidentally, I found the use of ‘つ’ counters for age interesting
「六つか七つか。」(loc 150)
I didn’t know that you could use those rather than 歳, (I guess it is similar to saying “Six or seven maybe” rather than “Six or seven years old, perhaps”)
Week 1 少女
How did people find the introduction?
I read this a while ago (to check the readability of the book), and enjoyed re-reading it.
We know a bit from the spoilery blurb, and so know that this is not a regular 、迷子, but it was quite fun to see the night watchman’s flustered response to discovering a wandering child on the escalators at 3am.
I liked the description of the complex in the middle of the night. There is something otherworldly about walking through empty corridors and echoing spaces, with the feeling that you could be the only person alive. It is a great starting setting for this sort of novel.
I also liked the sense that we had of 栄田’s night shift lifestyle. If (as appears to be the case), he is on permanent night shifts, that has the potential to generate a sense of isolation from the normal world. (He is obviously a bit isolated from his family). I wonder how that will play out in the story…
And a question. Do you think the 少女’s 「いってらしゃい」is significant?
In this first section she seems to be saying it just before turning and running off. But wouldn’t いってきます be more appropriate if she was the one leaving? So does this carry a different connotation here? Is it deliberately off key?
Spent a few hours during the weekend reading the book.
Week 1 少女
I like how the sentences are not too difficult, so I don’t need to look up for words in the dictionary very often. It’s amusing how the place is called “K Hills,” similar to areas in Tokyo like Roppongi Hills or Azabudai Hills. What’s with the “Hills” naming? Why is this word used for high-end mixed-use complexes?
「いってらしゃい」sounds like she’s the one staying there, while the guard is the person leaving. It creates an eerie connotation, as if she’s the true dweller of the place. I love it.
She only ran away because he was approaching.「いってきます」 implies that she will go and come back, right? If she were really leaving, probably 「またね」 or「バイバイ」 is more appropriate. But she said 「いってらしゃい」instead, meaning that she’s not going anywhere, haha.
Week 2 にぎわい
I love how when the sister is saying 「いってらしゃい」, the guard immediately thought of the girl.
I learned a new word 「駆け落ち」(elopement) . My initial reaction was shock, which turned to relief when she said it was just an excuse for her mother, only to be shocked again when she made the phone call.
The last part… The guard must be an ikemen to be attracting girls left and right like that.
Yes, that was my suspicion too. It felt like a slightly spooky catchphrase. As if she was sending 栄田 off on a journey somewhere. (We know something about her from the blurb that suggests she may send other characters in the novel off…)
No idea about the name ‘Hills’ - presumably it is just fashionable
Incidentally, I think K Hills is supposed to be in 六本木 (I was pleased to be able to read that when it came up in chapter 2)
Yes, nice bit of ominous foreshadowing
I think this is a bit of an Akagawa trope (wishful thinking?) - the attractive (usually a lot younger (though not in this case)) woman, throwing herself at the 主人公
Incidentally, I spent a bit of time trying to work out when 栄田’s shift started. He still seemed to have time to go drinking with his sister and girlfriend, even after the regular shops had closed at 10pm. I decided in the end that it was probably 11pm, since he meets 美奈子 early in his shift, about 15 mins before the residential block door closes at 12am. Seems like a late start to a night shift, but might be just my experience in a very different context.
Good question. I had spotted that, but hadn’t stopped to think about it.
I kind of imagine that it has the effect to the reader of emphasising 美奈子’s slurred speech. Perhaps the emphasis has the visual echo of speech that is a little louder and slower than normal, because 美奈子 is trying to act professionally and send her team home, but she’s had one or two too many, and her ろれつの回らない speech gives her away.
I managed to read Chapter 1 today, much sooner than expected.
K Hills
I liked this chapter, the ghost part was appropriately spooky.
However, I haven’t been able to get a clear mental picture of the K Hills complex, yet. It’s described as three “towers” with connecting pathways and a plaza in between, but even though I just spent half an hour looking at pictures of real-world “Hills”, I’m still fuzzy on the details. Is the plaza indoors or outdoors? How do the escalators connect to it, where do they go?
I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this section yet
I’ve read this previously, but I’m here for the discussion
I’m reading this after the informal club finished
0voters
Some questions this week
栄田 tells his sister (407)
「ませたこというな」
I wasn’t sure if there is a good way to translate this. Don’t be precocious?
Shortly after he says something to the receptionist in the apartment block
「そうか。明日の朝の担当に申し送りしといてくれ。香川先生に何か言われたとき、話が通じなくても困る」
I’m not sure about the last part of this. anyone able to help?
I also have trouble working out part of the conversation between 香川 and 平山 (492)
「かなり本気で切ってますね」
「そうか？びっくりしたよ。こっちも」
Is Hirayama saying “It was a real cut”? or “she really cut herself?” (perhaps because Tomoyo’s injuries are not usually genuine, or self-induced???). If this is the right meaning, why is it 切ってます rather than a past tense?
It was all a bit vague, so I wasn’t completely sure what had happened to Tomoyo. Was this an attempt at self-harm, or was it done to her by Kagawa?
Kagawa says of 栄田
「印象は罪にならんよ」
Is he saying that 栄田 is innocent?
I couldn’t follow the last part of their conversation. If I understood correctly 平山 has suggested that they stage a 発作的
(I had thought they were setting up a fake suicide. But this sounds like a sudden attack (seizure/heart attack)? Is that right?
I puzzled over roughly the same things you did, here’s my final take on them:
From context, I took that to mean that 栄田 wants the receptionist to inform her colleague from the morning shift about everything that happened, including that he wants to be kept in the loop. If Kagawa says anything new, he wants the reception staff to pass that information on to him (which is apparently one of the dozens of meanings 通じる can have).
Yeah, they mean to stage her suicide. 発作的 means erratic. As far as I remember, this word crops up in the part of the conversation where they talk about being glad that there were so many witnesses, because now she’s got a reputation for self-harm and the two assume that’ll make people more likely to believe she might be erratic enough to spontaneously commit suicide.
I don’t think we got their entire plan spelled out yet. I think it’s likely that tonight’s events were a kind of test run where Hirayama and Kagawa drugged Tomoyo with something that made her more vulnerable to hypnosis or suggestion and they tried out if they could make her slash her own wrists. That would explain why she looked so disoriented and out of sorts every time we’ve seen her that night. They also seem quite pleased with the outcome. When Hirayama says 「かなり本気で切ってますね」, I think 切ってます (short for 切っています) refers to the state of her wrists, i.e. they look like she cut into them seriously). Which is presumably what they wanted, but judging from the next line, they didn’t expect to succeed on the first try.
In the line before that I couldn’t figure out if Hirayama is saying that 栄田 sounds cold-hearted, or if he’s worrying that Kagawa gave off a cold-hearted impression to 栄田. This little exchange makes way more sense to me if we assume it’s the latter, because then Kagawa’s response is like “Who cares what he thinks of me? Looking heartless is not a crime. What matters is that Tomoyo slashed her own wrists”.
The reason why this unclear to me is the sentence before that:
救急車を呼んだというんで、断って戻った。
There has to be a subject change in there, so that this sentence means “He told me he’d called an ambulance, so I declined and left.”, making Kagawa the asshole who declined the ambulance. But I’m unsure if there are any grammatical markers that make it sure that the second part of the sentence has a different subject from the first part. Is it, maybe, that 断る is one of those verbs you can only use with yourself as the subject?
Some more general thoughts on this chapter: I wonder where this is going. The ghost girl’s ability to give other people visions of things she’s been able to sense seems quite overpowered when it comes to murder mysteries. Three chapters into this and we already know who the murderers are and they were even kind enough to infodump their motives and part of their methods. So, what’s next?
I still own my copy so if there are any weird grammar questions or whatnot I’m available to help
I’ve seen enough typos in my English books to know they definitely slip through, and this one seems plausible.