There is a bit of a feeling of “the ghost of Christmas present” in the scene in this chapter. It will be interesting to see whether she ends up taking 栄田 to other places…
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Week 4: 混乱
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Questions:
How did you go with this week’s reading?
I found some of the dialogue in the dreams a little hard to follow - possibly they were deliberately a little vague.
Quite a lot of lookups in the second part of the chapter…
Where do you think the Minako story is going? She features in Sakaeda’s dreams, and was present in the apartment building lobby when Kagawa had her dramatic injury. But what is the connection to the ghost?
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Chapter 4
The dream parts were quite intriguing. So, Saeda and Minako shared a dream and were able to have a whole conversation in it. I guess that means the ghost girl hooked them up? If so, she must have had some reason. I’d normally say it’s too early to speculate, but since you asked…
I hope she doesn’t become a love interest, I’m already uncomfortable with how flirtatious the two are while he has a girlfriend. If we assume that the ghost girl connected their dreams and her motive is crime prevention, maybe that’s a sign that she might become a victim or witness soon. That in turn makes me wonder if Ayumi the Star actually had drugs or if someone planted them on her to get her out of the way, and now that Minako has the lead role, maybe she’s the next target.
After I realized that the dream with Minako was not just a normal dream, I also started wondering if the first dream had the real Tomoyo in it. Maybe she was lying in her bed half-drugged and thought she was talking to her husband.
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Week 5: 階段
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Week 5
Quite a few new characters were introduced in the last couple of chapters, and I’m starting to suspect that there are nuances to their personalities and interactions that flew over my head, and I wonder if this will be a problem later.
First, Minako herself. She seems decent and hardworking, but not the brightest bulb in the drawer. Her obsession with Saeda seems mostly one-sided, and I cringed a bit when she realizes that their dream-sharing was an actual supernatural phenomenon and it only encourages her that they are meant for each other. Her manager Kubo seemed a bit of a dick to me at first, because he’s always so curt. But I think in the scene where they talk to the male lead Oda, he’s reading the room better than Minako does, and his take that Oda is only acting nice because his status increased after Ayumi was arrested makes sense. The head honcho Touno seems quite sus, trying to get Minako to visit his office without her manager.
On another front, we now know that Kyouko’s beau is called Noguchi and he didn’t really want her to move to Tokyo…wonder what role he’s going to play in the story.
What do y’all think of the characters?
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Week 5
The cast list is certainly expanding. I’ve tried to categorise the names in the table above so they are easier to find. I haven’t added personality traits or other characteristics (in セーラー服と機関銃 I did to help remember which henchman or high school boy was which, but it hasn’t seemed necessary yet).
I’m rather suspecting that some of these characters are here just so they can be knocked off (like in あなたも殺人になれる）but we’ll see.
I found this chapter not so interesting. I think we are still in a set-up part of the novel. I think there is probably drama to come…
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And we’re up to Week 6 乱れる
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Week 6 first scene
I was glad to see that 恭子 has so quickly seen through the dreadful 野口. (I worried a little about her transferring her attachment to 北崎. He seems much nicer, but…
and a question
#885
中には、伝票を一桁間違えている、と本気で注意する人もある
I understand the overall meaning I think (interesting historical context when the yen was much stronger*). But I couldn’t quite parse 注意する人 - is this people who draw attention (warn/notify the cafe staff?)
and why is the last word ある and not いる?
*But even when the yen is weaker, as a 外国人 I find it very easy to 一桁間違う especially with larger numbers like salary or house prices.
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Week 6 first scene
I rooted for Kyouko when she went straight for the boss and used her ex’s bad behavior as a chance to get a new job. This must be taking place at a time where the economy was really strong, if “I’m not that bad with computers” counts as sufficient job qualification.
God, I hope this doesn’t go down a romantic route. Not sure I normalized it was at the time this book was written for 24-year-old girls to date 年配, so I’m not sure if we’re automatically meant to assume that the dinner invitation is fishy.
Rest of Week 6
Lots of things happening in this chapter…did the conversation between Saeda and Tomoyo felt a bit contrived to anyone else? Like the author needed to introduce Tomoyo’s little sister and find a way for Saeda and Tomoyo to stay in touch, so he just forced the conversation to go there? Or is asking complete strangers if they live alone completely normal during small-talk in Japan?
So now Saeda can sense when people are dying and the ghost girl can operate cell phones. The two of them are turning more and more OP.
This didn’t register on my radar as particularly unusual, probably because of the similarity between whatever is used here and constructions like こともある and でもある. They all seem to do roughly the same thing. With いる I think it would be more like “someone who does X is there” and with ある it’s more like “cases where people do X happen”, or in other words, “some people do X”.
Afaik, 注意する is one of those disorienting phrases where you have to guess from context if it’s transitive or intransitive (paying attention vs. bringing something to someone’s attention). In this context, I’m almost sure it means the customers alert the staff.
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thanks - very helpful
Week 7 会見
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Week 7
What a wild ride of a chapter. In the beginning, I was kinda wondering why the press conference was described in such detail and if there was even any point to it, but then twist and the whole thing flew of the rails and kept accelerating.
I’m in two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, it was a fast-paced, enjoyable read and the constant repetition of the scene was very good for practising the language. On the other, I really feel like the ghost girl is becoming too OP. Now she’s not only omniscient and can interact with physical objects, but she can also turn back time? That’s too much plot armor for my taste. I fear I might need a real death soon to raise the stakes.
The timing of the final scene also seems overly convenient, but I’ve already made my peace with that.
I got a question about Ayumi’s incriminating talk with Touno. Do her words imply that Touno forced her to sleep with him because he knew about the drugs and was promising to protect her if she was found out? Or maybe even that he was providing the drugs or also taking them?
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Week 7
Ah, but she reached her limit - couldn’t go back any further
(Of course, that too was convenient for the plot).
Yes, good to see things warming up. Last week was a bit tame.
I suspect things will get interesting from here.
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Week 8 命
After last week’s dramatic turn of events, who’s still here?
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loc 1228
interesting N2 grammar point - took me a while to work out what this meant
「そういうことに気をつかわなくてすむようにマネージャーや、事務所の社長がいるんだから」
just before this - I enjoyed Minako’s sincere and well-meaning offer to forego her ギャラ [confused about this until I realised it wasn’t the same as ギャル] , and Kubo’s alarmed response
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I expected it to mean gala at first and was just as confused 
Week 8 - What a day
So, two deaths this chapter. Almost makes you wonder if there’s a price to pay for using the ghost girl’s abilities to save people.
Tonou is such a slimeball. It’s seems kinda obvious that he’ll try to get Minako into bed at some point, since he’s constantly buttering her up and he seems to have done something similar to Ayumi. I wonder if the little conversation where Ayumi accused him in front of Misako still took place in reality the way it it did in Saeda’s visions. If it did, at least she has a chance to put two and two together and stay away from him. But I’m unsure if Saedo interrupted it with his chair throw.
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It didn’t seem to me as if there was time, since the security guards intervened, and Ayumi seemed to be flustered by her plans (whatever they were) being interrupted by the flying chair and the poor make up girl getting in the way
The attack
In the original timeline, the part where Ayumi accuses Touno happens before she draws her knife, though. In the real timeline, the security guards intervene when the thrown chair draws their attention and they see Ayumi with the knife, otherwise Saeda would have looked like the aggressor and they would have gone towards him. So it makes sense to assume that the accusation is already over, but the exact sequence of events is a little vague, imo, which is why I’m confused.
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Week 9 出会い
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Week 9
Huh, so Saeda’s kindly elderly colleague turned out to be a cheating, alcoholic wife beater. Quite a plot twist. Since it’s starting to look like a random person nearby dies every time the ghost girl uses her powers to save someone’s life, the possibility that you’ll exchange an innocent person’s life for a scumbag is quite the drawback.
Not sure what to make of the second part. The sister seems like quite a weirdo, with her naive country girl act and her insistence on holding Saeda’s hand.
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