幸色のワンルーム (Sachiiro no One Room) Chp 1 Discussion Thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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かもしれない is one of those things that’s often taught as if it’s a whole word to be memorized, but it’s actually a few parts that are often packaged together.

The か, as mentioned above, acts like a question mark on the preceding clause.

The particle も is the inclusive topic particle. It’s like the exclusive topic particle は, except it’s inclusive rather than exclusive.

As an example of the two:

「キリンの首(くび)は長(なが)い」 “A giraffe’s neck is long.” (Unlike those other animals’ necks, a giraffe’s neck exclusively is long.)

Here, the topic is “giraffe’s neck”, and we’re making a comment that cannot be said about whatever topics we were previously talking about. If the prior topic was a tiger’s neck, the comment “it is long” would be wrong. Between the prior topic (tiger’s neck) and current topic (giraffe’s neck), the comment “it is long” is exclusive to the giraffe’s neck.

「フラミンゴの首(くび)も長(なが)い」 “A flamingo’s neck is also long.” (Just like another animal’s neck is long, a flamingo’s neck inclusively is long.)

Here, the topic is “flamingo’s neck”, and we’re making a comment that can be said about our prior topic of the giraffe’s neck. Between the prior topic (giraffe’s neck) and current topic (flamingo’s neck), the comment “it is long” is inclusive to both the flamingo’s neck and the giraffe’s neck.

At this point, we have:

「[phrase]かも」

The phrase is a question (か), and we’re marking it as an inclusive topic. That means the following comment will be something that applies to other topics. (Note that it doesn’t have to be a topic that was just talked about as per my animal neck examples above.)

The comment is:

「しれない」

This is the verb 知(し)る (“to know”), but it is in the potential form 知(し)れる (“can be known”) plus ない to make it negative (“cannot be known”).

「[phrase]かもしれない」

“The (answer to the question) [phrase] also cannot be known.”

There are all kinds of topics of which the comment “cannot be known” can be said, and this question is also one of those topics.

「人生じんせいを捨すてているのかもしれない」

Translation: " ‘Is it that she is throwing away her life?’ also cannot be known."

Consider the following English sentences:

  • It can’t be known (right now) if I can win a marathon.
  • It can’t be known (right now) if I can learn 2,000 kanji.
  • It can’t be known (right now) if I can read this manga.
  • It can’t be known (right now) if my pet cat will lock me out of the house again.

In these sentences, we’re essentially pondering whether something is the case or not. “Can I learn 2,000 kanji? Well, I can’t know that right now.”

「人生じんせいを捨すてているのかもしれない」

Translation: “Is she throwing away her life? I can’t know this (right now).” He’s pondering on whether she’s throwing away her life.

Many resources will tell you that かもしれない means “might”, but really there’s so much more to it!

(This is one of those topics that I’m still not good at explaining, so I apologize if it’s a bad explanation…)

Side-note: I’ve only included the last part of the line from the manga panel here, so the translation is on only part of the whole sentence.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this! I think you did a great job! This panel was giving me a lot of trouble because I understood the gist, but when I really tried to break it down I was struggling. It makes a lot more sense now that I fully understand that the か and も are having their own function instead of being part of one vocab word. Also, you’re totally right all the resources I looked at including jisho do package it as a single set expression. That’s probably because it’s used so often together, but it does end up excluding the grammar at play that makes the expression work. Also, the も makes total sense considering how he goes on to say that he’s the same. I think this panel does a really good job at setting up both characters as people with nothing to lose. Thanks so much!

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Here are the discussion questions I came up with for chapter 1. Please don’t feel obligated to answer all of them if they don’t interest you these are just to help get things started. Also, I will be getting the Chp 2 thread up either tomorrow or Friday. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Q1: How is the start of the book different than what you were expecting?
Q2: What is your opinion on the age gap between the two characters and do you think this will be important to the story?
Q3: Does anyone have any theories on why he wears the mask all the time? Also, do you have theories on how the mask might come into play later on?
Q4: Finally, what are your observations of the characters so far and also their “promise”?

My answers :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
Q1: The start of the book was actually pretty different than what I had expected. I thought he knew about her situation and was trying to rescue her, but it was actually a very classic stalker situation where she at one point must have interacted with him in some way that he found meaningful and he began to stalk her. I also wasn’t expecting the kidnapping to be for a self-serving reason of trying to get her to hate him. Going into the book I knew she was facing a variety of abuse, but did not realize it was to the point of eating off a floor and handcuffs. For me, I wonder if it was necessary to have it be to this extreme, I could kind of see an argument either way.

Q2: I’m pretty on the fence about the age gap. I know a lot of Japanese media portrays pretty big age gaps and I’m guessing he is probably in his twenties. As long as, it doesn’t progress too far I think I will tolerate it, but him blushing and making comments about how there’s a girl in his house shows that he doesn’t see her as a child. I’m interested to see how this relationship will develop. I hope it focuses more on depending on each other and growing as opposed to something strongly romantic and if they get to that point that it’s after she’s older…

Q3: I really do not have any theories besides one’s that seem too obvious and would probably disappoint me. I really hope it’s something more than some sort of injury, and I don’t think it’s to protect his identity since he’s shown wearing it in the flashback.

Q4:I feel like for both characters having nothing to lose is going to be a theme and perhaps a journey to find happiness? I think the promise they made really highlights this, as does how even though he is confused about 幸 making such a suggestion, he seems by the end of the chapter to feel dedicated to making things work. We know part of why 幸 may be feeling that way, but I’m interested to find out why he is also to that point. I do like how even when 幸 was alone and getting lost in her thoughts there was still a slight indication of hope. I also really find it interesting on how when they’re together they act like everything is fine, but both are having doubts about themselves and the other. I’m really interested to see how they break through the distance between each other and address some of the elephants in the room. I’m also curious to know just how much he knew about 幸’s situation since right now it seems like he might not have known.

I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts! (Also, sorry for writing so much :sweat_smile:)

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I mentioned this before, but I didn’t expect things to be this… Wholesome, with a generous undercurrent of distrust and caution and manipulation. I’m positively surprised. :slight_smile:

Hmmm. I forgot how old the guy is supposed to be already, but he’s an adult I think. She’s 14, iirc, which is… Hm. I’m always a bit suspicious of what makes an adult take an interest in an early teen. So far things have been very pg, and she has been shown as quite forceful in a way, so I’m okay with it for now.

My theory was that he doesn’t want to be recognized abducting a girl. It’s also make releasing her feasible, without her knowing his face exactly. But then, maybe he’s just socially more comfortable when people can’t see his face.

Hmmm. They’re both wary of each other, but willing to try this for now. I’m expecting there’s more to their motivations than we learned in this first chapter… But still. I’m intrigued how they’ll manipulate each other, and whether they can actually built something real. I’m expecting Stockholm to come knocking at some point.

On to reading your answers now, @bearytoast ! :grin:

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I don’t think they’ve mentioned how old he is yet, but I’m guessing between 19 and 22. I also agree that so far it’s been pretty pg, though I do think he sees her as a woman as opposed to a girl. He does brush off her joke and think it’s weird that she wanted to cut vegetables in the way she did. I found this reassuring since it makes me think he isn’t really thinking about romance at the moment. I’m really hoping it goes the route of a dependent and comforting type of love as opposed to a sexual type of love, I’ve seen that done in other books and I feel like that’s what the current set up is. I do wonder why the author made her so young. I understand why her being 17 or 18 might not work for the story, but I feel like she could have been a bit older and in high school without it changing anything thus far. Also, I agree that we may see some stockholm pretty early on because at this point all he needs to do is treat her as a human for her to be in a way better situation. :sweat_smile:

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I feel like we’re going overboard with the spoiler tags a bit, but I’ll go with the flow. Happy clicking! =D

Q1: Expectations Going In

I went into the story with no idea what to expect, so there were no expectations for the story to deviate from =D

Granted, I vaguely knew of the premise via what was written in advance here, and wasn’t certain if the series is one I’d be interested in or not. (It’s too soon to tell.) But aside from that, even flipping through previews of later volumes didn’t help build any expectations, either.

Q2: Years of Birth

Rather than the differences in ages, I’m more-so curious about the male leads situation in life. Does he work? Does he not need to work?

I forget, did the story say anything specific about why he started stalking (photographing) the girl in the first place? He seems to believe it was wrong for him to do, so he tried to get out of bit. But without knowing his initial motives, I can’t figure too much on where things might end up. At the moment, he seems to be setting into more of a protective big brother role. (Not to mention a 1984 Big Brother role.)

Q3: Robbing Banks

Me being one of those people who can’t wear a mask for very long due to lack of getting enough oxygen, I keep feeling like the male lead should be passing out after a while. Of course, I realize I’m probably one of only a few people with breathing issues wearing a mask, and our fictional hero(?) is clearly doing okay.

I did wonder about his choice of when to wear the mask. Does he not trust the girl enough for her to see his face? I can’t imagine he’s someone she knows, but wouldn’t recognize just for a mask over part of his face. If it’s a trust issue, that could eventually be a plot point. (Especially since at this point, the girl is way too trusting of her White Knight.)

As for when he leaves, wearing a mask will only make him look suspicious if anyone happened to notice he always has a mask on. (Would anyone even notice, though?) But why wear a mask at all when just going shopping?

Since he ended up a long-term kidnapper unintentionally, perhaps he feels a little safer with it on? He mentioned cameras, and if there was any reason (unlikely as it is) to check a lot of camera footage for anyone suspicious in the area, that mask would be suspicious after a while.

Q4: Pinky Promise

I feel the guy isn’t all-in on the promise at this point. But he lacked purpose in his life before, and he now has a purpose. He could potentially end up in a place where if the girl did take her life, he would too.

The girl of course I expect is all-in on it. She lacks experience, and probably has had an upbringing that also hindered her social growth. (Don’t know if the mangaka will factor something like that into the story.)

My thoughts were probably a bit disjointed, as I didn’t remember all the details from chapter one, and jumped through it a bit to refresh my memory on some parts. And then edited bits that I had written.

I feel the same way. I imagine some mangaka set up situations without expectation that their story will become popular enough for a commercial release, and then they’re left with a situation that they need to give a sound background for. That’s not to say the mangaka doesn’t have something in place (I’m no mind reader, and even if I was, it’d all be in Japanese…), just that I wonder if sometimes the background setup is forced to create the situation.

(Another example would be in Rental Oniichan: chapter 3 has one scene that’s prep for a much later reveal on why the brother is abusive of his little sister, but a much bigger second reason gets added on top of that near the end of the story.)

I originally thought that page 33 was part of the prior flashback, but I see now that he’s wearing a different coat, and different style of mask. In that image, I wonder if the silhouettes on the left and right edges are part of the background, or people in the foreground.

That’s the exact range I was thinking as well.

This is the main reason I’m wondering about his motivation for stalking. (Not that I know anything about the motivation of stalkers to begin with.)

My guesses would be either 1) it’s an age that’s much more trusting and less experienced, or 2) that’s just what felt right to the author.

“᪥ ᪥ ᪥ Eating dinner together is the bestest thing ever, even if you’re just sitting there watching me eat (like you’re some creepy stalker), and then you’ll eat your dinner alone later! ᪥ ᪥ ᪥”

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:joy: your comment at the end with the little floral-esq symbols made me chuckle. I do think I’m probably going a little overboard with the spoiler tags as well. I’m just not sure where to draw the line :upside_down_face: :upside_down_face: I interpreted page 33 as a flashback to when he first met 幸 which is why I think the mask wearing was a prior thing. Also, judging be his expression something bad happened in that scene which makes sense given the current set up. As for his motivations for stalking my guess right now would be that when he was at his low point she must have done something that was meaningful to him and it led to obsession. (It seems to me to be savior based as opposed to romantic) In some crime documentaries I’ve seen it can sometimes be something as simple as smiling or saying hello to someone and then they interpret it to mean something very significant. (Aka people are scary) I do hope the interaction that started everything is a little bit more substantial than a simple smile though :sweat_smile:

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Q2: What is your opinion on the age gap between the two characters and do you think this will be important to the story?

I’m a little nervous about how this is going to develop but it seems wholesome enough so far. About as wholesome as a story about a stalker and their victim can be, I think.

Q3: Does anyone have any theories on why he wears the mask all the time? Also, do you have theories on how the mask might come into play later on?

It could be that he’s using his mask to hide from other people for psychological reasons. Maybe he’s anxious or uncomfortable in his own skin. He does seem like he might not have the highest self-esteem.

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I like your theory on the mask! I think it fits well with how he behaves.

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This was surprisingly easy to read and I’m definitely not procrastinating writing my thesis so I’m done with this chapter already :smiley:

Q1

I already read the first few pages a few weeks back, so not too many surprises there for me, I was just taken aback by how severely Sachi was being abused at home.

Q2

This was one of the major factors that kept me from starting this series for a while, the age gap + seeing the series tagged as romance somewhere just made me feel veery uncomfortable. I’m curious how it will play out though, even though I’m definitely not hoping for any kind of explicit romance without at least a time skip of a few years. The whole “let’s marry” thing definitely feels like something a 14 year old would say though, so her age makes it all feel more …natural(?) than if she was 17/18. Oh, and in my mind I’m interpreting him as being in his mid-twenties, so I’m seeing quite a large age gap for a 14 year old…

Q3

My first thought was something like a burn or scar that he got used to hiding. It’s probably also a good way of making it harder for police to recognise him, at least until he becomes “that mask guy”.

Q4

I’m not too sure what to think about mask guy yet…being a kidnapper and a stalker and all that, I don’t really trust him. I have lots of sympathy for Sachi though, even though this isn’t a healthy setup I’m just glad she managed to get away from her family for the moment. Everything about her “promise” definitely screams “14 years old” at me so I’m super curious how that will actually play out in reality.

I love the idea of having discussion questions btw! I love discussing the plot in book clubs but I usually have problems coming up with what to write about so these prompts are super helpful :smiley:

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I’m glad you were able to make it through the chapter so quickly!

Summary

I agree that the “lets marry” promise shows her age, but I also feel the ultimatum if they get caught (and her thoughts when alone) really shows how she thinks or behaves a bit older at times which I think is pretty common in cases of abuse. She presents a really interesting dichotomy where she sometimes shows a realism that is not common in people so young, but then drifts back to a bit of hope and excitement.

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Summary

To me the ultimatum also fits her age in that it’s just as extreme of a plan as the marriage promise, or even more so. But I agree that she also has these very mature thoughts that contrast this. I’m really enjoying this about her character, and I’m really curious to see all these aspects of her personality explored in more detail. To be honest, she reminds me of someone I knew when I was around that age, so I’m a bit attached to her already :sweat_smile:

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