Not really a major thing, but I think it was at this point in the story on about my third time through the anime that I finally worked out why the first book is subtitled “the niece of time”. Because Chitanda is the niece, see?
Well, I guess I’m a bit disappointed in the way the book ended. The “reveal” at the end didn’t really work for me, even though it did make sense. Also, thanks to that I learned that 氷菓 is indeed an actual word meaning ice cream.
Writing this, I’m not quite sure why I didn’t like the ending. It is a twist. I guess it’s because they were just so close to the correct answer, rather than having a widely inaccurate hypothesis.
Oh well. There’s also the fact that all the mysteries in the book were pretty mundane. It was fun for a while, but I’m definitely not going to read the next volumes.
I mostly agree with @Naphthalene. The book wasn’t exactly what I expected but I guess it wasn’t that far off either? I mean, it is fitting that high school students aren’t investigating anything too extraordinary I guess.
I’m curious about where the series will go next since this one could be self contained, so I could see myself reading more in the future. However with how difficult I found it at my current level I was a little relieved that it was over, so that’s a far future.
One wonders if part of your dissatisfaction was because you were still hoping for that triumphant story of a student standing up in the face of adversity like they’d original thought.
More mysteries, basically. Don’t recall much of a plot arc, aside from general character development.
Actually not, I was hoping for them to have completely misunderstood the situation due to missing critical elements, so that the event were completely different. I was looking forward to see how two very different narratives could fit the same facts. Same as the readings of 犠牲.
But in the end it was just a variation of what they thought. Well, same as the meaning of 犠牲 no matter the reading I guess.
I was also a bit disappointed after finishing this. Not by the way it ended in particular, but the whole time I was hoping for them to uncover something out of the ordinary and none of the explanations ended up being very interesting to me. I was really expecting there to be some sort of conspiracy or secret society or something with the way that Hotaro’s sister pressured him to join the club and wouldn’t explain anything and how she always seemed to know more than she should have.
I’m still somewhat interested in finding out why she (and I think at least one other former club member) is traveling around the world and sending cryptic letters back home. But at the same time I have a feeling I’ll just be let down again. Like the explanation for her weirdly perfect timing/knowledge would end up being that she was talking to her parents or former club members at the school and checking up on Hotaro this whole time. And then something equally as boring as her reason for traveling.
This sounds more negative than intended. I did enjoy the book overall but I have no intention of continuing the series if the mysteries don’t get more interesting.
