This will be more useful once Estelle’s wrote anything in it.
Vocabulary
Vocab Sheet , the frequency data is very inaccurate due to being incomplete.
Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Posting Advice
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example
For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!
OR
Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!
Discussion Questions
What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
Which of the NPC interactions stood out to you the most?
How do you like the view from the top of the 時計台?
Participation
Will you be playing along with us this week?
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You didn’t make a comment in the home thread for this week so I didn’t get a notification and wondered if you had just given up on the club after one week! Good thing I remembered to check.
There was a surprising amount of new vocab for me— every time I start to think I’m doing well, along comes a piece of media that humbles me. I suppose it’s part of playing an rpg like this with loads of npcs that touch on a lot of different topics, though. I also did read all the item descriptions in the stores ehehe.
Favorite new word is 陛下 because it’s completely useless for anything other than fantasy fiction like this. I love fantasy stuff though, so.
Geez kid, didn’t your parents teach you that it’s creepy to talk about pairing up your adopted sibling neighbors like that? And to their faces, too. Why do I suspect there will be a whole lot of this in the future
It is hugely common in this type of material, so well worth knowing. It’s on WaniKani too IIRC.
I think the difficulty when your level is reaching intermediate Japanese is that the difference between something that’s relatively comfortable to read and something that require constant lookups is pretty thin. All it takes is for the discussion to shift to an unfamiliar topic and you’re screwed.
So this guy is spending his life in a room with two barrels and one create in order to “defend” a clock tower that stands right in the middle of the village?
I also enjoyed the use of マスコミ in the dialogue, I noticed that in this type of media the Japanese authors don’t hesitate to use all sorts of seemingly out-of-place (at least to us westerners) English loanwords. We don’t really do that in the west.
Imagine a character in Game of Thrones or Baldur’s Gate calling somebody “kawaii” for instance!
Of course this particular dialogue seems to be somewhat fourth-wall-breaking too.
Oh we use anachronisms and loanwords plenty, although a book/show that takes itself as dead seriously as GoT will be more careful about it, for sure The fantasy culture of this game clearly borrows a little from the west, so it doesn’t seem out of place (to me, at least) at all to use a common western loanword like マスコミ.
In any case, Trails definitely comes across as a story that isn’t afraid to be a little funny and weird, including with words. It begins with the main character beating up an injured orphan after all…
Not at all! I love hearing what people think about things! I just hope it’s not tedious to talk to everyone again next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, and so on.
Hopefully once the story gets going and we get combat and everything it will be a little less dull, people who just want to move forward on the main quest can just do so without all the side content.
This speed is actually great for me. I loved chatting with all the NPCs. Shera’s lore dump was pretty challenging and that was the only tedious part since there was so many kanji I was unfamiliar with.
That was nice and cozy. Reminds me a lot of the laid back start of Star Ocean: The Second Story for example. There the tour of the town is forced, but the town gives off the same vibe. Though this one is a little bigger and works harder at world building to create industry supporting its economy and whatnot. Knowing how the series has big worldbuilding, it was nice to get a first glimpse of that.
I can see what people mean about the dialog changing a lot; it’s kind of impressive how most conversations in the town are all related to this specifically being morning and what people are doing at that time, so presumably after we do our guild stuff it’ll get later and that’ll all change.
I’m getting around to this week and week three stuff at around the same time, I had forgotten how much the people in town tease Estelle or ship the two of them together. But it’s a nice laid back town.
Shera’s lecture was tough indeed! Spoken very fast, couldn’t always keep up. Good listening practice, lots of new words.
I think the 守 here rather takes the nuance of 子守 “to look after”, rather than “defend”. He’s looking after the clocktower, which seems like a fine occupation for a retiree. There could also be troublemakers or tourists entering the tower. And I’m guessing he goes to the platform above too, occasionally.
My favorite words this week:
手腕 - only plebs say 能力 or even 力量! (said by Shera of course - 政治手腕)
渡り合う - I actually gasped, didn’t expect 渡る to be able to have this kind of nuance
無闇 - no dark = thoughtless ??? I think there are a few words like this with 無 where the 無 is not negating the following, but emphasizing it (there’s nothing and darkness in your thoughts). Kind of like a pleonasm (had to look it up), where there are two or more words saying the same thing or otherwise unnecessarily repeating information, like “free gift”
Yeah and actually in hindsight once some pieces of lore are revealed, the symbolic value of the clocktower makes sense.
Using 腕 for physical ability seems very common, at least from what I’ve seen in videogames. Here are a few related entries I’ve collected in my vocab deck:
The fantasy culture of this game clearly borrows a little from the west, so it doesn’t seem out of place (to me, at least) at all to use a common western loanword like マスコミ.
