香君 上 西から来た少女 | Week 2

香君 上 西から来た少女 | Week 2

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. 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.
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3 Likes

Looks like I was wrong, and while アイシャ did identify the poison, her reasons for not doing anything about it are much more somber.

Chapter 1.5 sets up quite a few storylines : the seemingly benign but probably evil empire, the headstrong local rebels, マッシュ - friend or foe ? , 香君 - could the deity be incarnated in アイシャ …

8 Likes

I thought it was interesting how the earlier chapter set up アイシャ’s grandfather as “foolish ruler who got deposed because he let his people starve, everybody hated him” and then this week we get a bit more backstory that complicates that initial idea.

9 Likes

Wow, on the second week I’m starting to understand the politics!

I’m very curious about this wonder rice. It sounds too good to be true, and yet is seems to be true in the story. アイシャ feels it strange, but I guess since bugs don’t eat it, it is fine that this rice doesn’t give “it hurts” sounds etc. And it is a curious state about not being able to grow it from the seeds.

I thought the same!

Yeah! But still with the yet given context I’m more on アイシャ’s father’s side. I think there is more into it in reality though.

5 Likes

So many new details this week! This first chapter is quite a setup.

I don’t think so. アイシャ’s mother also had the same ability, so at least one of them is not the god. Also, I had the impression that 香君 still lives in the capital. I’ll try to find that part. But judging from the title of chapter 2 (香君宮), maybe we’ll find out more about that soon.

Edit: found it on page 62.

香君さまは生まれ変わりを操り返し、決して死ぬことがない。今も帝都の香君宮におられ、香りで万象を知り、人々を導いておられる。

7 Likes

I really liked the first section this week. Still working my way through the second section.

I don’t know if the new edition is better, but the furigana usage is a mess in the original kindle version. The same word might be on a page three times, and only the second or third usage has furigana.

3 Likes

I’ve come to think of that kind of thing as, well, not normal, but not super rare either. I have no idea what authors or editorial departments think about furigana but it’s clearly not standard practice to have any kind of automated consistency check about it.

4 Likes

Finally done.

This situation reminds me patented GM crops, where the farmers aren’t allowed to keep a part of the harvest as seeds and use them for the next planting season, making them perpetually reliant on buying new seeds from the patent holder each year. Having a versatile, ultra-resilient crop where the seeds aren’t viable in the first place seems like a very convenient way for a power-hungry empire to keep their vassal territories under control.

9 Likes