BUTTER 🧈 Week 4

[pocketcat]

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Welcome to BUTTER Week 4

Week	Start Date	Chapter	Percentage	文庫ページ
Week 1	Jan 31	until line break ending with 電車に乗り込んだ	6%	40
Week 2	Feb 07	stop when you see chapter 3	13%	81
Week 3	Feb 14	until line break ending with 挑発するように揺れている	20%	124
Week 4	Feb 21	until line break ending with どうしても食べてみたくなったのだ	27%	167
Week 5	Feb 28	stop when you see chapter 7	37%	224
Week 6	Mar 7	stop at line break ending with 稀有な経験はないだろうと思う	46%	279
Week 7	Mar 14	stop at line break ending with 両手を打ち鳴らした	54%	323
Week 8	Mar 21	stop at the section beginning with 2月２４日	62%	371
Week 9	Mar 28	stop when you see the break 12	69%	413
Week 10	Apr 4	stop at line break ending さびしさがにじむことを。	78%	466
Week 11	Apr 11	stop at line break ending 再び汽笛が鳴った	86%	512
Week 12	Apr 18	stop at the end of the book, not including 解説	98%	584

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
• When asking for help, please mention things like chapter, page number, part of audio track, etc. Mentioning what version of the book you are reading may also help people locate the section
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
• To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Readership stats

• I’m reading along with the club
• I’ve already read this and I’m here for the discussion
• I had no intentions of reading the book, but I desire to click a poll

[downtimes]

Okay. It seems not many people are still following with the schedule. I hope some of the discussions will be picked up later again. I’d really like some more opinions of others.

I’m a bit early since I want to make space for other stuff I’d like to read as well, that’s why I tried to finish faster. This week was also a little easier to read since there weren’t quit as many dense description blocks as usual.
But I certainly wouldn’t mind slowing down the pace a little. If I look into the next two weeks both of them are solidly above 50 pages each, which I’ll only manage if nothing gets in my way.
I think it would also help my posts to have slightly less material to have to talk about. Since there’s a lot of nuance in the writing, I feel like my posts each week balloon out of proportion XD.

Either way. I’ll still write a little about my thoughts for what I can remember with the help of my notes for this week.

Thoughts

Didn’t expect Reiko to be quite such a prude. It makes total sense when looking at it from the perspective of StarlitGlitch’s description of her.

@StarlitGlitch

I like Reiko, but she also reminds me of a certain type of person.

I did like her trying to talk some sense into Reika: “you are not seriously sympathizing with 梶井 right? Right???”

But man, dude, 誠. My prediction: this relationship won’t last through the book. He’s seriously strange. That idol side story was also so Japanese. She didn’t even know he has such an 推し, they really don’t communicate anymore.
And then him telling her It’s okay for you to get fat, BUT ONLY since it is for work. And come enjoy some organic food on our date, otherwise I’M NOT HAPPY.
On the other hand not the brightest idea to go on a date to a restaurant if you are already suffering from indigestion Reika…

She really starts to tell 梶井 nearly everything. She feels like she needs to please her. But then, later on, when it seems it doesn’t work (I only need followers, no friends) she tries to change her approach. Being way more assertive. It seems being assertive and taking the lead didn’t last long, though, and 梶井 was firmly in the saddle again, giving her a new task to complete. And only promising a “I consider giving you an exclusive” in exchange. The challenges also get more out of hand by the minute.

And can we talk about 梶井 actually researching how to kill people so that it seems like a natural death. Mind blown how Reika can still spin these tales of 梶井 only being some misunderstood person. The more I learn about this case… -.-. I really hope Reika doesn’t actually believe these stories herself…

The book kinda got weird sexual in this week as well. The way she looks at 梶井、the touch of 篠井s arm, the new task involving having to have sex before eating.

[Magyarapointe]

@downtimes

She really starts to tell 梶井 nearly everything. She feels like she needs to please her. But then, later on, when it seems it doesn’t work (I only need followers, no friends) she tries to change her approach. Being way more assertive. It seems being assertive and taking the lead didn’t last long, though, and 梶井 was firmly in the saddle again, giving her a new task to complete. And only promising a “I consider giving you an exclusive” in exchange. The challenges also get more out of hand by the minute.
And can we talk about 梶井 actually researching how to kill people so that it seems like a natural death. Mind blown how Reika can still spin these tales of 梶井 only being some misunderstood person. The more I learn about this case… -.-. I really hope Reika doesn’t actually believe these stories herself…

At this point, I still don’t know what to think about their relationship. Toxic, obviously, and I see Reika being set up as a possible victim, not in the murder sens but in the follower/adept sense, and still… Maybe it’s because I read the book either late at night or very early in the morning, but I just can’t sympathise with her. カジマナ is obviously written with heavy reference to Hannibal Lecter, but the whole point of Lecter is that he is a psychopath and 梶井 isn’t. Yet somehow, that doesn’t make her a better character, but a hollower one

[StarlitGlitch]

After reading the other comments here I double-checked to make sure, but the main character’s name is read as Rika! I know it gets confusing with her and Reiko lol.
I did get mixed up a couple of times with the other character’s names while reading, also since for Makoto Rika calls him by his personal name but the coworkers call him by his family name.

Here are my thoughts for this week:

Summary

We’re starting to see a shift in Rika’s perspective due to カジマナ. She also had somewhat sexual imagery about Reiko and カジマナ, the request at the end of the chapter was a surprise as well.

One thing that has consistently surprised me about Rika is that despite being a reporter, she does not seem to have a good sense of how to get people to want to cooperate with you. In the very beginning, she tells カジマナ who obviously cares a lot about cooking how she has almost nothing in her fridge and then dares to say margarine isn’t much different than butter (I understand she wanted to rush over and didn’t have much time to prepare but honestly even given more time I think she would’ve said that lol), and then when trying to get カジマナ to give her an exclusive interview she tries to appeal in a way that’s all about how Rika would benefit, or other things カジマナ clearly does not care about. Finally at the end she gets that she needs to figure out how to appeal to her at least. She could learn a lot from How to Make Friends and Influence people.

@downtimes

But man, dude, 誠. My prediction: this relationship won’t last through the book. He’s seriously strange. That idol side story was also so Japanese. She didn’t even know he has such an 推し, they really don’t communicate anymore.

I feel the same. It already feels like a relationship out of convenience, and it’s barely a relationship at that. I can’t see them making it.

@downtimes

And can we talk about 梶井 actually researching how to kill people so that it seems like a natural death. Mind blown how Reika can still spin these tales of 梶井 only being some misunderstood person

Yes, it feels like the author purposefully left out that bit of information to make it more of a shock when it drops. Up until then, even if it’s not very believable we can see some logic between Rika saying it’s possible their deaths could be a coincidence, but when they dropped that fact it makes it clear that Rika has some huge blinders on.

@Magyarapointe

カジマナ is obviously written with heavy reference to Hannibal Lecter, but the whole point of Lecter is that he is a psychopath and 梶井 isn’t.

I’ve never watched Silence of the Lambs so I didn’t know this! Thank you for pointing that out. The little that I know of it now makes sense.

[downtimes]

@StarlitGlitch

she does not seem to have a good sense of how to get people to want to cooperate with you

Yeah especially since she is apparently mainly responsible for 取材 for the main desk, which is where she wants to be.
She at least has a good informant in 篠井 and is able to land some scoops from him. Otherwise I also dont know how she would manage her job

[pocketcat]

OK I am yet again late but caught up to week 4

I’m so glad the story went off the rails, I was getting so bored. I probably would have finished this week earlier if I’d gotten further in the chapter before I took 崇拝者 to be more like ‘worshiper’ than ‘follower’ because I typically see that word in a religious context. It certainly gives her declaration of, “I don’t need friends I need worshipers” more shock value. And it’s an interesting thing to think of given how Rika obsesses over her and how the men she dated seemingly did to. I wonder if she told them to commit suicide? If it’s that simple? Will our book end with Rika being ‘murdered’ by 梶井 from inside the prison walls?

I also think Makoto is gonna get dumped soon. Honestly it’s 50/50 for me which of the dudes she chooses to sleep with before having her ramen.

Also her hot and bothered thoughts about 梶井 had me laughing. She just barely acknowledges her own thoughts before she races onto the next. Not much introspection here sadly.