Content warning:18+
This is an 18+ series aimed at adults, so be advised that this series might not be suitable for all listeners. It’s also a BL (Boy’s Love) series.
Use headphones! And turn the sound up a bit. I helps!
Got stuck on strange historical or nautical terminology? Fret not! Check out the extensive Nautical Terminology (found in the Book club main thread). Also, check out the respective book club discussion threads for help with recognizing historical people, places and events that get name dropped in this series. They can be found in the OP post of each respective Book Club Discussion thread. Link to the Volume 1 discussion thread
(beware that these encyclopedias contain some spoilers by necessity)
Discuss anything you want, be it language questions, about the plot and characters or what you think about this series. As always, be mindful of the forum rules in general.
For spoilers or current weeks tracks, please use spoiler tags. Either use the hide details or blur spoiler. Both can be found under the cogwheel.
Hey all! o/ I was actually slightly panicking a few days ago because I couldn’t remember whether we were starting today on the 1st or on the 7th. :S I’ve got my first CD all ready to go!
Same! I can’t wait to experience the spin the drama CDs will put on the series. The voices, the sound effects, etc; the book already feels like it does a decent job of immersing you, so I’m looking forward to experiencing that extra step!
Hello! This is my first active club I’m joining and my first post, so I’m a bit new to how all this works. But I am very excited to be joining everyone
I’m trying to read the book as I go along, so I have no idea whats gonna happen.
The book and the audio use a lot of language I’m not familiar with, so I’ll probably have a lot of questions in the future.
よろしくお願いします
Welcome to the club! ^>^ Glad to hear you’re listening along with us.
As a general advice, this is a listening club, so commentary about the book chapters are best posted in the relevant discussion threads in the ongoing Book club.
If you check the google vocab sheet you’ll notice those are for the CDs, not the books. For that, again check the volume 1 discussion thread in the book club, which has its own google vocab sheet.
This is important since there will be differences in how the story is presented, though I’m not sure which those changes might be. We’ll see as we get going. XD
And I suspect it will be a different challenge to take note of vocab here, so, there might be more discussion on how to listen and understand. I hope people feel comfortable with asking about anything to help them keep going with the story.
In any case, if you have any questions, just ask and I’m sure people will be obliged to help! ^>^
Edit: also added some general listening tips: to use headphones as it just helps a lot to catch spoken language. ^^ Also, check out the Book club threads for the encyclopedias on people, places and historical events. ^^
This is the prologue and we pretty quickly get a feel for the complex feelings Kaito has for his friend Kazuya, who’s the son of his father’s subordinate. I love how you’re transported to the sea with all the ambient sounds. Very easy to imagine what’s going on. Though, the whole double-language speech is a bit confusing to say the least. Sound-levels are clearly in favor of the Japanese, so that’s the only thing I’m able to pick up on. XD
More thoughts: basically, Kaito longs for a closer friendship with Kazuya, but feels like Kazuya’s keeping things at arm’s length, as expected of their different social standings somehow.
Just did some changes to the OP post beyond the listening tips. I added booklet scans for people to read. Beware of spoilers as we’ve just started out!
But, all in all, I think I’m getting a feel for the format for OP posts going forward. It being the booklet art basically, as it’s a nice point of difference as well to the book club! ^>^
Ah, thank you for the beautiful booklet scans, @ekg! Having the art always add an extra dimension to the OP, I think. Will be posting my thoughts on Track 1 later today once I get to it in the queue, but in the meantime, here’s a link to transcriptions of CD 1 for those who might like them. Please note that I am not the transcriber; I have left all text in the documents as they were originally found.
Ooooh, how exciting! As ekg said, feel free to pop on into the volume 1 book discussion thread! We’re always happy to see new faces!
Looking forward to helping! I’m sure I’ll also have parts where I’ll be asking for clarification.
So I went ahead and did an initial run through of the prologue and track 1; my understanding was split between, “wow, I understand this”, “only reason I understand is because I’ve read the book”, and “what? Too fast”, which was all expected. What was unexpected was that there was more of #1 than I thought there’d be, which I’m super pleased with. Not enough to really be able to know what’s going on if I didn’t already know the story, granted, but it’s those little gains.
So the moral of the story is that I’ll need to use this coming week wisely to come up with a plan of attack for furthering my understanding. I’m already in love with the music, sounds effects, general ambience, and it’s so cool to hear all the things I’d previously only read, and therefore heard, in my head. Definitely going to be running through these tracks several times; I’ll keep everyone updated as I go along.
Quick thoughts:
(Prologue)
It’s such a neat effect to have the English the tourists were saying played along with the Japanese, but whew. @.@ That does not help my Japanese comprehension any, haha. My brain bounces back and forth between the two languages and ends up confused by both, haha.
(Track 1)
Will post more thoughts after I’ve re-listened to it a couple of times, but fun fact: when Mr. Fox is talking about notable navy men under Elizabeth I’s command, he mentions Thomas Frobisher, which is a mistake carried over from the first book. The man’s name is actually Martin Frobisher.
I love having you on the crew of this journey, as you’ve already noted stuff I’ve totally missed (the wrong name mistake! XD)
But, yeah, I’m sure this will be a challenge as it was to me initially when I first encountered these some 10 years ago. I can only hope my listening has improved to help me (thought the first track was for me personally easy, I expect more confusion going further! XD). I never completely understood the story before. I’ll grateful for the gains I might get from this relistening I feel as I just understand better through audio than written! XD
Glad to be here! Only reason I caught that mistake though is because I’ve had reason to go through volume 1 with a fine-toothed comb lately. Otherwise I definitely would’ve missed it.
Dang, 10 years. Yeah, you’ll 100% be able to understand more! Maybe not as much as you’d want, depending on your listening practice over the past decade, but I bet it’ll be a ton of fun for you to revisit everything. Do you already own the all CDs (main, extra talk, and spinoff, out of curiosity), or are there some you’re still missing?
I just finished the listening for this week and . . . i’m lucky if i understood half of it
The speed is pretty fast and the a lot of the vocabulary is either unknown or new, which makes it that much more difficult.
I want to ask about one of the scenes between Kaito and Kazuya, but I’m not sure how to hide spoilers, so i’ll follow up with a question once I figure that out.
I’ve been hoping to do a thorough re-listening of the tracks myself this week and have just been slammed at work so I end up forgetting in the afternoon. Thanks for reminding me!
I could understand that Kaito said something that upset Kazuya, but I’m not sure what it was about? I think Kaito was talking about their complicated relationship or something about their parents. Can someone tell me what is was specifically and/or some of the vocab that was used? Then I can listen to it again.
I’m not sure of the specifics in terms of vocabulary or whatnot, since my own listening is lacking, but I can give you a general idea: Kaito’s father is a bigshot at his company, and Kazuya’s father is Kaito’s dad’s number two. Kaito is under the impression during the argument that Kazuya only hangs out with him because Kazuya feels pressured by their fathers’ relationship (i.e., that he’s sucking up to the boss’ son), which Kazuya denies.
Having the art always add an extra dimension to the OP, I think. Will be posting my thoughts on Track 1 later today once I get to it in the queue, but in the meantime, 
I’m already in love with the music, sounds effects, general ambience, and it’s so cool to hear all the things I’d previously only read, and therefore heard, in my head. Definitely going to be running through these tracks several times; I’ll keep everyone updated as I go along.
Only reason I caught that mistake though is because I’ve had reason to go through volume 1 with a fine-toothed comb lately. 
Do you already own the all CDs (main, extra talk, and spinoff, out of curiosity), or are there some you’re still missing?
Thanks for reminding me!