A shorter part this time. Nigelâs making good on his previous and studying up on navigation and math, to the point where heâs getting very little sleep or food. He passes out at some point and wakes to Geoffrey and Meneer chatting.
Meneer has a few kind words to say about Nigelâs effort, and Geoffrey gets to reaffirm his friendship with Nigel. It was a pretty cute passage overall;
And done! What a nice little story; I wonât summarize what happened in part five here, but I had a lot of fun reading the whole thing! Good call on that last illustration @NicoleIsEnough; you were right on the money. Iâm also appreciative of the last little timeline but we got at the end: Geoffreyâs been in command of the Gloria for around two years by the time he meets Kaito. Calling the Gloria a ânewly-built shipâ is rather vague, so it could be three or four years, depending on how things wouldâve been calculated, but give or take itâs good to know.
So, my final thoughts on when I would recommend a newcomer read this particular story: the minimum hasnât changed (just go ahead and finish up volume 3 before reading this), and Iâd like to put forth having read no farther than volume 8 (so, you havenât started volume 9) as the longest time to wait before starting this story. My justification being (volume 9 spoilers) that when you first meet Jan you can have a fun game of âis heâŠ???â before the reveal.
The story reads like thereâs not any reason you have to read this before volume xx, though; there doesnât appear to be any crucial information that would hurt the readerâs experiences if they didnât read this story immediately.
Edit: haha, your deleting trick works great @ekg ~
Iâm also kind of curious, thinking about it: I wonder if the scar Kaito notices way back in volume two when Geoffreyâs bathing, in La Rochelle, is the one he gets here?
I was wondering whether we might actually want two columns in the spreadsheet: one about âwhere in the timeline is this story setâ and another about âwhere in the sequence of main books (maybe plus side stories) is the best time to read this storyâ? What do you think?
Although his real name Jan Gryphus is mentioned in the side story as well as in vol. 9, so there is not much to wonder about when you read the story before vol. 9. It would be another thing to read the story after we meet Jan in the main books but before we learn that he knows Geoffrey, but that happens in short succession in vol. 9 iirc? So not sure what youâre aiming at
He initially introduces himself via a fake name, right? All we know is that heâs from the Netherlands and is really tall iirc. He gives his real name and history the same volume, so thereâs not that much mystery, granted. Thereâs not much else Iâm going off of for best time to read this beforehand, haha. Might be easier to align it after reading that next Jan bonus story?
Iâm guessing thereâs not going to be any ideal âread before this volumeâ part, unless thereâs some deep dark lore on all of Geoffreyâs past flings.
Okay, as promised some time ago, Iâve uploaded a folder with the original illustrations ăăăą was printed with when it ran in the ć°èȘŹChara magazine, since they used different illustrations with the reprint in the first F&B Gaiden. Iâve also got other relevant F&B photos/author comments from the magazine as well. Enjoy!
