Totally agree! I feel like the authorās done a good job of making the present day parts pretty interesting, despite the short time we spend there.
You can do it! Be prepared for a bit more political talk once the history bits are done, haha. How does Scotland treat Mary in history classes and so forth?
Hmm, I think we maybe had some stuff on kings and queens of Britain in general maybe in elementary/primary school which might have briefly included stuff on Elizabeth and Mary, but it wasnāt ever a huge focus I think 
. That said, there are many castles landmarks etc around here that bear some relation to her, and her story is referenced enough in other things that at least the general outline of it was known to me. I may well learn some new details from this book though hahah!
Just got to the beginning of chapter 4 and the opening of this chapter is starting to live up to the BL tag
I also loved this, was a bit like āhey my dude, is this really more likely than time travel???ā (I guess for that time periodā¦.yes)
I also found myself quite liking Vicente, despite the strangling of Kaito. Then again, Kaito was breaking ALL of the rules of what to do if you time travel so maybe spirits trying to prevent the shattering of the timeline momentarily possessed Vicente to get Kaito to stop spilling all of the future beans (this is 100% not a real theory).
Also, what with Kazuya and now Vicente there are too many characters that have been well set up to an extent that I really want some confirmation that they will be major characters and not just disappear off screen! I am somewhat more confident that we havenāt seen the last of Vicente than I am about Kazuya,
Right? I just finished chapter 6 this weekend, and all Iāll say for now is that Jeffrey is still up to shenanigans.
Too late, Iām head-canoning this, haha.
Yep. It may just be because we havenāt met many named/important characters yet, but I want to see more of him.
I have no idea if this should be considered a spoiler, but Iām pretty sure Vicente repeatedly appears on future book covers, so Iām sure we havenāt seen the last of him yet.
So as mentioned, Iāve finished up chapters 5 and 6 since last posting here. No major thoughts from those chapters besides these:
Phew, that really sounds somewhat backwards to me 
Haha I must confess this confused me quite a bit
When I started reading, after the first few lines I was all like āOK here we go 
ā but when I read further, I was like ācan the author really throw us into such a scene like this? Am I maybe imagining things?ā Also because he is an actor, I was thinking that maybe this is the description of an erotic theatre play or something so I read the opening scene about 3 times because I doubted myself so much 
(But afterwards it became pretty clear, so all sorted ^^)
Actually all of this since the book started, no? As Kaito and Kazuya had just found a place to stay for the night after their visit to Landās End.
At some point during reading I reflected on that as well, but then I wondered whether he maybe stayed overnight at the doctorās place? I donāt really recall. Or maybe he just slept there for a bit because he was unconscious from the strangling.
Ooooh, more tempting things under spoiler tags, Iāve got to catch up! 
Luckily I have some long bus trips this coming week.
In related news - the reason I have long bus trips is that Iām going down to London to sit the JLPT this weekend. I have a bit of free time while Iām there the day before the JLPT and have been doing a bit of googling which has revealed that there is a free exhibition at the royal maritime museum on this era of seafaring, and there is also a full size replica of the ship that Francis Drake sailed around the world on (The Golden Hinde) that you can walk around and take an audio tour of. It might be that after an overnight bus from Scotland I end up not being in the mood for museums but Iām currently thinking that I will check them out! If I do will make sure to share any relevant pictures etc here 
Oh wow! Let us know whether you can get any additional information on our real-life heroes there!
Yeah, it sits right next to the Borough Market (make sure to check that one out if itās on, they have a nice assortment of food stalls there!), I walked past it (the Golden Hinde, that is) quite a few times when I was in London for work. It is so tiny! Unbelievable that somebody would sail around the world in that nutshellā¦
Good luck on the JLPT!! And 
Iām so jealous! Definitely post pictures here of any cool stuff you see!
Ah, both very good thoughts Iād forgotten about. Quite a bit has happened for the poor guy in a short amount of time, regardless!
I also wanted to mention that being able to chat about the book is a big part of me reading through so quickly that and looking for BL. Itāll almost be a relief to finish; feels like my brainās going to fall out after some reading sessions. @.@
Disregard what I typed before Nicole; that was at the end of a very long day, and I came back and couldnāt figure out why I had written that. x.x
Finished chapter 7. That was a pretty good chapter, I gotta say.
Some introspection on Jeffreyās part (Geoffrey? I just realized while typing this I donāt know if the author has a preferred romanization. I should probably check to see if heās a real personā¦); his childhood continues to worsen, haha. We get to meet Drake, who seems like a pretty cool dude. And dang, it comes out that Kaito can see the future! I like the detail about him needing a mirror or sword to see it; fun little nod to Japanās Imperial Regalia. Iām curious how this is going to work out for Kaito; I know Iād be super nervous about mis-remembering something. I believe heās supposed to be a history buff about this time period at least, right? Or maybe just for Drakeās adventures, I canāt remember.
Regardless, seems the authorās maneuvered him nicely into a situation where he and ćøć§ććŖć¼ get to spend more quality time together. Iām curious if Kaitoās going to continue being a cabin boy, or if heāll get slotted into some other role on the ship. Iām also looking forward to seeing more of the shipās crew; thatās a whole boat of people we can get to know, starting with Nigel.
Also, I meant to mention this before but forgot: having Kaitoās Japanese speech be represented in all katakana is both cool and difficult to read. x.x
So question regarding something in chapters 3 and 7: I should probably just double-check myself, but maybe someone here knows off the top of their head. Did ćć»ć³ć tell Kaito his āthis kid must be from a fortune-telling clanā theory out loud? I was thinking Vicente was just thinking about it in his head, but Kaitoās new cover story is close enough to Vicenteās guess that Iām doubting my memory now.
Just two chapters left. 
Itās a shame todayās the last day of the month; I was kind of hoping I could read the whole thing within a month, but hey. Interestingly, Amazon tells me that book one is about 300 pages, but all the ones after it are about 200? So future books should be quicker no matter what.
Done! I should probably type out my thoughts here while theyāre fresh, but I kind of want to let them sit and stew, haha. Suffice to say, I really enjoyed the book, and cannot wait to read more with you all in August. 
It took me exactly one month to read the book (June 2-July 2), which is a new record for me, I think. I still had to look up a metric ton of vocab, but thatās how it always goes.
Gonna take a short break to recharge my mind before my next JP book; not sure if Iāll go with č¬å±ć®ć²ćØćććØ 2 or something a bit easierā¦
Anyway, I think you mentioned before that you had a question about something in the end, @NicoleIsEnough? What was it?
Iāve been spying over on natively and saw you finished the book, @pyororon? What did you think of it?
Oh, thanks for thinking of me! (And sorry for the very late answer, I was super busy with JLPT prep and then I immediately took a holiday afterwards 
)
[I wrote this up quite some time ago, and we already discussed the density of the events or rather the brevity of time passed, but I left it in here for the sake of completeness.]
I found it quite remarkable that the majority of the book takes place in a single day. They visit Landās End, then get to Plymouth and search for a B&B, when Kaito jumps into the past and then itās just the same day until they visit Drakeās house. (Oh wait, now that I think about it, maybe he spent a night at the doctorās? Well anyway.)
The next day they return to the ship and immediately set sail (to hide Kaito from Walsingham).
So far so well, the numbered chapters end and we get a chapter called äŗę. (Is this meant to address the reader, i.e. is this a chapter that gives a peek into the next book? Or does this just mean āPremonitionā as a regular chapter title? Because the word occurs in the text as well. Or both?)
In this chapter, at first we see how Vicente has an audience with the king of Spain. So it must have taken him quite some time to get from Plymouth to Spain, no? Maybe a month. Ok nevermind, maybe itās just a teaser, like the title suggests? But THEN we get a scene which seems to be from before they set sail for the first time? I have a hard time to fit this in somehow. Or does this also point into the future, to a time when they return to Plymouth again? Because in that scene everybody is already very annoyed by Kaitoās presence and Jeffreyās behaviour, it seems. So maybe this shows that some time passed already.
I hope we will revisit these scenes and the time in between in the second volume, though!
So after seeing his name typed out again, Iām going to headcanon the spelling as Geoffrey until I see the author say otherwise. Feels more period-appropriate, and if heās Jeffrey then he could be shortened to āJeffā, which sounds horrifying. DX
So maybe this will help: Vicenteās visit with Spainās king occurs in the final chapter of the of book, not äŗę. Iām not sure about how it fits in timing-wise, because like you said it should have taken him at least more than a day to get back to Spain, set up an audience, actually have the audience, etc. Book 2 might clear things up; it could potentially start several months after the end of book 1, for instance. If there isnāt a time skip, I would assume the author just jumped ahead temporarily to keep Vicente fresh and exciting in our minds.
I assumed the extra was titled äŗę to reflect Nigelās premonition that Geoffrey wasnāt going to get tired of Kaito like he had with previous flings, seeing as how Kaito wasnāt predicting anything and the extra takes place before they set sail.
I have been making very slow progress over the last couple of weeks 
Keep finding myself only starting reading when Iām already way too tired. Still, continue to inch forward 
Anyway, in chapter 5 we get some slight freaking out from Kaito on the medical capabilities of the period. When I visited the Golden Hind in London it included a display case of medical tools and, um, yeah, those worries seem fair!
Thatās a good call! Iāve only been exposed to this name once, and that person spelled his name as āJeffreyā, so Iām sort of biased here. But Geoffrey sounds much more suitable to the period, indeed.
Oh! I must confess that I only wrote this a few days after I finished reading, and in the meantime my brain came up with its own version of the text, it seems
Thatās a good call. So far the whole story had been written without any gaps, so I was really surprised by this jump. I guess weāll see when we start Book 2!
Thatās an interesting narration style. Curious to see whether this will happen more often.
I thought that was fun! āOh my god, everything is so unhygienic around here!ā 
Oh, great! How did you like it? Isnāt it tiny?!
looks at pictures
faints
Phew, Iām really happy that we are now better off when it comes to medicine and stuffā¦
Yeah, I thought it was really interesting! Theyāve definitely gone to a lot of effort to make it an interesting experience, with the audio-tour and exhibits etc. It is indeed so tiny! Especially the ceiling heights on most of the decks. Iām not exactly a giant at 5 ft 3/160cm and I was going between āI have to crouch a bit to avoid hitting my headā and having to do a full real crouch down. I mean, you do hear that people were shorter in the past but I still donāt imagine it would have been comfy, especially when you think about how many people (and animals!) would have been on board.
Thatā¦that mightāve been me. I wasnāt originally considering the possibilities when I started Romanizing his name, so here we are.
This is going to sound really dumb, but Iām almost a little bit jealous. I really enjoyed reading through the book, and I would like to read more. :3 Been considering maybe even doing a little bit of re-reading before we start book 2.
Ah, and speaking of, how did the JLPT go for you and @NicoleIsEnough?
Thank you so much for the pictures! This is super cool to see! This kind of stuff would give me nightmares, I gotta say. I was truly feeling for poor Kaito there. :\ Definitely one of those things you donāt really consider when thinking about all the times you could time travel to. Maybe if heās (un)lucky heāll land in a situation where any vaccines he has can save him amid the dying and heāll have one more mystic foreigner feather in his cap.
Man, thatās pretty crazy. I guess you get used to the small space real quick, but thatās definitely something they donāt really show in movies.
Oh, sorry, I phrased this awkwardly. What I wanted to say was that so far I only met one person in real life (a former coworker) whose name was pronounced like that, and he wrote his name as āJeffreyā. So no, it wasnāt you (unless you are that person which I doubt somewhat ).
Anyways, further research shows that while both variations have been around in the middle ages already, āJeffreyā seems to be rather the American variation and āGeoffreyā the British one? (That would at least match my coworkerās nationality.)
Now THAT would be quite the plot twist
But, realistically speaking, many of the severe illnesses that were prevalent in the middle ages (like pest, leprosy, syphilis, typhus, cholera) have been drastically diminished through measures of hygiene, so in first-world countries we donāt get vaccines on a regular basis for them.
I see, I see. No worries, Iām pretty sure we donāt know each other, haha. Thinking on it, I donāt think Iāve ever met a Jeffrey (of either variety) in real life.
That also makes a lot of sense. One of those spelling variations where Iāve never stopped to think about why thereās a variation.
Oho, very interesting. Guess our boy Kaito is boned, then. 
Iād like to do more research on diseases in that time period. And speaking of which, what is āpestā? Typo, or a disease Iāve never heard of before?
Would have been pretty amazing, though 
Hm, my dictionary gave me that translation 
(it happens to be called the same name in German, so I didnāt really question it ). It also goes by the name of Black Death, if that rings a bell? Ah, Wikipedia says itās also called bubonic plague:
Ah, now that Iāve heard of, haha. Searching for āpestā in conjunction with bubonic plague/black death just brings back results about rats and fleas, so Iām curious where that comes from.
