One reason this book will take me so long is that it keeps sending me on little tangents. Last week was the Motojiro Kajii detour, and this week I’ve decided I need to learn how to play Shogi!
Hope things have settled down a bit! This week’s nice and short. I’ve definitely gotten more comfortable with "である” grammar over the course of the book so far. I’ll admit I’ve cheated a bit by glancing at the English translation now and then to confirm my comprehension–this is a lot harder than Murata! It’s definitely getting smoother as I go, though.
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More interesting things I’ve learned about from this week’s reading: the origins of photography and of perspective in art, as well as the artist Gustave Courbet.
I love that we’ve gotten such in depth introductions to each character. I’m not looking forward to any of them getting murdered, or being a murderer! (although some already seem a bit insane)
@softlyraining I hope all is well! We’re definitely missing you in the bookclubs but I totally understand that life gets in the way.
Anyway, on to week 6. It’s really flying by.
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I’m sorry for not responding! I finally have internet again. Things were kind of dicey with the move, but they’re finally starting to settle down. I’m impressed with how well you’ve been keeping up on the reading! I’m…very far behind. 
BUT, I’m going to try and get myself going again. It might be hard for me to catch up completely, so I hope you don’t mind if my responses are all on past sections you’ve already read through.
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Psyched to have you back! While you’ve dealt with moving I’ve actually happened upon quite a bit of free time–I injured my wrist and can’t fly for a month 
. I figure it’s a good time to do some extra reading and maybe a bit of a sprint through some WK levels.
I’m looking forward to hearing your impressions! I’ve gotten kind of lazy with my responses over the past few weeks since I thought I was alone here. But I’ll definitely step it up again and include proper spoiler tags!
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A bit late to post this week, but I’m hanging on with the reading! Not much time to write much but I will say (very minor spoilers) things have started to get exciting. We get a bit of mystery surrounding the island’s newcomer and start to see some potential motives. The dialogue is dense but pretty much everything I hoped it would be from Nisio Isin.
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Some random thoughts as I read:
This is the first I learned of the concept of Panta Rhei
I googled パーンテナ島 and every hit I got were Japanese speakers reading Kubikiri Cycle who had no idea what this line meant. I ultimately checked the translation and it was “Neverland”, which totally makes sense in context and makes sense with “パーン”, but I’m not sure why it didn’t show up in a Google search. Kudos to Greg Moore.
This chapter ended on a cliff-hanger! We finally get to learn why Kunagisa is really here, and can’t wait to find out what 事件 she’s referring to.
Here goes week 8.
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Well it’s finally happened–one of the titular 首切り. The scene seemed more gruesome than I would have expected, partly because we’ve seen so much of かなみ, and partly because of how slowly I read in Japanese. It was kind of similar to the end of 殺人出産 in how vivid it felt. かなみ was probably my favorite character so far next to 玖渚.
I was thinking about crossing out the かなみ Emoji in the title, but I figured that would constitute a major spoiler. 
I’m pretty sure グルーバーノルベルト and 「川」are made up. At least I couldn’t find what they were a reference to. It’s hard enough to get all the actual references in this book! Does Nisio Isin really need to make some up as well?
Anyway, on to week 9! Longest so far–we’ll see how it goes.
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First of all I have to say, all of these characters are insane! They’re not going to bother calling the cops just so Iria can watch her crush solve a mystery?!
Things have really taken off this week, I actually finished the week’s reading several days ago because I couldn’t put it down, and the moment I finish typing this I’m going to get started on next week’s reading. So now that the mystery is underway, it’s time to start making guesses and accusations. Without a doubt Iria is the most suspicious person here. She brought all these people together and she’s the most likely to know secrets about the house and the island. She clearly has a motive–she seems to enjoy watching everything unfold as if it were her own personal detective drama. As for her alibi, she has 4 maids who seem extremely loyal and could be capable of acting on her behalf or corroborating false alibis. And of course freaking out about calling the police is a huge red flag. I’m honestly shocked that nobody has pointed a finger at Iria yet. The only problem is that right now this explanation seems a little bit too obvious.
On to weeks 10 and 11!
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A bit late this week. I’m pretty happy that I mostly managed to keep pace even with 66 pages in two weeks.
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Past the halfway mark!
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Weeks 15-16
Some long weeks ahead, but I feel like this kicks off the home stretch. My next few weeks will be busy so I’m mildly concerned about my ability to keep up, but with WK reviews starting to taper hopefully it’s do-able. And there are two e citing bookclubs starting in early November, so that’s motivation to finish on time. I’m also dying to find out who the killer is, which is probably my biggest motivation to keep the pace!
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In the home stretch! Mostly pretty heavy reading weeks from here on out.
About this last section: Yaoi’s theory is pretty similar to what I’ve been thinking the whole time! Ilia has been shady as hell, and seems to have some weird fascination with geniuses. She also has (presumably) 4 people who will support her in carrying out any crime she wants to commit. It seems like such a no-brainer that she’s stealing heads if not to eat then at least for some weird science project or collection. But given the last few pages I assume that this actually isn’t the case, although I’m glad somebody finally brought up the obvious.
In some ways reading over such a long time period has been great. I really feel like I’ve known these characters for a while. On the other hand, it makes it difficult to remember clues to try to piece together the mystery for myself. Maybe I should take notes next time.
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Oh man what an intense section!! Big spoilers, click with extreme caution:
I’ve never wanted my reading speed to faster so much as I did during the fight scene. It was cruelly suspenseful waiting to find out who the killer was. And seeing Kunagisa looking down the muzzle of a gun after managing to make it up the stairs was painful. Had she been shot I’m sure I would have cried.
Sonoyama being the murderer feels right to me. I certainly can’t say I called it and I still have no idea how it happened. The long reading time made it tough to keep the clues straight but I’m sure I’ll be losing sleep trying to put the pieces together in my head before it gets explained. I’m glad it wasn’t Ilia stealing heads for some bizarre science experiment. And I’m glad it wasn’t Hikari given how much 僕 and Kunagisa were willing to trust her. I’m curious to see how Shinya fits into all of this. Was the scheme to kill Kanami purely out of personal dislike? Although it seems she was also lying in wait for Yayoi. So many questions, I can’t wait to keep reading.
Sprinting towards the finish here!
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I’ve been keeping up with the reading but it looks like I’ve completely forgotten to make posts these last few weeks! At this point they’re really just marking my progress anyway.
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Final week, here we go!!! I’m actually really curious to see what this epilogue is about. It feels like everything is wrapped up, although there are a lot of details I’d like to see fleshed out.
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I finished the book on Friday! I haven’t had access to a computer with a good keyboard so I’ve waited until now to post. What a wild ride it has been. These last few weeks certainly didn’t relent.
I’m very excited to read more Nisio Isin. If anybody stumbles on this post and has a book that they might be interested in reading together, let me know. In the meantime I might throw a nomination or two into the IBC or ABC. I also would definitely be interested in continuing to read Zaregoto. I almost wish Nisio Isin weren’t quite so prolific, because diving into a full series this huge is still a bit intimidating.
As for the book itself, first and foremost it was an exciting mystery that at times made it nearly impossible to put it down. I had some of my longest-ever Japanese reading sessions because I’d finish a week’s reading and have no choice but to just start the next week’s immediately. As for the mystery itself, the solution was just absurd enough that I would be astounded if anybody reached the conclusion on their own, but just reasonable enough to stay plausible (although it certainly toed the line and some might disagree). Almost every detail mattered but at the same time I’m not sure the details alone were enough to build the whole conclusion, so I didn’t quite experience the moment of “Darn, if I were more clever I would have figured that out!”
The characters were all interesting and unique, and I genuinely enjoyed reading MC’s interactions with each of them. Many were not as intricate or well-developed as the Monogatari characters, but I suppose that’s an unfair statement when I’m comparing one book to 100 episodes of an anime. That being said, some of the characters really do indicate the level of depth so particular to the works of Nisio Isin that I’m familiar with. At the very least, even when certain characters weren’t as thoroughly explored as I would have liked, there were always hints of interesting pasts or personalities that really made me want to find out more. I don’t know to what extent the Zaregoto series reuses characters, but if some of these characters make future appearances, that is even more motivation to keep going with it.
The main (unnamed) character poses an interesting question. His situation was strange in that others kept telling him who he was and what he should think or do. He wasn’t a typical blank slate MC, but at the same time he was only ever defined through his interactions with others. I’m still wondering the reasons for this stylistic choice.
I started watching the anime a couple days ago. I have to say it’s been an almost surreal experience seeing the setting and characters brought to life in such an over-the-top and visually stunning animation. This is the first time that I’ve read a Japanese book prior to watching the anime adaptation (manga doesn’t really feel the same since you have pictures to begin with), and it’s been so cool to see things play out in real time (my reading is more like a conversation in extreme slow-motion).
I dove into this without really any idea whether I could pull off the pace I set. I also expected that even if I could do it, I’d pretty much have to focus on this book exclusively. However (perhaps thanks to some lucky work downtime from weeks 3-8), I was able to keep up and still balance the Murata bookclub along with a few others. Basically, this was a huge confidence builder. Other long books feel a bit less intimidating with a 550 page book under my belt. I finally feel that with a bit of patience I can reasonably choose to take on pretty much any book I want (at least in the realm of modern Japanese prose).