My favorite quote in this week’s reading is (guess why!):
ひとつは、六十五歳が思っていたよりずっと若いことだ。驚いた。
Again we have a comeback of characters from previous chapters. We learn the first name of the computer instructor and we meet again with one of her students. And we see 浩弥 at work.
So fun to see Hiroya in a green shirt, Muroi at the front desk, Prof Gonno the computer teacher and Tomoka’s classmate Yakita-sensei all making appearances! I agree, those expressions are great.
One thing I wondered is why each chapter emphasizes how the character has a bit of trouble finding the entrance to the Hatori Community House. There is usually a description of how the character arrives at the elementary school, only to kind of wander around before they locate the narrow passage way to the white building. I wonder if this is somehow symbolic of something, since it’s repeated so often. In this chapter, Muroi (?) explains to Masao that due to the dangers for the school children, the school and ComiHouse were separated and the children don’t really go to the community house until they graduate? Maybe I misunderstood that part…it feels like he is alluding to something kind of dark…
That’s an interesting thought. I really like the familiarity of how each character discovers the same things - how to get in, the sign in sheet, a lady named Nozomi, the size of the librarian, the wool felling and the honeydome tin.
There certainly could be some symbolism here. Each character is trying to find their way and that starts with finding their way into the community house? Each character has a hidden desire and they first bump into a character named のぞみ?
On another topic, we’ve had Komachi described as the marshmallow man, this time she was like stacked mochi!
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