I’m still kind of hoping that the wife will turn out to have been running a convoluted scheme of her own, but it’s looking less likely huh.
I’m very excited to finally get a taste of Panorama Island and the weird stuff it may hold though! Even if it’s just the entrance so far…
I can’t confess to have been as staggered and awed and even horrified by underwater walkways as described here, but I’m more than happy to give Ranpo the benefit of the doubt that in (fictional) person the effect was even more pronounced than his descriptions. Especially since I’m definitely among the 陸上の人達 who 実際海中に入ってそれを見た人でなくては、想像出来るものではないのです. So I’ll let Ranpo tell me what’s what.
To 想像出来る a bit more, I wanted to collate pictures of all the marine life vocabulary:
(I spent ages a while puzzling over 二刷子 here thinking it was maybe a name of a fish, or something else, or what, but I THIIIIIINK that bit is describing the fish’s eye as like, double-lashed or something… maybe, and it’s just an unnamed fish that scares her. Strange how more intensely specific naming the seaweed gets than the fish huh)
In retrospect I probably didn’t need to spoiler mark it so heavily, but at least this way everyone has the opportunity to try to vaguely picture a truly startling number of wet plants on their own without prior influence!
I wouldn’t call the gallery spoiler material, more like much-needed footnotes.
That being said, I did feel like I was able to get a good mental picture of all the seaweed and fish based on Edogawa’s descriptions, but it did take me FOREVER to get through those last few pages. My confidence in reading Japanese has really taken a hit while reading this book. But my head hasn’t exploded yet…
