Week 8: 有限と微小のパン THE PERFECT OUTSIDER

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有限と微小のパン THE PERFECT OUTSIDER Home Thread

Week 8

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Start Date: 19. August
Previous Part: Week 7
Next Part: Week 9

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapter Page Count
Week 8 19. August Chapter 8 97

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Week 9: 有限と微小のパン THE PERFECT OUTSIDER [END]
有限と微小のパン THE PERFECT OUTSIDER
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6; コンクリートの未来的な通路 - I see. :sweat_smile: :joy: It does call to mind a certain image.

8; hmm. Kunieda raises all sorts of flags here. Going jogging alone? And the students questioning her motive in coming is all sorts of foreshadowy… Though I’m not sure of what. I don’t think she was in league with Shiki all along for 9 long volumes. :joy: And then they open the window and leave the house, after being so scared of the outside. That’s why you don’t drink alcohol in dire situations. :person_facepalming: And of course there’s something horrifying in the black sack, like a corpse for example. But leaving it there, even if you’re in a hurry? Seems intentional.

9; that dark room VA explanation using it to feel like you’re in a bigger home was wild. Like why? If you have that sort of money you can probably afford a bit more space. I guess if you want to feel like you have a big library room you could do that? But then you could just have an ‘anywhere’ door that leads to one vr room without having to fool yourself by also not being able to use your corridors.

Anyway. We finally have a sort of explanation for how Moe met Shiki. But if she’s really not there, what does she need food for? I suppose it’s possible she’s in another room down there or something. :thinking:

I don’t know why, but the meta stuff is bothering me more in his book than the others. It doesn’t feel like it’s less than usual at all.

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Same! Plus the repetitions :flushed: I’m in section 4 now, and it’s just regurgitating of the existing theories without any new progress (ok some people appear on the scene who actually know the video game, or video games at all gasp). I was thinking that the remaining 150 pages or so will probably just continue like that, until we finally get the solution, and it’s a bit depressing…

I mean, on the other hand, how did we imagine him to fill these 870 (!) pages if not with meta stuff? :grimacing:

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There’s that too! We get the same stories with slight differences so many times. Maybe it’s to better hide the new, possibly relevant information in there? :sweat_smile:

Okay, so this is just me complaining at this point, feel free to skip. XD

Summary

There was one sentence that really stuck out to me this chapter. Not sure which section. ‘“question x? Question z?” Moe said, asking two questions at the same time.’ Like, we the reader did notice that, thank you. :sweat_smile: There’s just a lot of what feels like fluff. I wonder if the last 100 pages will be able to turn that around for me. Right now it’s my least favorite of the series, which would be a sad note to end things on.

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6:

めっちゃね:rofl: The secret attractiveness of concrete :flushed:

What aggravates me the most is to think that a company with such important secrets that they even hide their entrance from plain sight is unable to withdraw an entrance card from an employee they fired themselves! :woman_facepalming: This is such an incredibly naive writing…

But at least there is still something happening and it’s not just retelling the same stories, so I’m happy.

7:

Same thing, how do they think a fired employee would be able to keep their login to the most secret most important computer of the whole company? Really…

8:

Agree to all you said, @Belerith. Really seems intentional to leave the bag there to be found. But the more interesting question is, who would be inside? I guess it can’t be any of our trio as they are three :woman_shrugging: And I think the time is too short for Kunieda being inside. Also so far none of the long-term people have died, and I don’t feel Mori is willing to break with this tradition right now :rofl: Somebody else from the company? Hanawa? Oh, or maybe Suga. But she helped Shiki so why would she need to die? Intriguing…

9:

The description of the many colored doors rang a bell. Didn’t we have such a scene at the start of the book? Who was it, Hanawa? And he visited Shiki and talked to her. So she met him in VR as well, it seems? Which would then imply that she could actually be anywhere, not particularly in these rooms, but then again the people bringing her the food seemed to have actually met her, without VR.

I found it amusing to encounter this sentence while reading my digital book :rofl:
本も全部バーチャルよ。実物は一冊もなくったって、図書館みたいに何万冊も蔵書がある

12:

Yeah it’s a perfectly good idea to put on a blinding mask and walk around in a dark room where you suspect a murderer to live. And Saikawa is even part of it! It seems they really switched roles where he starts to commit the stupid things …

All:

I think she is there and at the same time she is in the VR. That’s the difference to S&M who are only in real life and can only peek into the VR. So Shiki can do things in VR like eating or throwing bread, and she can do other things in RL like walking and talking.

Yeah this is so frequent and so annoying! Like ok I just witnessed somebody saying something, why do you explain this again? :weary_face: OTOH I notice this rather often in books, and I‘m already wondering whether Japanese readers may be less attentive or understand less of direct actions? :scream: I hope not, though… Will see if I can ask a language partner about this.

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There seems to be a much bigger acceptance of repetitions in general, yeah. (Like with onomatopoeia, or expressions which are in themselves repetitions…)
But usually I’m fine with that. At this point I’m beginning to wonder if there’s really more repetitions in this book or if it bothers me more because I already have some gripes with it. :thinking:

I had the same thought. :joy: But Saikawa is so sure Shiki isn’t there, why take precautions for the unthinkable event of being wrong?

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This book has been full of ridiculous stuff and ツッコミどころ, but this chapter takes the cake. Oh well, at least there’s stuff happening!

The corpse is probably the missing “sailor” from the dragon incident mentioned at the beginning of the book?

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Later I thought that maybe Saikawa actually wanted to meet Shiki, so maybe he went in in the hope of her being there…

Oh yeah right, the corpse need not necessarily be a fresh one. :thinking:

I noticed it as well :thinking: and I think other authors use it a lot less. But I am aware that I am very sensitive regarding bad writing styles, so it’s probably more of a “me” problem anyway.

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At some point they explicitly say that it stinks and something like “腐ってる” if I remember correctly.

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I think Kaneko says it’s stinky when he looks in the bag. The 腐ってる is said by Youko on the phone with Moe, and she rescinds it immediately because she doesn’t actually know if it’s true, Kaneko didn’t actually use that word.

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Yeah the meta is stuff is coming here, but before this I think there was less than usual.

Running into another body at the very end is pretty interesting. And yeah, going into the darkroom and playing by its rules seems ridiculously silly. If you think Shiki is there, why not just grab some flashlights and sweep the place? And Shimada’s credentials still working is also ridiculous… I guess Mori just really wants to set this up. If Shiki isn’t actually here, but has just been projecting into the darkroom, maybe she’s the perfect outsider? She committed the murder without ever stepping foot in the park by programming people to do it, or something. It feels odd to move into the explanation now since it doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten new info for most of the murders recently, but oh well.

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