I’m dooooooooone ! WELL, that was unexpected. At first I was like, he’s not serious right. And it’s quite ridiculous but actually maybe kinda neat in the end? I dunno. I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get more Saikawa&Moe development. I know this is a ミステリー and not 恋愛, but they did get some cute interactions in some previous books. He decided to make the epilogue about Shiki instead. I guess she was Saikawa’s true love all along? Overall I don’t think this was my favorite book of the series but it was ok. The final reveal was big enough to make it a decent ending, but c’mon, give me one last Saikawa&Moe moment plz.
All in all I can’t say I’m a huge fan of this series or Mori’s writing, but somehow I still ended up reading 10 books?? It was fun to bitch about the plot holes and philosophical filler and chain smoking with y’all! Good job everyone.
I have a hunch there will be no more development… As you said, I guess he seems to have always been in love with Shiki, and probably without realizing himself, but finally it somehow dawned on him, I guess. He didn’t answer her invitation for tea, and didn’t react to Sugano’s phone call, after all. And then it ends in a very typical Japanese style, she disappears and nothing remains.
For Moe, I would have wished she had gotten around to the same realization after she received Shiki’s thorough psychotherapy. Namely that she projected her sadness and her loss onto Saikawa (because he was conveniently there and he comforted her) but that she doesn’t love him really, she just searches the lost father figure in him. Now she will be the one who is utterly disappointed when he breaks up with her.
Anyway, all in all I am equally impressed that we together made it through these 10 fat boi books together! (ok in all reality I still didn’t finish vol. 5 yet, but I’m very fine with that…) Congrats to everybody who will or has already finished
(On Saikawa and Moe’s relationship) Interesting! That does make sense. But, but… … But as I’ve said before I don’t think this relationship really made sense anyway. The two main issues for me are that one, they’re very much not equal in this relationship: he’s odler and her teacher, she admires him and uses very polite keigo with him, even in private. Not a great start IMO. The second issue is that Saikawa really seems aromantic and asexual (I don’t think he’s “in love” with Shiki either). Which is fine, but I don’t think this is what Moe is seeking, and I also think that she deserves someone who’s a bit more interested in her. Saikawa does care about her, but in a very detached way.
Ok, I did some googling and it turns out that Moe appears in a bunch of other books: mainly the Gシーリズ, but also others (Vシリーズ, Xシリーズ, 四季シリーズ…). If you’re not planning on reading the books (I’m definitely not) and want some spoilers, the 経歴 section on her wikipedia page has some info. In particular this (rather vague) description is relevant to our discussion: 恋愛においては周りにまで分かりやすすぎるほどアピールをしていたが、鈍感で煮え切らない犀川に激昂することも多かった。しかし萌絵が内面的に成長し、犀川もそれを受け入れることで、Gシリーズでは関係が発展している様子が描かれ、恋人関係とみられる。 Saikawa’s info on the S&Mシリーズ page also has this: シリーズ初期こそ萌絵の内面的なものを考え一定の距離を置いていたが、自らの感情を分析したり、徐々に過去を乗り越えていく萌絵の成長を受け入れ、本作シリーズ以降の作品でも登場するたびに、萌絵との関係は変化している。スピンオフ作品「いつ入れ替わった？」では指輪を渡しているが、四季シリーズ「秋」ではまだ結婚していない様子。 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Btw something else I learned while googling is that the quotes at the beginning of the chapters in this book are from previous books in the series? E.g. the quote from chapter 9 is from book 9 (not sure if they’re in order like that for all chapters). I sure hadn’t noticed.
Also I found this guide for those that want to read only books with Saikawa&Moe development. But… I feel like if you’re looking for 恋愛, there are much better books to read…
Ok seems I was way off with my prediction Well, I’m not planning to read any of the Saikawa&Moe continuations either. I do have access to Mori’s W series, and maybe I will read some of that at some point, who knows. (At least the books are of manageable length in that series )
Ah interesting! I noticed that some of the quotes did not state a source, which I found peculiar, but didn’t reflect about it too long. In earlier books there were often sources given, but it didn’t click with me that the quotes in vol. 10 were from Mori himself.
Huh. Now that you mention it, no. I figured it was just your usual mobile connection but I have no idea. Maybe there’s a chip in there, or the battery case. I’m not really sure how the Internet in these books works anyway. Theoretically if it’s our timeline there should be a mobile network, but I don’t think we’ve seen it in action before…
My assumption was that if they had mobile data at the time it would be at potato speed. But apparently 3G was starting to be a thing in ~2000 so maybe it’s not that crazy.
During most of the book I thought this was solid mid-tier but it all came undone at the end. Ugh.
“It was impossible so it was fake” is such a copout solution. Also, it makes no sense from Nanocraft’s perspective. If they were trying to interest Moe with a fake murder game, I can’t imagine a worse resolution than “there was no solution lol.”
Pretty annoying how the characters acted like all the stupid stuff we were pointing out over the book was reasonable in the moment only to be rug-pulled at the end. “Use the phone box since your room is wiretapped” becomes “Obviously the phone box was wiretapped too” (although I guess in the end that ended up not really being an issue). Why didn’t Moe just use her cell phone then anyway, aren’t they supposed to be smart?!
Shinjo’s plan getting thrown out of whack just cuz Ai touched the body also seems ridiculous to me. She’s just a college student and she was panicking so it seems like it would’ve been easy to convince her she was wrong, OR they could’ve just said it was a dummy. Like, who cares. It would’ve been obvious to Nanocraft that she was guilty but that was going to be the case regardless. I think it’s kinda funny I was kinda right about Fujiwara getting stabbed at the beginning
And yeah, Saikawa getting to wear the glasses for hours out of the darkroom was ridiculous. Same with Shiki managing to set that all up in her apartment. And walking for hours despite apparently being in that room the whole time. I will say I do like “Seto” having a crush on Saikawa actually being real though.
They outright said that Saikawa loved Shiki, but I think their feelings for each other aren’t typical romantic love. Even though Saikawa and Moe are an awful couple I never for a moment thought Mori would tear them apart, he’s spent 10 books building them up and loves them too much, plus it’s obvious he’s obsessed with couples where the man is older and in a position of authority.
Normally I don’t mind the motive being weak but here it did frustrate me, probably because it’s the final book so can’t we get something meaty for once? Plus they don’t give us ANYTHING, not even a vague handwavey love/jealousy/revenge sorta thing. Also disappointed that “the perfect outsider” ended up irrelevant, especially since “the perfect insider” was so huge.
Anyway, an unfortunately disappointing finale. We should’ve stopped at 7.
I’m not too offended by the solution being “it was fake”. But things like the flying dragon being random crap that’s not related to anything else is indeed a big cop out. It’s like the writers of Lost throwing random weird shit at the viewers without any real plan.
Mori clearly doesn’t care about motives. He says so quite clearly in this chapter. “Who cares about motives!” (well we kind of do actually).
… But as I’ve said before I don’t think this relationship really made sense anyway. The two main issues for me are that one, they’re very much not equal in this relationship: he’s odler and her teacher, she admires him and uses very polite keigo with him, even in private. Not a great start IMO. The second issue is that Saikawa really seems aromantic and asexual (I don’t think he’s “in love” with Shiki either). Which is fine, but I don’t think this is what Moe is seeking, and I also think that she deserves someone who’s a bit more interested in her. Saikawa does care about her, but in a very detached way.
Well, I’m not planning to read any of the Saikawa&Moe continuations either.
)
Huh. Now that you mention it, 
