Kitty Detectives! Week 6 Discussion 🐱

Pages 58 - 67

Story 1: 赤いとびらの家事件

Start Date: 25th November
Last Week: Solution Part 1
Next Week: Story Two Case

Kitty%20Detectives

にゃんにゃん探偵団 Home Thread

We’re reading to the end of Story One this week!

Upcoming Schedule
Week Start Date Part Page Numbers
Week 6 November 25th Solution Part 2 58 - 67
- December 2nd Break :snowman: -
Week 7 December 9th Story 2 Case 70 - 82
Week 8 December 16th Story 2 Solution 84 - 89
- December 23rd Break :christmas_tree: -


Vocabulary List

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5 Likes

I’m not participating but I just wanted to say that seeing the words “Kitty Detectives” makes the forum a nicer place. They’re kitties! And detectives! :+1:

8 Likes

Ahaha :joy: well that makes me happy ^^

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My notes:

p58

p61

p62

p63

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So… no explanation as to how he managed to get Akita into an empty plot without leaving his house? And what did he burn the doorknob in the leaf pile for?

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I think the first issue was sort of addressed last week. Well, in the sense that he did leave his house to dump Akita, not that it gives any explanation as to how he could possibly have managed that in the time.

As for the second, I guess in case someone found the doorknob and worked out the whole fake door thing? But it still seems pretty silly, especially as the doorknob didn’t burn at all :sweat_smile: he could have just put it in a cupboard and nobody would have realised it wasn’t a totally innocent spare doorknob. Presumably he has random assortments of objects for his still life setups :wink:

I was also rather confused this week by the omniscient narrator asserting that of course the case of jewels had been buried, and then the plank used to create the bridge was placed on top of that, and then the leaves were burnt on top of that, before they actually went and dug it all up and had a look. Like, how can you so confidently assert that of course the plank was placed on top of the case before burning the leaves! Why would you even need to dispose of the plank?

3 Likes

He put him on a cart, and pushed it down the hill.

The plank isn’t being disposed of - it’s protecting the case of jewels from the fire. And/or the dirt. Or being walked on. It’s multi-purpose!

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Ooooooh, okay, that makes sense. I still think burying it seems like protection enough (apart from the dirt aspect, but does he really care about the case itself that much?), but that does make a lot more sense.

:joy: and then burned the cart via a delayed fuse!

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First question!

Page 61

もぐらでも、みつけたんだろうか?

I don’t really understand what function でも is playing after the もぐら? My understanding is that it essentially means ‘even’ (after a noun) or ‘even if’ (after a verb), but that doesn’t seem to make sense here…?

1 Like

Page 61

でも can also mean “or something”.

6 Likes

There are no specifics, I agree, but I don’t think this is as far-fetched as it may seem. If you look at page 16-17 you can see that Akita-san is quite small; he barely reaches the chest of the painter.

The book doesn’t say where is the empty lot where Akita-san gets dumped (just that it is close by), but it is not inconceivable it is in the very same street that reaches the back of the Painter’s house’s 2nd floor. The street is very dark, so it wouldn’t be that difficult for the Painter to carry Akita in his arms a few meters up or down the street and dump him without being seen in two or three minutes.

I do agree though that seven minutes feels a bit tight for all the stuff he has to do: meet Akita outside his fake door, talk to him for a little bit, put him to sleep, carry him out and dump him, take out the fake door and then bring the paintings down to the first floor.

4 Likes

This part’s pretty easy, provided you use movie-chloroform, where you just need to wave it vaguely in their direction and they nod right off.

5 Likes
Veering off course here

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Page 59

だがどこをさがしても宝石はでてない

だが - but
どこ - where
を - object particle
さがして - the て-form of 探す, to search / look for
も - too, even, neither, etc - here it must be a kind of “no matter” as in “no matter where”
宝石は - jewels + topic particle
でて - the て-form of 出る, to appear / to be found
- no idea!
ない - negative

“But, no matter where [we] searched, the gems did not appear”

Any ideas about that in the sentence?

2 Likes

I believe this comes from the verb 出て来る in its negative tense (to appear, to turn up).

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Page 59

Brilliant! Thank you so much! :bowing_man: :+1: :smiley:

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Me when I first started reading page 64:

Confusion

4 Likes

Absolutely!!

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Page 61

  • カポネが フガーと うなっている
    フガー also appears as a sound effect on page 60. The best I can find is fugato, a music term, from Italian. Would that be it?

  • みると, …
    I’m guessing this is 見る, plus と (if, when)… ie, “when [we] look[ed]”. Is that right? And how about the grammar, is that how it works… you just stick the と onto the dictionary form?

  • …まださがしていない…
    This must be まだ (not yet) 探していない, the negative ている form of 探す, to search. But 探していない means “aren’t searching”, doesn’t it? I’d have thought that with まだ, you’d want “haven’t searched [yet]” - (I can’t figure out what that would be in Japanese, but you know what I mean). Ideas?

No, I read it as a kind of hissy-snarly noise that cats make. My usual onomatopoeia dictionary came up blank for it, but when I stuck it into Google, Google suggested maybe I should try フギャー… which also came up blank in the dictionary. Google also suggested this:

That cat needs more oil…

(Gonna need my book to answer the other two)

3 Likes