Welcome to the first week of わんわん探偵団 !
This is a long post, but please read it before diving in.
Don’t feel shy about posting any and all questions you have. We’re here to help each other. I can guarantee that somebody else will be silently grateful you asked, and nobody minds explaining things to others - it’s a useful way to learn.
Important points:
- Please include the page number for every question you ask
- Check whether your question has already been asked / answered before posting
- Remember to utilise the vocab spreadsheet
- If you’re contributing to the spreadsheet (and please do!) then please read and make sure you understand the guidelines in the first sheet
- Blur out any major events when posting, however early in the ‘week’ they occur (like so: [spoiler]text here[/spoiler])
Pace and Asking Questions
I don’t want to dictate exactly how much you read each day. However, for at least the first few weeks I anticipate quite a lot of questions, and it can get difficult to follow the thread if questions are jumping back and forth between pages.
For now therefore, I’d ask that people post questions according to a “one-page-per-day” approach: page 6 on Monday, page 7 on Tuesday, page 8 on Wednesday and page 10 on Thursday. You’re very welcome to continue asking about e.g. page 6 throughout the rest of the week, but try not to post about pages ahead of schedule.
I’m considering the ‘current day’ to be roughly aligned with Tokyo - there’s an indicator in the OP 
Tips for First-Time Readers
- Jisho is a popular online Japanese-English dictionary, and the usual source for populating the spreadsheet
- ichi.moe is a popular tool for parsing out sentences, but it’s not infallible and I would encourage you to practise that yourself where possible
- Google Translate is not your friend
But: remember that the whole point of reading as a group is to help each other. It can be a lot quicker and easier to ask a question here than to agonise over it yourself. Moreover, your question and the answer will help everyone else reading along.
Character List
It’s easy to get tripped up by names, and context always makes things easier to understand. This is taken from page 4.
People who appear in this book: この本にでてくる人たち
スピッツかわい
The protagonist of this book. A dog trainer. As a result of looking after dogs who don’t have an owner, he’s rather poor. He lives in an old kindergarten building.
はなえ-さん
Spitz’s neighbour, the proprietor of a picture book store. Spitz loves Hanae-san, but doesn’t know how she feels.
黒星けいぶ (Police Inspector くろぼし)
An Inspector of the Metropolitan Police Department. Drags Spitz into cases. His face is just like a Pomeranian.
マネー金山-さん
A rich person from the top of the hill. Her much-loved Telescope Goldfish goes missing.