Week 8: すべてがFになる - The Perfect Insider

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Week 8

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Start Date: May 29th
Previous Part: Week 7
Next Part: Week 9

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapter Page Count
Week 8 May 29th Chapter 8 48

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Chapter 8 has 9 parts.

I had a couple days of vacation and got confused on the day of the week so I may have started a bit early :sweat_smile:

This week’s cigarette count: 4 for Saikawa, 3 for Shibaike (the inspector), 2 for Gidou (the journalist). Hopefully 0 for Moe.

The story is not unfolding the way I expected, not that I’m very good at guessing. Well, I did kind of expect Yamane to be dead, although I hoped they wouldn’t kill him off as I had more time to get attached :confused: But I really wasn’t expecting them to get communications back, or the police to come before they figured it out, or the police to be so useless, or someone else to die.

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犀川 must be rationing - his first cigarettes were smoked in part 5, although 芝池 smoked in front of him earlier! Total count: … 3? 世津子 and 芝池 might have actually smoked more!

Seems I missed one somewhere!

As for the story… That is a lot of police officers. Like 犀川, I expected much less of those. I expected 山根 to be dead after he vanished last time… I wonder, does this have something to do with why 四季 didn’t want them to shut down the red magic? This did seem to happen at exactly the moment they shut down the system.

I loved our ladies’ chat, even if, or maybe especially because they’re all on such different pages. That was fun, until there was a dead body. Oh well. :upside_down_face:

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To clarify I just keep track in my head, so again it’s totally possible that I made a mistake. Also, this time I did count one that we didn’t see him lighting up, since it was really far away from any other cigarette.

Yeah I was pretty surprised too but then I thought, Japan has so little crime, a double murder must be a really big event? Well come to think of it, this kind of murder would be a big news anywhere I think.

Mhh good point. I was actually wondering the opposite. That maybe the whole point of this big murder set up was to force them to turn off red magic for some reason?? But that wouldn’t explain at all why Yamane was killed.

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Yep, I’m with you here. (Also counted the detached one.)

Indeed :slight_smile: Very interesting!

I was pretty convinced that this would be the case. Although I was really surprised they found him in his own bathroom… I mean, how thoroughly did they check?? That was a bit silly of everybody.

Hmmm, I had no real expectations about that one, but it went surprisingly smoothly. I had expected some more hiccups (like people couldn’t enter or leave rooms any more, or something).

Well, they both claimed that they at least figured out something (after the blackout and Saikawa-fit scene). I was a bit disappointed that we neither learned more about this nor that they dropped some hints in the direction of police, though. But yeah, we need to get closer to the end before the big reveal can happen, I guess.

Isn’t that the standard prerequisite anyways? I must say I was rather impressed how much they figured out after their initial panic when they learned about the computer-only environment :joy_cat: (Like, the young dude who knew all the statistics about the residents and stuff.)

Yes, that was really fun watching them get drunk together :joy_cat: Walking across the hallway with a straight face, and then dashing off giggling - really sweet! And also the little banter between Moe and that mysterious lady…

Actually I was just thinking, it might as well turn out that she ends up being his sister or something :wink: I mean, she is very familiar with him, and he stays over at her place frequently, so she might as well be family…

Altogether, I must say I’m still super-impressed how well the author’s technical vision fits our current reality. I mean, of course lots of these things were already in existence 25 years ago, but they were not widespread outside of academia, especially not in Japan, I guess. Many of his ideas feel pretty modern to me.

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I’m caught up now! A lot of good comments from all of you (especially that it seems ridiculous for Yamane to be found in his own bathroom after the police saying they searched every crevice of the facility).

The drinking session was enjoyable too, but the highlight of this chapter for me was the 現実 conversation between Saikawa and Moe. That the world was moving in a direction where eventually everyone would be living in their own private reality. Even more than the technological details, that was a pretty prescient prediction… :open_mouth:

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I also must say that I’m pretty intrigued to see where that whole 現実 angle leads us. We’re getting to a point where I feel like hell’s about to break loose. The police are there, Yamane is dead – just seems like its about time for some crazy revelation. Probably having to do with the Magata sisters, Michiru, and the virtual reality experience. Whatever it is, I’m fully hooked now!

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Caught up! Lots of stuff going on. A lot of it is different from the drama, so now I’m not sure what parts of what I remember (which isn’t much) will actually happen. :thinking:

A few thoughts about this chapter

I think the amount of police officers might be 萌絵’s コネ again, but I don’t know… Her 叔父様 might’ve just thrown all the officers he could at the case she got mixed up in, or maybe there is some other reason.

Just how I thought it was silly of such smart people to split up in a building of murder suspects, I also thought it was silly that they never once thought, oh hey, two people have been killed and now a third has gone missing, I wonder if something bad might’ve happened to him?

For a non-terrible and not particularly out there person, 犀川 is amazingly unrelatable to me, lol. Every time he talks for more than a sentence or two I’m resonating with vague disagreement which sometimes solidifies into a solid nope. I don’t dislike him, but might if I met him in person. :joy:

I also loved the ladies’ chat! 萌絵 isn’t technically old enough to drink legally, right? An interesting choice to do so anyway in a building stuffed to the gills with police officers, but it led to a scene I enjoyed a lot.

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