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Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
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The inspiration for this story is a rakugo which this site summarises in Japanese of the “setup for a joke” kind. The rakugo in turn is riffing on the classic ghost story Okiku and the Nine Plates summarized in English here. So I would recommend reading the ghost story before the rakugo; no opinion yet on what order to slot in the short story (which I haven’t read yet).
So, having now read the short story, I think the author assumes you know the original ghost story already.
The rakugo is not needed (though I think its punchline is funny).
Story spoiler thoughts:
I really liked this one. In particular the details of Himeji gave it a feeling of being set in a specific place that most of the other stories don’t have. I liked the inversion where in the ghost story the guy takes away a plate and kicks off a tragedy, but here a guy brings a plate and kicks off a love story.
I thought this story was really cute! When I was going from Kyoto to Hiroshima, I got off in Himeji for a bit to check out the castle from the outside. I didn’t really have time to see more, but now I am really keen to see Okiku’s well, the old monorail skeleton and those huge salamanders!
Thanks for the links! So nice to be able to see some of the things and places described.
I too want to visit Himeji now. I had read the Okiku story before (I think it was when Okiku got a brief mention in the first story?) and had liked it a lot. The inversion of the ghost story was really cute.
