This was in no way a comment on the plot point itself, which I agree was totally glossed over 
I just meant to clarify that that wasn’t directly referenced by the sentence, so we’re inferring what he did and what his motivations were.
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Just finished. Yaaay.
After the Kiki fiasco I was afraid this would turn out the same, but fortunately it went well.
It feels kind of amazing to have finished a whole Japanese book and understood what was happening even if some details flew right over my head.
I feel like on my own the book might not have held my interest that much but reading with the club was fun. At least in my case, seeing a wall of spoilered text and wanting to get in on the discussion is a great source of motivation.
About the plot
I can’t hold all these inconsistencies, but whatever I guess.
I find it funny/worrying that the teacher was just terrible in the end and not part of the scheming.
At least now I can say a read a sci-fi book in Japanese
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In chapter 22, page 124 of the Tsubasa version, does わかっておくれ just mean “slow to understand”?
I was thinking おくれ might be imperative form of 贈る. That would make sense in my mind. But I have no idea if this something japanese people ever say.
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I thought it was this grammar point in the imperative:
But grammar is my weakest point so I could be terribly wrong.
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That was my first thought, but the conjugation is wrong. In the imperative it would be わかっておけ (or colloquially わかっとけ). Then I thought maybe it was ておく and てくれ(る), but then that would be わかっておいてくれ.
Maybe it’s just equivalent to てくれ though?
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I found this discussion thread.
It is about ておくれ. I only read bits and pieces of it. But if I got the gist, their explanation is that it is the command form of くれる with お in front to soften it.
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To be fair, it’s a common thing in time travel stories to have fixed points (major events) that can’t be changed, while smaller things can be changed all the time.
But yeah, probably just poor writing. 
Anyway, I’m done now. I’ll also probably read the short stories at some point just to say I completed the whole book.
Overall I was disappointed with the plot and execution. Felt like not much happened. I didn’t love 魔女の宅急便 either, but between that and 時をかける少女, I’d say 魔女の宅急便 was better. But I am super proud of everyone that finished the book (or will soon)! It’s so much more exciting compared to when just 4 people finished last time.
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Ooooh, question for those who’ve read the book and seen the anime: which did you prefer?
- Book
- Anime
0 voters
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I need to re-watch it. I had it on DVD, but lent it to a friend, who is now ex-friend… ^^;
When you finish the book vote here:
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I haven’t actually finished the book, but I only have the last two pages left, so I figured it should be okay to vote anyway!
And I can always just change it later if the last two pages make me change my mind
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Anyone who comes from the future and is like, “yeah, the 1960s. Boy, I wish I could just stay in this time instead. The 1960s sure is a great time to live” is someone I don’t think I like as a person 
”everything is super awesome in the future but boy I wish I could go live with comparatively ignorant people who don’t know anything about technology, in the middle of world wars and imperialism, income inequality, racist, sexism, cisheteronormativity, disease…
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It’s more like all the things that were going on that hippies needed to respond to
It’s not like modern times are Worst Times, but he basically describes a utopia, so it’s like… o rly?
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But in the future, the rich people send all the hippies to live on other planets. Kazuo just really loves hippies!
That reminds me, when I was a teenager, there were lots of rumors that other cities would give homeless people free bus tickets to come to my hometown. We had a lot of homeless people for being a small town
Just finished the book! My first Japanese book that I’ve read to completion!
I’ll never be able to think of lavender in the same way I guess.
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I happened to read 時の女神 (the first short story in my version) in front of a computer, so I put the vocab I searched into a new sheet in the Google spreadsheet
It’s a pretty weird story
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I started reading it but lost interest after what appeared to just be description after description of this woman.
I was pretty tired and had just read two chapters of this book and then 20 or so pages of the Absolute Beginner bookclub book.
I’ll probably read the short stories tonight. Maybe.
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