Japanese Light Novel Book Club discussion
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02/2015 Another
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I'm going to love reading this thread and see all the wild speculation...a bit sad I can't participate this time since I already know what happens. ALSO IF YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AND SOMEONE GUESS'S RIGHT DON'T CLAIM THEY READ AHEAD AND THAT THEY SPOILED IT OR CONFIRM THAT THEY WERE RIGHT IN PMs OR POSTS...BECAUSE THAT MAKES IT WAYYY WORSE. Just saying it kind of killed the previous thread in the other group I was in because me and one of my friends worked it all out over VOIP with a shared google doc like 1/2 way though and people erroneously claimed we read spoilers which ended up kind of killing it because even though we figured it out a good number of people were not believers yet so it was just one of the 2-3 really good theories people were tossing around, but once like 3-4 idiots jumped in complaining about us reading spoilers the gig was up.If you have read ahead please refrain from baiting/giving hints/posting spoilers(even using spoiler tags just don't), unlike most of the books that have been read this is a mystery book...well a Japanese Horror Mystery but still most of the fun is in wild speculation.
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Ha ha, yeah. I watched the anime a year or so ago, so I'm in the same boat. Reading the book anyway, but totally know where this is going (unless the anime did something different? lol).
Aaron wrote: "If you have read ahead please refrain from baiting/giving hints/posting spoilers(even using spoiler tags just don't), unlike most of the books that have been read this is a mystery book...well a Japanese Horror Mystery but still most of the fun is in wild speculation."
We read another mystery as a group earlier, and did pretty well not spoiling things for each other. I think, so long as spoilers are well labeled (i.e. "Chapter X spoilers.") it's okay to use spoiler tags, since it's kind of read at your own risk. A lot of speculation was also tagged in that other group read thread, which helped lol.
Parker wrote: "Spoiler: people die"No way! XD
May I participate with the Japanese edition? I want to get the English edition but it seems difficult to get it in Japan. I think each chapter is the same as Japanese edition because the number of chapters is the same.
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You should be able to participate with the Japanese edition. Yen Press has done a pretty good job with translating past works and keeping them close to the original.
Having read these and watched the anime, is it acceptable to make lame posts like, "Yeah, good chapter! That was somethin'!" out of fear of dropping a spoiler? I would like to participate, but am miserable at keeping my mouth shut, so I am planning to be very cautious.
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You are also welcome to put information in well-labeled spoiler tags (AKA "Chapter X Spoiler")
If you're reading along, you'll know what happens in each chapter so as to not spoil. :)
Fanta wrote: I want to get the English edition but it seems difficult to get it in Japan. In Australia too. Pity.
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I just read intro & chapter 1. Intro said about the real incidents in 1972, such as Okinawa transition, Sapporo Olympic Games, Asama mountain house, so I thought also the plane crash might be a real incident, but such an incident wasn't written in Wikipedia.I've calculated characters' ages because chapter 1 said about them in detail. It seems that Kouichi's mother was a third grader in that school in 1972 (in the US, not third grader but ninth grader? I'm not sure...). If she were alive, she would be 41 now. His father was 25, 26 years ago. Reiko is 29, according to her (graduated 14 years ago), but she is 30 if she is 11 years younger than her sister (Kouichi said).
As I read, I've wondered if there are "seven mysteries of school (seven wonders?)" in the countries except for Japan. Seven mysteries of school is familiar in Japan.
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Lots of school legends are like this. My high school had one about a cheerleader and drama club member who committed suicide/died in a car accident/overdosed and now haunts the auditorium.
Fanta wrote: "It seems that Kouichi's mother was a third grader in that school in 1972 (in the US, not third grader but ninth grader? I'm not sure...)"
If she was 3rd year of middle school, that would make her a 9th grader here in the states. You were right.
Fanta wrote: "As I read, I've wondered if there are "seven mysteries of school (seven wonders?)" in the countries except for Japan. Seven mysteries of school is familiar in Japan."
The schools I've been to have had some urban legends but nothing like the "seven mysteries/wonders" you see in anime all the time. They're more like stupid rumors or stories, like our one teacher having been a former playboy bunny/stripper, the dead cheerleader/drama student I mentioned earlier, etc. They're not normally supernatural, though, in my experience.
Maybe my schools were just boring. Did anyone else's school have seven wonders?
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What do you guys think so far?
I was surprised that suddenly a lung burst. At first I thought it was a metaphor or something like "a head bursts".Selena wrote: "Maybe my schools were just boring. Did anyone else's school have seven wonders? "
In the real world, if anything, the school that has seven wonders or urban legends is rare, I suppose, though there are many wonders in fiction, which are normally supernatural for example "Eyes of Beethoven in a picture in the music room move at night" and "Hanako in the bathroom" etc.
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I wondered that too, but I looked it up and it's a real thing. CDC says it's rare in the US, but if it's more common in smaller males, I could see it being common in parts of Asia.
I'm a bit been there-done that-bought the file folders (seriously, they are great file folders) with Another, so I expected jumping back in just a year after finishing the anime to be kind of boring. To kind-of echo Selena, though, I'd forgotten how well done the atmosphere was in this book. The anime works as a thriller, I think, but this does way better at being a horror story.
I wonder who the girl in the cover is. Mei or Misaki 26 years ago? By any chance, the cover girl could have nothing to do with the novel. :)
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Mild spoiler that won't spoil anything other than a bit of surprise later in the book somewhere. (And even then, super unspecific. Just putting it in spoiler tag so people don't yell at me lol)
(view spoiler)
I feel an impulse to open the spoiler tag. XD
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It's just a minor detail that doesn't really affect anything in the story, and even then it doesn't give the minor detail, just... a vague reference to it. It's kind of hard to explain without saying it lol
I read Chapter 2. Mei is too mysterious! XD I feel as if she beats around the bush. Why doesn't she talk clearly? The classmates are suspicious too. I am very curious about the description in a English edition when Mei explained what her Kanji name was. Was it written in English edition too?
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Wow, you read quick lol.
I'll let you know when I get to that part. :)
It's a tiny detail, but I love in chapter 2 when the dad's like, "It's a lung disease! Now you have to quit smoking!" As weird and disturbing as this novel is, that's just such a goofy *dad* sort of thing to say.Is there a reason why Koichi's old school's name is censored in this book? If it's for atmosphere, to make things seem unreal, I can kind of see it, but I feel like I've seen other novels do similar things.
Also, when it says Mei is "backlit," all I could think was, "Oooh, is her hair black and blue, or yellow and gold?" XD
To Fanta: They never mention it as kanji, but they discuss how her "name is written." I never considered it before, since I knew it was kanji, but thinking about it now, it's kind of an odd scene. We know the story is set in Japan, so actually saying "kanji" would not have been a distraction.
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It's not really "censoring" as much as letting the reader substitute whatever school comes to mind. Basically, he could have been a kid from your school or area, just like you.
I was surprised at "censor". I think that Japanese novels say any concrete name if it's important or necessary, but if it's not, they usually don't say. At present, it seems natural for me that Koichi's old school's name is not concrete.Allison wrote: "To Fanta: They never mention it as kanji, but they discuss how her "name is written." I never considered it before, since I knew it was kanji, but thinking about it now, it's kind of an odd scene. We know the story is set in Japan, so actually saying "kanji" would not have been a distraction. "
Thanks! And as you say, it's odd, if it doesn't say about kanji. :) Because generally there is one way you can write Japanese name without kanji (because most of Japanese letters have only one speech sound). But it could be difficult to explain "kanji" to people not familiar to Japan. Translators have to work hard.
Does this cover look like a Light Novel's cover?
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I think Yen Press may have made the print copy the omnibus more to sell to audiences that aren't hard-core anime fans. Even with them screwing around with covers, LNs haven't sold very well among non-anime fans in the past (usually because they're shelved with the manga, where no non-anime fan dares to tread). This one, even with the original cover, doesn't look anything like an LN, and the thickness makes it seem like a regular "western" book. It's still shelved with the manga, but it definitely stands out.
Selena wrote: "I'd think this was a typical western novel looking at the cover."Could you tell me some examples of typical western novels that have covers illustrated like Another? I'd like to see them because I've never seen (I think most covers in the west are photographic or symbolic).
Selena wrote: "I think Yen Press may have made the print copy the omnibus more to sell to audiences that aren't hard-core anime fans. Even with them screwing around with covers, LNs haven't sold very well ..."
That's what I wanted to know. If so, I wonder if it is better if I don't make a cover like a LN's when I want also non-anime fans to read my novels.
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), and there's
and
.I think it's all about when they were published, the publisher, the genre, and the audience. The current fad (last I checked; it may have changed) in YA fiction is the symbolic photo because of the Twilight book covers or to have heads "cut off" so the model is anonymous (and probably gets paid less), but a lot of my favorites had drawn covers. A lot of fantasy novels still have drawn covers, whether symbolic or of scenes or characters or creatures.
Photographic covers are cheaper to produce, I think, than getting someone to draw stuff, so that's another reason for the shift probably.
Probably the biggest difference between your book's cover and the usual western bookcover is that there's no background. A lot of manga and LNs seem to have a very simple background or none at all, in my experience, to bring more focus to the characters whereas American (again, in my experience) tend to have much busier backgrounds to focus on the world more than the character(s). They also, in my experience, tend not to look "posed" so much as they're depicted interacting with their world in some way.
Can't say much about covers in the horror genre like Another, though. I actually don't read much horror.
EDIT: Out of curiosity, I used paint to "Americanize" your cover. What's scary is that it looks so typical of an American novel now and I didn't even change anything (spoiler tagged for sake of space)
(view spoiler)
And now I'm getting super off topic. ^^;;;
Thank you very much for your comment, and Selena wrote: "And now I'm getting super off topic. ^^;;; "
I'm sorry I posted off topic. ><
I'll bring this topic to other thread (General Blah Blah Blah, I know only it).
By the way, does Koichi like Reiko? He said that he became tense when he faced Reiko because she resembled his mother, but the description in the novel sounded a little romantic. Is it only for me?
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I'm not sure. Maybe it's an awkward mix of "She's hot, but she looks like my mom!"?
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Who's Seito Sakakibara? Did something happen in the late 90s with a Seito Sakakibara?
Edit: Never mind. Looked it up. I'm assuming this is related to the Kobe child murders?
You're right. It's a real case. I'm surprised that English Wikipedia contains also such thing.
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Wiki has everything about anything. What's debatable is how accurate it is. ;)
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If you aren't stupid, the "horror" won't happen.
Think about it. All Japanese horror (at least, the ones I've read) is easily avoided if you actually listen to other people and follow their advice (for example, don't go into the cursed building if people tell you it's cursed) or if you aren't a total jerk (for example, don't go stealing the stuff from the shrine, that's just wrong). In other words, the average "good" person won't run into these problems.
I don't read/watch a lot of horror, but these are things that I've come to notice from the few I've watched.
Is this the case with most Japanese horror, or is this just in the ones I've seen?
I can't say "most" but can say it is an important part in Japanese.The most horrible horror novel I've read is "Kuroi Ie" (meaning a Black House) written by Yusuke Kishi (also the author of Shin Sekai Yori). The story is that a woman murders and murders people because of getting insurance and Sakaurami (meaning that one hates someone but he/she is bad, unjustified revenge?). Although the protagonist and other characters did nothing bad, they were attacked, so I was frightened. I think this is a "not stupid" case.
There is also a tradition called "Kimo Dameshi" (meaning Testing your courage). In Kimo Damesh, people go into, for example, a ruined school building or hospital at night. In short, people like to go to a horrible place or do horrible thing. So characters in stories do that sort of thing too.
There are many horror stories of "stupid" case on the Internet, whereas in novels, TV dramas, and movies, I think it is not necessarily.
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American stuff is a lot different in this sense. US Horror, besides tending to be blood and gore fests that pretty much bank on "gross" horror rather than psychological, tends to star totally average people who could just as easily be you. Like, a nice family moves into a house (totally normal) and weird things start happening (look into a mirror and your reflection controls you and makes you mutilate yourself) for example.
I know US horror movies have their own collection of cliches and tropes (some of which are just plain comical, like this commercial shows) that are probably a lot different than the Japanese tropes. I don't watch enough US horror to know all the tropes, though, and each kind of horror has a collection of their own tropes (zombie movies versus slasher flicks versus haunted houses) which makes it hard for me to think of all of them off the top of me head. That is why we have a TV Tropes page on the subject.
I read chapter 3. Mysterious things have been increasing.I have a question between Japanese and English again. Did the English edition say about Yobisute (saying Teshigawara not Teshigawara kun)? In the Japanese edtion, Koichi said that he did Yobisute for Teshigawara, when Koichi, Mochizuki and Teshigawara talked after art class. People usually add "kun" or "san" to names before they are friendly, but I know it is only in Japan.
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Using honorifics in the translation is kind of up to the translator, so we sometimes see them and sometimes don't. I know there have been debates at various conventions I've gone to regarding whether to leave in honorifics or not.
Selena wrote: "I know US horror movies have their own collection of cliches and tropes (some of which are just plain comical, like this commercial shows) that are probably a lot different than the Japanese tropes. I ..."Do tropes mean methods or ways, for example, surprising people by sudden big noise in a silent scene?
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The "Jump Scare" (sudden loud noise, etc.) is an example of a trope.
"Transfer Student" would be an example of a trope with Koichi being a transfer student, something very common in anime and manga.
There's also, as TV Tropes puts it, "Names to Run Really Fast From" in Mei Misaki's name, especially when she points out that the kanji in her given name is included in the kanji "to scream."
There are a lot of tropes in Another, but I don't want to list any more for risks of spoiling stuff. When we're done, I'll post a link to the TV Tropes page so we can have a laugh. They tend to be humorous about the tropes.
I imagined that a girl was running to school with bread in her mouth, saying, "I'm lateeee!", and then collided with a boy at the corner. This may be cliches rather than tropes. :)
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A trope becomes a cliche when it's becomes "stereotyped and trite" (dull and uninteresting) according to TVTropes. Kind of like the "don't do anything remotely reasonable in a horror movie situation" cliche that's poked at in the one commercial.
For the horror genre, I guess it's something that's been overused to the point of being laughable when it's supposed to be scary.
I wonder if Reiko's first and second advice are common in any country.Edit: of chapter 3
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I'm not really sure about the US, since my brother and I wanted to major in computer stuff, lol.
Selena wrote: "About kids wanting to go into art schools?"Yes. It is said that it is hard to live by art or music in Japan. So her advice sounded natural to me.
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Selena wrote: "It's hard to do that in the US, too, but I'm not sure people are nearly as realistic as they are in Japan."I took a class on teaching literature at the college level last year, and in it, we spent an entire week on how we could convince parents of prospective English majors that the humanities are just as useful as business and technical educations. ^^; Whether people here get more realistic or not, American universities have a lot invested in making sure we don't take that too far.
Allison wrote: "how we could convince parents of prospective English majors that the humanities are just as useful as business and technical educations. ^^;"Eventually, did you find how to do?
Japanese Light Novel Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Belle (other topics)Eyes Like Stars (other topics)
Blackbringer (other topics)
Discuss Another here!
Reading Schedule
Book 1
2/22-28 Intro & Chapter 1
3/1-3/7 Chapter 2
3/8-3/14 Chapter 3
3/15-3/21 Chapter 4 & 5
3/22-3/28 Interlude 1 & Chapter 6
3/29-4/4 Chapter 7
4/5-4/11 Chapter 8
4/12-4/18 Interlude 2 & Chapter 9
Book 2
4/19-4/25 Chapter 10
4/26-5/2 Chapter 11 & 12
5/3-5/9 Interlude 3 & Chapter 13
5/10-5/16 Interlude 4 & Chapter 14
5/17-5/30 Chapter 15 & Outro
A note about spoilers:
If you read ahead, spoiler tag it and state "Chapter ___ Spoilers." I have found people are less likely to be tempted to open spoiler tags if they say something like this rather than "don't read this until..." Read spoiler tags at your own risk.