Shiki Novel Translations 2.1.3

[sinnesspiel]

3

The day after Toshio met with Ishida, it was abnormally sultry. Of the patients who came into the hospital, all of them were conspicuously weary. At any rate, it seemed like a shower was approaching. In the midsts of that, from the Monzen Yasumori family came Nao. The instant Nao entered the examining room, Toshio had a feeling. 

What is it, Toshio asked as a formality, though Nao's complexion was clearly poor, and indeed she looked worn down. Even if the fatigue was the same, there was something different from the patients suffering from the heat and the humidity. Nao moved her lips faintly as if to answer but even that seemed to be too much and stopped.

"What's up? You look tired." While pushing her again for a response, Toshio took Nao's hand. She was powerless and felt cool to the touch. Her pulse was pretty fast but not enough to qualify as tachycardia. Peering at her face up close, those eyes of hers had the impression of someone somehow possessed. It was the way her conjunctiva was so blueish.

"I'm tired... My mother-in-law said I had to go to the hospital no matter what, so."

"I see. Doesn't look like you have a fever, does it? So with that, it probably isn't a cold. When did you start feeling like this?"

"Yesterday... No, this morning."

"Which one?"

"This morning, as soon as I woke up I was very tired. It was hot at night so I didn't sleep well... But, my mother-in-law asked me I don't know how many times since yesterday if I was all right."

Toshio tilted his head. She was talking strangely. 

"And Nao-san yourself, you didn't think you felt particularly sluggish at any point yesterday?"

"...I don't know. If I have to say it one way or another I think I had the feeling I was tired. ... Like, my head was heavy. I was dazed."

"Looks like it," Toshio nodded. "Any shortness of breath or palpitations?"

While asking he took her pulse. Her blood pressure was a little weak, so he couldn't get it clearly by touch.

"No, yes,.... I don't really know."

"Did you eat?"

Her voice answering that she hadn't seemed to die out. Lifting up her eyelid to look at the membrane, the color was faint. Her nails were white, and just to be sure he had her open her mouth to confirm that her oral cavity too had lost its healthy reddish color. It was similar---to Megumi's. 

"Dizziness when you stand?"

"Yes, some."

"Your period's been regular, right? Are you menstruating now?"

Yes, Nao nodded.

"That's good. Looks like you have a case of anemia," Toshio said, then added on. "Just in case let's do a full examination. Do you have any other pains anywhere?"

"No... not really."

Really, Toshio murmured, telling Nao to head into the other examining room and strip. He instructed the nurse Kiyomi to take her height, weight, pulse, blood pressure and temperature. 

While he was seeing other patients, Kiyomi finished taking the measurements. Her blood pressure was pretty low, her pulse pretty high. There was a slight fever but, at any rate nothing abnormal. 

At a glance her skin was losing its healthy glow but she wasn't particularly jaundiced and had no particular purple spots. Her nails and tongue seemed normal, and there was nothing abnormal about her hair.

"Raise both your knees if you could. ---Any problems going to the bathroom or difficulties passing urine?"

"No..." 

Nodding, he felt the lower region of her liver. Nothing felt abnormal. 

"Nothing unusual about the color? A brownish color or a reddish color or..."

"...I don't think so."

Nao's responses sounded incredibly labored. While asking her medical, life and family history, he performed palpations. There were no particular signs of a swollen spleen, the lymph nodes at her neck and underarm were slightly swollen. Listening with a stethoscope, there were no particular disruptive sounds in her heart or veins. ---As expected, it looked like simple anemia. 

"I think it's anemia, but," Toshio stated while instructing her to put her clothes on. "Still, since anemia can occur due to internal bleeds, I'd like to do an X-ray, is that all right?"

Nao nodded, so he gave instructions to Kiyomi. 

"An X-ray of the chest and abdomen. Also, run a blood and urine test. Take enough for us to run an analysis here. And a bone marrow sample."

"Bone marrow? From the sternum?" Kiyomi blinked. 

"Mm. And then take a sample for a peripheral smear too." Bearing the questioning gaze of Kiyomi, Toshio gave a smile to Nao. "I'll be taking a little bone marrow sample. It might hurt a little, but it's not really a scary test or anything. Anyway, for today we'll run the labs and prescribe some vitamins, so come back in three days. But," Toshio added on firmly. "If tomorrow morning, you feel more tired than today or you have a fever or you feel anything's going wrong, come in tomorrow. Got that?"

Nao nodded but her face was indifferent. She looked like it was somebody else's business. It seemed like she wasn't feeling any distress at all but maybe it was weighing on her.

Watching over Nao as she was urged into the treatment room by Kiyomi, Yasuyo quietly called to him. 

"Doctor--is it something bad?"

Nah, Toshio shrugged his shoulders. "If it was bad, I'd refer her to the national hospital. This's just in case."

"But."

He waved a hand to stop what Yasuyo was going to say. "If it was just a cold or just nephritis, I wouldn't be watching it this close. It looks like Nao-san is showing signs of anemia. And 'just anemia' at that. If that's the case it's nothing to get neurotic about. ---But, Megumi-chan was like that." 

Yasuyo nodded, with an understanding look. "You don't want to have any regrets."

"That is correct."



"Tanaka-san, I'm sorry but could I ask a favor of you?"

Tanaka Yoshikazu blinked as the health department's Ishida asked of him. Ishida suddenly said he'd wanted to know the deaths that had come in since July. It wasn't the right time of year for a demographic survey, and the time for the month's census was long past. When he tried to ask the reason, his words were unclear and not very satisfying but at any rate he nodded. 

"You'd like me to prepare the names of the deceased and make copies of their death notices, then. In secret?"

"It isn't anything especially suspicious. There was something bothering me that I wanted to investigate is all. It isn't something to make a fuss over so if you could do it without drawing attention to it."

Tanaka nodded and during the lunch break when the branch office staff were all out, at his own discretion he took the death notices out of the binders. With a dry sound, a water droplet splattered against the public office's window. The moisture that had been building all morning at last passed the saturation point and fell as drops of water---that was the impression Tanaka had. Large drops of rain scattered, soon changing into a shower that sounded like water in the bottom of a bucket. It was shaping up to be the rain they were long overdue. The public office devoid of any signs of anyone else quickly grew dark. 

Tanaka brought the binder back to his own desk. The one in the top binder was Shimizu Ryuuji. Tanaka didn't know that man. Fourty one years old, his death certificate was issued from Mizobe's General Hospital. Before that was an old woman named Gotouda Fuki. Before that was Ohtsuka Yasuyuki. 

Without thinking much of it, Tanaka gazed at the face. It was the Ohtsuka sawmill's son. He was in a different mourning group but as he lived right next door to him, Tanaka himself had attended his service. 

(Come to think of it, this year there have been serial funerals...)

Before Otsuka Yasuyuki, Shimizu Megumi had died. The one beneath the death certificate of the old woman man who died in Monzen was Megumi's. She was his daughter's childhood friend, a year older, just a tenth grader. He had sympathies for the Shimizu household for their despondency but his daughter's grief over losing her friend was terrible, too. 

Before that the three people in Yamairi died, which had been a big fuss. Three old people died---.

Tanaka's hands stopped over the binder. What Ishida said he had wanted to investigate was this, he thought. Yes, it was clear there were too many deaths. 

Before Shimizu Megumi was the young man in Naka-Sotoba, and the three old people in Yamairi. Before that somebody in Kami-Sotoba had died. This was all since August started.

(...This many?)

Tanaka was in charge of the family register and certificates of residency but in practice whoever was free manned the front window to take any report for processing. The Sotoba office was small. In all it was a six person organization. Even if their areas of duty were defined, that was how things were, so he hadn't noticed. But, for just coming into August, these numbers were abnormal.

Tanaka felt like the blood was being drawn from him as he turned the pages of the binder. Before the death in Kami-Sotoba, an old man  in Sotoba, was on July 3rd. It was at the Mizobe National Hospital where he died of esophagus cancer, and it had been five months before that without a death.

Something unusual was happening. Starting at the beginning of August. 

Tanaka gathered the files and called Ishida from the staff members who were having lunch in the locker room. He must have noticed Tanaka's expression, as Ishida's face stiffened as he came out. 

"Ishida-san, here."

Ishida expressed his thanks and took the pile of copies. Ishida looked at Tanaka's imploring expression.

"Ishida-san, is something happening?" Tanaka asked in a quiet voice. In the sounds of the rain like an earthly tremor, thunder crashed. "Since the beginning of August, what's happening to this village? Is this what Ishida-san wanted to investigate?"

"How many people was it?"

"It's ten."

Ishida looked over Tanaka's stiff expression. It was far more than he imagined.

"Tanaka-san, I understand your feelings. But where we're at right now, I can't say anything. At any rate, we are taking appropriate measures."

"But...."

Ishida stared into Tanaka's eyes, brimming with fear.

"Please keep this close to the breast. You understand, don't you? If this leaks out, it will become bigger. In exchange I will tell you of our progress. Just as I've asked you today, from now on can I ask you for copies of any death certificates that come in?"

Tanaka, swallowing down his breath, nodded. 



"Oh, is it coming down?" 

Hasegawa asked this of the young man who entered the shop.

Yuuki turned to look at the window. That said, creole had but one window, and it was stained glass. It wasn't one through which you could see the scenery beyond the window but outside of the window was dark. In between the BGM the sounds of the rain striking could be heard.

"It's turning out to be a real downpour," the young man laughed, putting down his case beside the counter. "Here's the voucher. Is there anything else?"

Just a moment, Hasegawa said as he headed into the kitchen coming back with a memo. 

"I'll leave this to you. It has the numbers written down. Where's Mikami-kun today?"

"Mikami-kun's quit. Since he'd moved all of a sudden."

"Heh? Last week when he came by, he didn't say anything about that."

The young man nodded. "That's right. It was really sudden. Quitting as suddenly as that was a burden on everyone, actually."

"I'd bet," Hasegawa said, throwing away the packing tape. "Things being what they are. Be careful driving back."

Thank you, the young man said flashing white teeth and leaving the store. As the door opened and closed, the sound of the rainfall drifted in even more strongly. 

"It is coming down hard," Yuuki said as Hasegawa, case in hand, turned his eye to the window. 

"It's been so humid. With this it should start to cool off some. About time, I say."

"It will be nice if it does," Hirosawa said with a wry smile. "Until now we've missed out on the rain after all."

Hirosawa was at the counter with an open text book and notebook. It was August twenty fourth. He must have been preparing for the new school term. Beside him, as usual the bookstore owner Tashiro was having a late lunch. 

"Really," Hasegawa said with an exaggerated sigh. "I wonder what to make of this year's summer season. Not much rain, oppressive heat. Heatstroke was it, I believe? Somebody in Mizobe had died of it. A person working at the JA warehouse had died, it said in the newspaper."

Yuuki's face scrunched without thinking. The word dead, in regards to a person, somehow hit close to him. Just the day before, he had just come out of the funeral service for his mourning group for Gotouda Fuki. Thinking back, the first time he had come into creole had been after a funeral. Fuki's son's funeral---his first time participating in his mourning crew. The old woman who slouched into the the chief mourner's seat was half a month later buried near her son. 

Yuuki let out a light sigh. 

"Somehow... it's like there's a lot of deaths." As Yuuki spoke, Hasegawa, Hirosawa, and at last Tashiro looked to him. "Is this just how it goes?"

In the town Yuuki had lived in, there hadn't been that many deaths in a row. In a mere half a month, Gotouda Shuuji, Fuki, and Shimizu Megumi made three funerals Yuuki had attended. And there was the incident in Yamairi. As the deceased were old people who lived in Yamairi, it had nothing to do with Yuuki and Yuuki's mourning crew but, he had heard that Gotouda Fuki's brother had died. In half a month four houses, six people dead seemed a bit too much. Especially when thinking of the population, this rate wasn't something he thought could be normal.

"It isn't quite how it goes, but," Hirosawa said with a forced smile. "It's just it's something that happens, you could say, as there are, fundamentally, many elderly. When the weather changes, it is common to see a line of deaths in a row, often enough."

On top of that, Hasegawa laughed. "The population is small here, and the relationships between people are intimate, so if somebody or anybody from anywhere dies, it will spread around before you know it. There are the mourning groups, and if there's a funeral nearby it isn't like "who died?" or anything. Not like it is in the city."

"Ah, certainly."

"But well, it does feel like there have been a lot of deaths. In truth, in regards to the size of the population, it is a lot, isn't it? Since it's all elderly out here."

Hirosawa nodded. "Mysteriously, the thing which we call death comes in rows. Once the mourning group sets out, it feels like they've just been out, the saying goes. Once that ceases, for a while nothing will happen, and then again another run of them. It's akin to---it's like a wave."

Indeed, Hasegawa and Tashiro agreed. 

"There's some polarization to it," Tashiro nodded enthusiastically. "In a given season, a mourning group's duties will keep coming, and even though we're running about like crazy, the neighboring group is quiet and tranquil."

"Heh?"

Hasegawa smiled. "True, I mean, it's been rather long time no see with my local mourning group. To begin with, I've only participated in a mourning group once myself. Since moving to Sotoba."

"Is that right."

"It was when I'd first moved in, and only once. Before we moved, my wife's father died, so that's two all together. For that I wasn't particularly involved with the mourning crew. In regards to mourning groups, Yuuki-san has become more experienced than myself."

Is that how it is, Yuuki thought. Hirosawa smiled softly. 

"I, too, haven't seen the mourning group in some time. When we set out for Shuuji-kun's case, it had been five years. Since the one before that was my mothers funeral. It was consecutive at that time, too. To be sure, it's unusual for it to be within half a month but in about one month's time two houses had them in a row. As soon as I thought it wouldn't continue, next it was my own mother's turn. They were drawing each other along, I'd thought then. "

"Drawing each other?"

Hirosawa nodded. "The one who died before my mother was a person my mother had gotten along with. They were lonely and called my mother to join them, I thought. Drawing her to that world..."

"Ah, so pulling along, you mean."

"That's superstition though. It's just, grief is something that comes in cycles. Though that kind of explanation feels completely ridiculous. It isn't a theory, it's a feeling."

Hasegawa spoke as if laden with a particular emotion. "Shuuji-san may have pitied his mother he left behind and pulled her to him."

Hirosawa forced a smile. "Though we know that couldn't be, in our heads. Murasako's Hidemasa-san pulled along his beloved nephew, and the pulled along Shuuji-san pulled his mother who had been left behind. If you present it like that, it somehow feels like an explanation. It's satisfying, so to speak."

As that was how it really went, Yuuki nodded wordlessly. At the same time, it was incomprehensible, he thought.

Death was a universal phenomenon. If they were born, there was no human who wouldn't die. Even though a person's death was a given, to the people surrounding them, it wasn't generally felt as the natural taking its course. Just the opposite. They embraced the sensation that something that should not have happened occurred. That continued. Something that shouldn't have happened happened again, feeling almost like they were caught up in a disaster. Always, something which you had no consciousness of was thrusting you into a fabricated and unreasonable reality, the sensation of discomfort, dread and unease, a sense of mystery. Can this keep happening, a feeling says, the uneasiness of what to do if it carries on, and the original fear that goes 'I knew it' when it does. It wasn't a sensation that could easily be explained but if you turned your words about enough, that could at least express it.

Even knowing it was the work of chance, one couldn't think it was anything other than the work of something's choice. Something distinctly outside of one's self, called "death." Impossible to control or even to be influenced, the merciless divine providence. The vague and ambiguous unease towards it, you met with it as if being "drawn" and were liquidated. ---Mysteriously. 

"Humans are strange beings," Yuuki murmured. As Hirosawa tilted his head dubiously, Yuuki smile. "Or maybe that death in regards to humans is the way to phrase it. "I have the feeling humans have a strange way of behaving when it comes to death."

That's true, said Hirosawa, showing a peaceful smile. 



Even as evening fell the rain hadn't stopped. On the contrary, it grew gradually stronger, showing signs of being a downpour. In the thick curtain of clouds and rain, despite being before five it was already dark. Takami stood and turned on the light. 

Even trying to look out from the door window, even the row of houses just across the street was hazy. A water current ran over the surface of the road. As expected the human traffic died out, the residential police box isolated in the rain. 

The sound of the rain reverberated as if shaking the earth. The sound somehow fanned his unease. The flickering florescent light too blinked as if to spur that on further still. Like signaling a bad omen, the phone rang. 

Takami lifted the old fashioned style black receiver. The one calling was Yasumori Tokujirou.

"Ah---Takami-san. It's really coming down, isn't it."

"You said it. What's the matter?"

"Nothing really, I just saw the river though and the water level's pretty high. The water's a muddy color too. Seems a lot of dirt's being swept away. Even without that, with the long drought we've been having, the grass and the roots all dried up, and the slopes have been getting fragile. If the rain goes on like this, just to be prepared, I was thinking we should call the fire brigade together."

Takami nodded. "That might be good. I'll open the station for you."

The fire brigade's station was right next to the residential police box. Takami was given a spare key just for such occasions as this. 

"I don't think the mountain stream's riverbanks are so fragile they'll break for nothing, myself. It's just, it might overflow downriver or at the drainage channel, and all."

"Yes. Then there's the mountainsides. It will be fine if we don't have a landslide, but."

"You said it. We'll have the Ward Headmen go around giving the announcements to be careful."

Tokujirou apologized two or three times before hanging up the phone. Takami took the station's spare key and put on warm clothes and a raincoat. He couldn't see the point in bringing an umbrella. Mumbling that it was terrible, Takami undid the station lock. He turned the light on. Before long, the brigade members would start showing up as time permitted. Returning to the station while thinking he'd have to help his wife at the soup kitchen, he left the station. Just on the verge of returning, his feet suddenly stopped on a whim. The water was flowing past the shell of his rubber boots. He couldn't say Tokujirou's concerns were baseless fears. If things went poorly, the slopes really were liable to give. 

Takami looked towards the western mountains. With the curtain of rain, of course the mountain couldn't be made out.

"....It could be bad, huh." Takami mumbled to himself. He thought of the Kanemasa house. To begin with it was a house on high grounds, and worse, last year the foundations had been tampered with. Luxurious garden trees were transported in. In other words, the roots and the ground were dug up, then leveled out. Tokujirou said they would go around giving notices but was there anybody who would go about to contact that household?

Takami hesitated somewhat.By all rights, if someone had moved in he would have had to do door to door canvasing. He had to ask the family structure and phone number and mark it down in the ledger but Takami had neglected to do such until today. There was the fact that the house's structure seemed to reject outsiders, making him nervous. But secondly there was also the fact that even when he did ask, there was no answer at the intercom. Then there was the fact that earlier that summer, wanting to confirm whether anyone had moved in or not, he'd snuck in, and had felt a little guilty. But, if that was the case for even Takami, then there might not have been anyone at all who had their phone number in order to call them and tell them. Even if that wasn't the case, in the event someone were worried about a landslide, was there anybody who'd remember Kanemasa? In this rain, was there anybody who would take the trouble to go say something to them?

"I'd best go on then, with it like this."

Takami drummed up his courage and started off by foot towards the west. While the tempestuous streaks of pouring rain battered his shoulders and back, he hurried over the fording roads. It was for the best that somebody contacted them. Even if two people did, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

After Takami set out, the office was left unmanned. The surroundings were blurred in ink-black. Amongst that, the station's doorway was open, light tinged yolk-yellow leaking out. 

Comments

8D

[(Anonymous)]

Aaahhh what's gonna happen to Takami??

By the way, I had 'that' discussion with my Mom. (I felt like I had to consult with actual adults) seems like to a lot of people, romantic feelings ruin friendship. If the two in question do like each other and are willing to enter relationship, then it's fine, but if it's only one-sided, then their friendship is at stake if the feelings are revealed.

Anyway, I presented her canon facts and let her analyze them and then I asked questions according to that. (I thought it was quicker this way) First I told her about Toshio (but I only used person A (Toshio) and B (Seishin)) how they're best friends since babies, that Toshio gives direction and Seishin follows, and then I revealed that they eventually clashed and got separated, and A was quite sad, disappointed, and angry because of this betrayal. That A's feelings weren't only 'B cannot support me anymore!' but also 'B has left me...' and that A still cares about B inside.

She's convinced that Toshio deep inside likes Seishin quite romantically. (she already knew that these are two guys btw)

While she doesn't seem convinced that Seishin likes Toshio as much (maybe that was because of the my wording when I told her about Seishin, and I also didn't tell her about Seishin as much)


Toshio basically hasn't considered the idea that Seishin may be turning against him actively til ep20, even if he knows Seishin's betrayed him by siding with the shikis and even went to Kanemasa on his own accord. I take the scenes in ep17 and ep20 as 'oh Seishin's betrayed and left me...' and only after Ohkawa says 'they're collaborators!' Toshio finally considers the idea that Seishin may end up wanting to kill him. While I think Seishin's already considered the idea that Toshio may end up killing him sooner than Toshio does. I find this is interesting.

[sinnesspiel]

What would be the expected reaction if someone you liked non-romantically abandoned you in a stressful, literally life-or-death situation? Feeling abandoned personally as well as practically is inevitable even if they had a weak friendship. Ozaki's fairly despondent even when just the creole crew refuses to support him, and they're a group of decidedly less influential, useful friends than Seishin as the other head of the village is. Comparing his response to them (whom we presume he has no romantic feelings towards) with his response to Seishin, I'm not sure I see a significant difference from which I could infer anything beyond friendly affection.

An argument could be made that he's simply consistent in character (he honestly takes it remarkably well given we know he's prone to anger and hissy fits under stress) whether in love or not, but then the argument could be made for him being in love with any of the above, so I would still require supporting, differentiating evidence.

8D

[(Anonymous)]

I'll still ask people, and maybe I'll try analyzing the novel as well.

To prevent being biased, I better analyze under the assumption that there are no romantic feelings whatsoever between them. (I should do that this way sooner I think haha)

[airlynx]

"Then there was the fact that earlier that summer, wanting to confirm whether anyone had moved in or not, he'd snuck in, and had felt a little guilty."

Takami snuck into Kanemasa too, just like his boyfriend? Aww, great minds think alike. What if they bumped into each other while both sneaking in? 'Takami lost his footing and prepared to collapse hard against the floor, when he felt a pair of strong arms steadying him...'

I liked this novel-only scene at the end! Also the Nao examination. I like that Shiki uses more elements for creating that horrific atmosphere rather than just vampires and darkness and things going bump in the night. Diseases are also scary in general. Few things are scarier than some weird disease that can't be cured and you can't see it coming. One day you're healthy, and the next something is killing your body from the inside. That's a really realistic fear, and Shiki plays that for all it's worth. Also there's the ease with which you can get misdiagnosed: Nao is having anemia--but she's also on her period, so that's 'normal'. That's what it looks like on the outside, but if you just settle for that as the explanation, the real problem is left untouched. This idea of a 'mystery disease' in the novel especially is really effective.

[sinnesspiel]

Yup, Takami mentioned to Ozaki that he snuck in back during the "Ikumi talks too damn much" chapter. That's also when it mentioned the newly crafted lawn/garden (that withered away in the heat) that's mentioned here as the cause for concern, with the ground being recently uprooted.

On the audience side we get more details and are basically spoon-fed any medical school level knowledge needed to understand where Toshio's understanding is as a doctor. Imagine being Seishin who's watching all this, only has as much as Toshio bothers to explain to him, and who has no capacity to ponder it for himself medically and thus doesn't even know what he doesn't know, and has his asshole of a friend also undermining all of his suppositions on it apparently just for the sake of Devil's Advocating. "I think it's suspicious too and have compiled data and research on it. But I'm going to watch TV and pretend it's nothing until you 'convince' me of what I already think is the case."

It's like he got all the worst qualities of a doctor AND a lawyer put into one pointy-faced package.

[airlynx]

Oh, that's right! I remembered the lawn, but I guess my mind was unwilling to accept the fact that our officer could be so...unlawful.

We sorta talked about this before, but so far what's going on in the village is supposed to be a mystery, right? I'm trying to read without keeping in mind what I already know about it, and it seems pretty clear that whatever it is that's killing the villagers, Kanemasa is behind it (well, if it wasn't clear before, it'll definitely be clear after Takami isn't ever heard from again). Could someone put together the dots with (Creepy beautiful strangers) + ('Insect bites' on victims) + (anemia) = vampires? If I were reading it for the first time, I think I'd skip the vampire conclusion and guess that the Kanemasa are ghosts that don't actually exist in the physical world, which would explain why they are seen so rarely. Also, maybe the victims are sick because they get possessed by the ghosts and the strain is so much on their bodies that they die? So Nao is currently possessed? But that wouldn't explain how a ghost family bought a whole freakin' house, so... *throws hands up in defeat*

It's hard not to feel bad for Seishin at this point. To him, it probably looks as if it's a game to Toshio and he's looking down on Seishin because of his lack of medical knowledge (that's not what good friends do!) However, it doesn't seem like Toshio's being a dick on purpose, he probably is preoccupied enough and maybe wants to play around to take the stress off.
But then I can kind of understand Ozaki too because out of the whole village, he is probably the best informed, and is trying to solve the puzzle using his superior knowledge when his Monk BFF (who doesn't have to put up with a nagging mother and annoying patients on a daily basis) comes sprouting ideas that seem totally irrelevant.

Maybe it's for the best that Megumi didn't get the autopsy--there's a real danger that Toshio would have performed it with his Chin-Scalpel...

[sinnesspiel]

In my case, especially with so many chapters dedicated to analysis from a medical perspective, I'd really assume it's a medical drama, and that the Kanemasas are a carrier. The driver who hit Shigeki was one of them who came before them, got lost trying to get to Kanemasa, followed the road up the "mountain" rather than the "hill" and ended up there, where some kind of altercation/murder mystery happened, probably on Gigorou while Mieko never saw his corpse and only spoke through the door to the killer, pretending to be him. That driver was the carrier. The Kanemasa's aforementioned Dr. Ebuchi has a medicine that can lead to survival but at this point I would suspect something fishy about the medicine too, a reason their real condition isn't just given a name and treated normally. The means of making that medicine would require a living person to be the equivalent of The Child of Omalas, and I'd expect that to be where Seishin's novel is going: the morals of necessary murder done without hatred, out of necessity to survive, and how the rest of society would surely look down on it but in the small village that *is* the world of the people in it (the evil spirits who don't look down on murder and claim to have no sin) it's the done thing, and Seishin, like Cain, must acclimate.

...Which is to say, I'd be completely and utterly way off.


That's why Shimizu was so upset by the mere prospect of that autopsy; Ozaki was, obviously, offering to just chin stab her then and there, making her bedroom one big bloody mess and burying his face in her guts like some kind of freak.

[airlynx]

...That interpretation is definitely more solid than what I had. I haven't really ever read a medical drama, mainly because I've never seen them advertised so it never really crossed my mind. That, and the fact that even reading the news about disease outbreaks turns me into a raging hypochondriac. In biology, we read a chapter from this book called The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, which is a bio-thriller about Ebola. It mostly deals with outbreaks and efforts to contain the viral hemorrhaging fever, but the chapter we read was a case that very...graphically described a man getting infected with and dying from Ebola. I triple-washed my hands before every meal for like a week after reading that.

Another interpretation could be a crime novel. "A down-on-his-luck backwoods doctor finds himself as the unlikely hero of a mystery that descends over his hometown. Widespread deaths begin occurring with the arrival of outsiders in the village, but little does he know that they bring with them the wrath of one of the most notorious gangs in Japan that operates with poison. Racing against the clock, Dr. Ozaki must engage in a seemingly futile struggle to protect his village." Because the symptoms of the 'disease' could possibly also stem from a little-known poison and cause the body to shut down. Some poisons do that (even like household chemicals), after ingestion you don't feel effects right away, but after a while they settle in really fast. The scariest diseases are the ones you don't see coming. Like rabies; by the time you can feel the symptoms, it's already too late. I had to get a rabies shot one time, and it hurt more than any shot I've ever gotten but I was so scared of getting rabies I was like "hurry up and give me the shot already!"


Indeed, the only true way to know how serious anemia is, is to chin stab on the spot and gauge how much blood comes out.

[sinnesspiel]

Haha. Latest chapter has Ozaki use the treatment of Ebola as a scare tactic. Now that's timing.

Crime novel's not too far off, in some ways. Shiki might actually be pretty interesting if taken and ran in different genre directions with, all Abenobashi style. The Kirishikis could in fact be innocent victims of some purge or the secret backers of the gang who, like Natsuno thought while in the car with Tohru, were secret criminals on the run. You could even say there was foreshadowing!



Hmm, the gushing squirt wasn't enough to get into my eyes. This was indeed some serious anemia. His face also serves in this way as a blood pressure gauge. His face is just all kinds of medical.

[airlynx]

If the story really was a medical drama, making the disease be Ebola would be beyond effective. But the symptoms don't match up in this case because Ebola causes yellowing skin, weight loss, irritability, and of course vomiting up black blood and bleeding from every orifice.
I would rather have Masao suck all my blood than contract Ebola.

And what if Natsuno also had some connections to the gang from living in the city? Like he's adopted but is actually the son of the gang leader? Then when the Kirishiki bring the gang to Sotoba, the agents would contact Natsuno and try to persuade him to join in "bringing justice to the Kirishiki traitors".
What other genres can Shiki fit into? It could also be a medical drama if Ozaki had been experimenting with mutated viruses and a test tube or something was accidentally knocked over by the Yamairis. Then we would have an unreliable narrator who pretends to not know what's going on while desperately trying to find a cure for his own creation. So that's why he doesn't want Ishida to contact the outside, because he feels personally responsible/doesn't want to get in trouble!

Each stubble on Ozaki's chin is a marker. If the blood spurt doesn't reach the mid-jawbone stubble row, that is a sure sign of anemia.

[sinnesspiel]

Ebola would be much less sexy than vampirism, and much, much scarier, even without the gore. Although, the novel spares us no details in that department either, really. Sure, we all expect the slaughtering and experimenting to be pretty gruesome but sometimes it takes you by surprise, like Ozaki copping a few feels on Gotouda's lady parts to see if her bowels or bladder released after she died.

What about a gang story? Natsuno and his family actually moved to Sotoba to get out of a territorial yakuza gang they were in---they haven't mentioned it yet, but Yuuki's missing a part of his pinky, and he says he lost it wood working. The shop's a cover for that. The Kirishikis are another gang and, even though the Yuukis tried to leave it, when it turns out the Kirishikis are the Crips to the Yuuki's Bloods (harharhar) those old hateful feelings a hard to fight, and this town of deep regional bonds is about to get even more tightly knit, even further stranded from society as it sinks into another kind of underworld all together.

[airlynx]

I hate the notion that vampirism has to be sexy that is prevalent in modern literature! I mean originally, vampires are supposed to be disgusting and unnatural; in Dracula, like half of the book is spent describing how vampires are hellish and nastily bloated. They're the natural predators to humans, so they should repel and not attract. The original Eastern European legends of vampires all depict them as twisted mockeries of humans, not so beautiful that they transcend human looks. That's part of the reason I like Shiki, because the vampires are unnatural and inspire terror yet like, horrified fascination. And the shots where the shiki crouch over their victims like insects are disgusting, it's awesome! Anyways, not sure where I was going with that. But yeah, Shiki has a lot of awkward details like that, that just describe real life but are cringe-worthy for the squeamish to read about. Like when Ozaki asks Megumi if she's on her period, that makes sense, but it kind of made me do a double-take there. In fact, most of these 'surprises' involve the village doctor..

Shiki the Gang Saga would be a gem to behold. It would be cool if it was a video game or like a choose-your-own-adventure book and then it would have different routes, and they would be the versions that we're thinking up! (I had to write a choose-your-own-adventure story in like elementary school or something, and I made it a medical horror drama sort of. It involved the main character coming down with a scary disease and I don't remember it exactly, but the protagonist had to prevent everyone else from catching it or something. Maybe that was preparing me for Shiki) Maybe the Yuukis are a gang that had done something awful to the Kirishiki family. Now that the Yuukis have left the gang, the Kirishikis decide it's time to strike. They go after them into the village and start their elaborate plan to frame the Yuuki family for the increasing deaths of the poor villagers. And Officer Takami gets tipped off that there are gang members in Sotoba and he is tasked with catching them red-handed.

[sinnesspiel]

One thing I did find in Japan is that girls were, at least to my Western senses, shockingly open about periods. We were just leaving karaoke when the girls announced cheerfully in the lobby "I need to stop by the bathroom first for my period!" "Oh, me too!"

I stopped and gave a dumbfounded stare. "Wh-what?"
They thought I didn't understand the Japanese word and stated, in English: "Oh, Period!"
"A-aa...." was about all I could say.

Maybe I had a particularly forward group of girls on my hands, but I, at least, walked away with the notion that "Japanese girls sure are comfortable with that!" Of course, a doctor asking about it is completely natural in either context no matter which side of the globe you're on, but I was under the impression girls would even keep it from their parents when they were on it once old enough to procure their own hygienic devices and such, so Megumi's mom being able to answering that, with dad and grandpa in the room no less, was a bit of a surprise.


Choose your own adventure text games are surprisingly easy to make, aside from the visual elements and sprites. Maybe I can look into using icons/screen capped faces and try to make something like that in the far distant future.

And then Atsushi, thought of by the entire town as a hoodlum and as sure to be a part of the gangs as anyone, must decide between siding with the Shiki and taking the gang war as a chance to run wild as he's always really wanted, or saving and preserving the town for his true love, Officer Takami. It's very similar to Seishin having to decide to let the village die or to help Toshio, only this time our hero is far more active and brash, and the love interest is less of an asshole.

[airlynx]

1. Karaoke is so big in Japan; sighhh, I wish it was a big deal here too. It seems so fun, but I have never seen a real live karaoke place ever.

2. That is...just a little awkward. Girls in the West can be pretty open about it too, among themselves. But in public like that...eh, maybe it's just a cultural thing. It all seems counter-intuitive because you'd think Japanese girls would be more modest about periods than their Western counterparts, but it looks like it's the other way around. The more you know.
I can't imagine any girl just coming downstairs for breakfast with a cheery "Hey, I'm not pregnant!" announcement for the family. There's always the possibility that Megumi didn't tell them, but her mom just figured it out. If they use the same bathroom Megumi's mom would probably find pads and stuff in the garbage, unless Megumi is really secretive about it. But she doesn't seem like the type who'd care much. But having the other family members in the room hear the response to Ozaki's question is actually understandable; she's sick, so taboos would probably be lessened for the moment. And it's also inescapable like I can't imagine Megumi's mom ushering the doctor outside just to whisper "no" as a response. If anything, it's a faux pas on Ozaki's part because he could have pulled her aside later (or before) to ask.


Making choose your own adventure games seems like such a long process! Sounds fun though. Have you made them before? If you decide to make one, I could be persuaded to collaborate on it! Do you need a special program for it?

And conversely, will the fair maiden Officer Takami decide to follow his duties and bring the gang members to justice--by any means necessary--even if it spells out a life sentence for his beloved Atsushi? And after bringing the gang to justice, will he emerge the same Officer Takami as he used to be? He's only less of an asshole for now. For the minds of men are easily corrupted, and he could still be Ozakified. He already has the chin. It's a slippery slope. First the chin, then...then comes the stubble.