Japanese Reading Report: 05 October 2025

Yet another busy week, but also one that provided relief as a long-anticipated project component was finished this Friday. As an experiment I've decided to include an English-language book I'm currently reading, so I hope you'll enjoy my reflections about Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire.
- ファタモルガーナの館
- まったく最近の探偵ときたら (第10-12話)
- 宇宙の戦士 (第1-6話)
- ダンダダン (第2-12話)
- 俺物語!! (第1-9話)
- Pale Fire (Lines 1-240)
ファタモルガーナの館
I was able to reach the end of the Third Door just in
time.
1869. Jacopo is a high ranking mobster committing his
resources towards a trans-European rail network. We're introduce
to the White Haired Girl (WHG)—the mysterious recurring
character who seems destined towards eternal suffering—who
plays the role of Jacopo's devoted wife. This door works
very hard to play with the reader's feelings. WHG's
affection and patience towards Jacopo is rewarded with
verbal and physical abuse, and I was a bit worried that the
story would lack any of the warmth present in the
prior doors. Thankfully the story quickly introduces WHG's
sole ally, Maria the maid, and also provides a touching
backstory showing that WHG's faith in Jacopo is based on
some very sweet memories. Maria is the childhood friend of
Jacopo and she's able to leverage that relationship to act as
a mediator between him and WHG.
In the present, however, the story corkscrews sharply until
WHG and Jacopo's relationship is as low as it can get. We then
discover the secret element that ties all of this tragedy
together and reframes the entire story...
Maria has been manipulating the married couple from day one,
injecting suspicion and distrust on both ends and orchestrating
"kind" acts to backfire exactly as she needs to further strain
the relationship. At times the recap of events to show Maria's
manipulation was a bit tiring—as if the writer couldn't
trust us to fill in the gaps—and Maria is cartoonishly evil
for much of the story's second half, but her motivation is
explained in the final confrontation and I think it worked
out fairly well. Just like the other doors, the story paints a
lot of information into the background of the setting and then moves
on, later zooming out and giving the reader a full view of the
story where we see how all those background details contribute
to an "Aha!" moment. In this case Maria's
history with Jacopo isn't just to demonstrate their bond, it's
also a critical detail informing Maria's revenge plot. She believes
that as a woman she was born unable to inherit the life she
deserves, and she blames Jacopo's father (and by extension Jacopo)
for destroying her family line.
You get a sense that in a different world, if things were shuffled
just a bit, maybe the three characters could have had a happy ending,
but the prioritisation of money and power over relationships and
communication leaves everyone either alone or dead.
まったく最近の探偵ときたら
Reached the end of this series. Overall I liked it well enough, though I wouldn't say that anything was particularly moving or memorable. Some of the humour was well done. I think Mashiro and Maki (Kazamaki) were the best realised characters. Mashiro was great for comedy and I think she really demonstrated how a female character can be the butt of the joke in ways that are specific to her circumstances without it feeling like needless cruelty. Maki was probably my favourite character just because of her relationship with Asunaro. On the surface she fits into a trope of a stone-faced hater, but deep down she's really devoted to him.
宇宙の戦士
A conversation I had this week reignited my curiosity about
Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. For that reason I
rewatched the Paul Verhoeven 1997 film adaptation and also
decided to watch this 1988 Sunrise anime adaptation. I'm
vaguely familiar with the contents of the novel from
listening to the audiobook (in bits and pieces, it's hard to
argue that I really listened to the whole thing) and I'd
heard that the anime somewhat faithful, so I was curious to
see what a more straight adaptation would look like.
What I liked: The music is campy and fun
(example).
I think Rico's relationship with his squadmates is fairly well
developed, and I like that the anime preserves the power armour
from the novel that the film adapted away. As sappy as it was,
I liked that this iteration also realised Rico and Carmencita's
relationship, albeit in a fairly surface-level way. I think it
was interesting that the civilian world was not utopian. Gangs of
criminals and police still struggled with each other, and I
think that's realistic.
What I didn't like: There were a number of moments that I
really like from the novel that the anime almost adapts
faithfully but stops before any of the substantial elements
emerge. For example, when the boot camp trainee strikes his
trainer, the book has a surprisingly nuanced view on the responsibility
of authority figures and dissent. Neither adaption faithfully
understands the dual-sided nature of chain of command, which is
a real shame. The anime is also just, well... a cartoon. It
shaves away any depth or commentary to tell a fun Gundam-esque
story (understandable given Sunrise's pedigree) except where
Gundam is able to demonstrate the issues of war by having
human characters on both sides, this anime has cosmic horrors
on one side; an ontologically evil force that there is no
negotiating with.
One last thought that came to mind regards the Gundam
comparison. I watched a video which
compared the Federation
of Star Trek and the Terran Federation of Starship Troopers,
and I think this anime adaptation blends elements
of Heinlein's vision with a Gundam aesthetic. The Federation
in Gundam is no utopia, of course, but I think most observers
will at least agree that they're the lesser of two evils.
Maybe the connection between all three properties is just the
mythology of military service. They all suggest to the
viewer that committing oneself to a larger cause—to protecting
people you may never meet—is one way to find purpose. Just
forget about the other implications.
ダンダダン
Season 2 finished. This series was really good. I think the
adaptation of Jiji and Jashi's story was well done, and the
editing for fight scenes, particularly between Jashi and
others, was fantastic. Okarun and Momo's relationship was
really cute, and I especially loved the way their hands were
used to express their connection. As expected, the short
training arc featuring the orchestral ghosts was pretty
dull (it was a mini arc that almost had me drop the manga)
but the addition of music, and the use of colour was well
done. Kinta was adapted into the anime really well. I loved
his Gundam backpack, the way he proudly sings anime theme
songs (and then lowers his voice to a muffled hum when his
commute to school intersects with his peers), and his
enthusiasm for science fiction. While Okarun is the sci-fi
representative in the main team, I often feel like the
story favours the supernatural. To that point, it was kind of
disappointing that Kinta's efforts are sort of downplayed
during the final fight when Momo and Aira are given the
final blow. Even just giving Kinta some agency in that
last hit would have been cathartic.
As a Bamora superfan I am eager to see the next adaptation
when it comes out.
俺物語!!
With Dandadan my backlog was cleared out, and I was finally
able to start a new series. So here's 俺物語!!
I don't know if it's something in me or something subtly
beautiful about the storytelling, but every other episode has
moved me to gentle tears. The first three episodes are a great
miniature arc where Takeo, the gentle giant believing that
no girl could legitimately see him as a partner, attempts
to pair the heroine, Yamato, and his best friend, Suna. Naturally
it turns out that Yamato's affection is actually directed towards
Takeo, and Suna reveals that his warmth towards Yamato was
mostly because she was the first girl to see Takeo as a person
just like he does.
I was a bit worried that the series wouldn't have much to
say after the relationship between Takeo and Yamato started.
They are very sweet towards each other and rarely have any
disagreements, but the drama mostly comes from the ways the
world interacts with Takeo or in ways Takeo misunderstands
Yamato's needs.
I think Takeo is sort of the perfect guy. First of all he's
kind of handsome in his own way. On top of that, despite being
a bit blunt or unobservant, he's extremely open to learning new
things and he literally runs at full speed to correct mistakes
once he becomes aware of them. Despite the story being
written from his perspective I can definitely see it as a sort
of female fantasy of a man who values his girlfriend more
than anything else.
I hope Yamato can develop a bit more of a personality, though.
Pale Fire
Okay, so here goes the experimental English reading report section.
Pale Fire is my third Nabokov novel. I've read Lolita (in English and
Japanese) and The Enchanter, two novels that feature protagonists who
obsess over idealised young girls. I honestly had no idea what to
expect with Pale Fire. The table of contents confused me, suggesting
that the titular Pale Fire would be less than 40 pages long, but that
confusion was quickly extinguished while reading the foreword. Just
like Lolita, the entire book from cover to cover is fiction, and
the foreword and commentary (the bulk of the book's contents) are
written by a fictional character, Charles Kinbote, who shared a
personal relationship (real or imagined...) with the fictional
author of the in-universe Pale Fire, John Shade. Pale Fire is a
poem written by Shade in the weeks leading up to his death, and
the book is framed as the preservation and publication of that
poem with a(n un)healthy amount of interpretation on Kinbote's
part. I appreciate Kinbote's notes at times, and I
also recognise that the bulk of narrative exists in his commentary,
but the book also does a great job of making me want to shake some
humility into him. Shade's poem is really beautiful. I want to say,
"It's clear that Shade was a man dealing with regrets, baring his
soul and trying to reconcile his (lack of) faith and his impending
death." But I'm also cognisant of the fact that my interpretation is
both poisoned by Kinbote's commentary and no more profound (
probably less so) than his. As someone who loves to interpret
media and say, "I think it's about this." I feel completely called
out.
As for the secondary narrative written through Kinbote's narrative,
so far I'm not really seeing how it's relevant to the poem. I suspect
that Charles Xavier, the king of Zembla, is Charles Kinbote, but I
also suspect that I'm intended to make that prediction so that a
more interesting revelation will come to light. Xavier's story is
a fairly interesting tale of homoeroticism, royal and Zemblan culture,
and an attempted to flee to America.
Another secondary narrative is Kinbote's commentary about his
relationship with Shade. He seems to be totally unaware of the
ways that the Shades (husband John and wife Sybil) don't return
his enthusiasm for their friendship. These parts have that
beautiful Nabokov, Lolita, style where a man oversteps his bounds
without reflecting on his actions.
Lastly I just want to stress that the Pale Fire poem is
extremely good. It's layered and harrowing. It's written in
such a way that you feel confined to Shade's house, forced
to watch the world change through window panes. Time is a
strong force within the poems, and the sun and seasons
contribute to the landscape that Shade sees. I loved the
line about the baseball bat cast by the setting sun on a
door knob. I loved the illusion of two worlds overlapping
in the reflective surface of windows. It's honestly so
beautiful that it actually annoys me when commentary to
a line will quote a single word and then spin off into a
5- or 6-page continuation of Xavier's plot.