Another week of reading 三日間の幸福. I’m really not seeing the appeal. What I had identified as a transitional phase last week has carried on almost all the way up to what I’ve read (73%). At this point it kind of feels like it’s just killing time in the three months that lead up to the titular “three days”. At the very end of today’s reading there was a reveal of sorts that not everything is as it seems, but the scene it took place in felt so disconnected from the rest of the story and (unless I’m majorly missing something) the information required for the conclusion wasn’t properly foreshadowed. Still holding out hope for the ending to be a big turnaround.

I also watched two movies: ゴジラ-1.0 and 見えない目撃者. I’ve never seen a Godzilla movie before so I didn’t really know what to expect but I thought -1.0 was pretty good. Very human-focused, not a ton of actual destruction sequences like I expected. The horror of the aftermath of an attack, along with the dread of another to come, balanced with the human tendency to try to find happiness and normalcy after a disaster, were all conveyed in a compelling way. I definitely missed a lot of military vocab but it was pretty manageable.

見えない目撃者 was also pretty good. It’s a suspense drama about a blind woman who “witnesses” a kidnapping and tries to get the police to take an investigation seriously despite the fact that her only testimony is based on what she smelled and heard at the crime scene. Apparently it’s loosely based on a korean film called “blind”. There might have been one plot contrivance that didn’t make much sense but it’s also possible I missed something. Overall enjoyed it a lot. I’ve been thinking it would be good to start watching more live-action movies so maybe this will start a trend (or a new goal for next year).