let us make prediction on what going to happen to the each character in cafe alpha. it may be another 10 years to come to know whether any of the prediction will come true or not. there's no harm to dream that why we like book.
- charles C
Saturday, August 13, 2005
That's a really great idea, Charles. But why am I strangely reluctant to take it up?
I guess it's because reading YKK - and waiting for chapters - is such an exercise in patience. That makes it sound as though it's frustrating, but I mean the quiet wait-and-see kind of patience. The kind the characters all seem to have in plenty. The kind of patience I'm a little envious of, and moved to cultivate as I read the stories. So I'm reluctant to seem as though I want to 'hurry up' the characters.
Here's one, though. I think that Makki will go out into the world, too (big duh) and that when Ojisan dies, as has been foreshadowed, Alpha will go travelling again to visit both her and Takahiro. But that this trip will reveal more about the changes the world is going through - it'll be a trip about time & mortality, and the difference between Alpha and humans. This'll make her meetings with Takahiro & Makki all the more bittersweet. And maybe we'll understand a bit more (just a bit) of what is driving the changes in their world.
On the lighter side, I'd like to see just one kiss. Between anyone. And none of this 'transferring data' stuff, either. Alpha & Takahiro, Alpha & Kokone, Kokone & Maruko, Makki & Takahiro, Sensei & Ojisan, anyone. Just one, before the eternal circling resumes.
- terry
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Everybody packs up and leaves before the peninsula becomes an island. The old people stays behind. Ojisan shacks up with sensei after telling Alpha that she has to go.. Alpha moves to yokohama.
Kokone gets to deliver another message to Alpha, so we get an akward kiss scene...
- Z
Sunday, August 14, 2005
somehow i feel alpha will stay , even if later the sea claim her place she will move abit away from the sea or original place and rebuild alpha cafe. and continue wait for her master to return.
i always think that alpha and me are same type of people. whose life & decision making are predictable. but some time(rare) do something that most people don't think i will do it. like alpha even though there's many much better place around, but at the end still go back to original place(no matter how bad the place).
even after many years gone by, even though deep down aplha know that her master maybe dead, I believe alpha will still go on open cafe alpha (same place).
- charles C
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Ten years from now...
I cannot avoid imagining Alpha in crowd passing by a Takakiro in its late twenties, without recognising him...
...and later, at how Tahariho telling his partner, not Makki of course, that he had seen a robot identical to the one has taken care of him as a child...
- DavidF
Thursday, August 18, 2005
The most crucial incident in the years to come is the moment when Taapon returns. It is promised to us, in six years, as you all can remember.
From that on, several courses are possible.
Ojiisan wouldn't move anywhere. He is bound to live at his gas station until he dies. He and sensei has known each other since they were a student and a bum, and they never really lived together. If they sometimes made that decision, it is unprobable that they would ever decide otherwise. That suits them.
Makki gains the little experience she can gain at Alpha's Cafe. When Takahiro graduates, it is inevitable that they move together, perhaps somewhere in Yokohama. They promise to pop up in Alpha's Cafe every now and then, as Ayase does.
And now the real clow: When Taapon returns, it will be the moment when Alpha meets The Director. Surprise, surprise, who do you believe the Owner is?
I can imagine a scene, where Alpha says something like "I wasn't ready to detach myself from this world 15 years ago..." and Director answers "...and I wasn't prepared just to stay here back then. But now you want to expand your world, feel it as much as possible, don't you? Then Taapon is the right place for you." "What about you then?" "I'm tired to stare at the big picture in front of my eyes all the time, I want to experience little things, walk around the house counterclockwise, watch the colour of the other side of those leaves over there. I have learned that those are the truly important things. Maybe I would settle down in a small cafe somewhere..."
Taapon departs, and the owner is back at Cafe Alpha. "I guess there is no need to change the name of the shop", she thinks.
Of course we need the epilogue. Kokone arrives to Cafe Alpha right when Director is pondering whether to hang a sign "New Owner" or "Original Owner". Kokone spends a long time with director. When she has heard everything she has always wanted to know, asked everything she has always wanted to ask, she is leaving to Yokohama to tell to Maruko everything she has finally learned to know about Alpha, about human robots, and about herself. She starts her scooter.
"Hey", says Director at the door.
"Yes?"
"I just wanted to tell... you are always welcome back."
"I know that, I have always known", Kokone smiles.
- Jari Lehtinen
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Wow, that's a great idea for a finish. Only 4 years to go till we find out I guess.
- Thistledown
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Howdy,
Hang on to your hats. There will be enough answers in upcoming chapters to put a couple of these questions to rest.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Eagerly waiting for elves' translation...
...nothing worse than understanding part of the text, realising that some important answers are there, but failing miserably in the crucial point....
- DavidF
Thursday, September 1, 2005
I think that when Ojisan finally does die, that will be about the time the water's edge is creeping closer to Alpha's home. She will accept his offer and move into the abandoned gas station (and house behind it? is there one? Where does Ojisan live?) and open her Cafe Alpha there, with the gas station on the road to attract a couple extra customers a month. Here she is safe from the rising waves for a few more years.
My wish list (but not likely) would be to have Kokone move in with her at the new place.
- Silverback
Thursday, September 1, 2005
It seems to me that Alpha's house is higher than ojisan's gas station. If the water rises up to HER house, ojisan's place should has been flooded for long.
Unless they build something up.
- tongHoAnh
Friday, September 2, 2005
Really? Maybe it is just me, but I had assumed that since Cafe Alpha is located so close to the shore it was lower. The road and hence the gas station are farther inland and therefore seemingly at a higher elevation, even if just a few meters.
I could be totally wrong on this of course. Anybody have an opinion on this? Or is there anything we can think of in the scanlations that would support either theory?
* burning with curiousity *
- Silverback
Sunday, September 4, 2005
another thing with the houses to consider, is that it isn't rising water that is the problem. Rather that the shore is falling into the sea, that soon enough the land under Alpha's house will fall in.
- tadpol
Sunday, September 4, 2005
That's depending on the distance of the house to the sea. I'd love to match some raw data of the fastest speed the sea "eat" into lang globally and apply it on the distance between alpha's house and the sea, which I think it might be 200-300m.
- tongHoAnh
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
I think tadpol has it right. Alpha's house appears to built on a bluff, but the bluff is giving way. I think Ojisan's house is far enough inland to escape the flooding. Why else would he offer her to move her shop there?
- martialstax
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
"Why else would he offer her to move her shop there?"
I forgot this bit >.<
- tongHoAnh
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
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