Dreaming through the Noise
Welcome to Dreaming through the Noise, a shrine dedicated to the character Nanako Amachi from Reiko Shimizu’s manga The Top Secret (called Himitsu - Top Secret in Japan), created as part of the Ghost of You Challenge. It is as much — or more accurately — a shrine to the series’ third criminal case from 2002, wherein Amachi makes her only appearance. Lastly, it is also a meditation on poem “Memoriam”, juxtaposed with ’s poem “Variation on the Word Sleep”. (I advise holding off on looking them up until the end of the shrine.)
As a companion shrine to Refugium, my shrine to the series itself and specifically its pilot chapter, this site refrains from repeating the series’ publication information and technical and thematic groundwork beyond the bare minimum; please refer to the former for further information (p. 1–3). In any case, no prior knowledge is required to follow this site. The first half of the shrine retells the third case, followed by its conclusion in “Fate”, essays in “Echoes”, and further associations and site notes in “Requiem”. Note that there are vague spoilers for the third case in this preface, and explicit ones in the entire second half of the site.
The site is based on the French publication by Tonkam (2008–2015; now part of Delcourt) and the English translations provided by Dragon Voice. Any quotes around the site are rephrasings of mine under consideration of the two translations.
The site is intended to be viewed at a minimum resolution of 1280x720.
The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love.
, from Memoriam
Much like the subject matter of Refugium, I knew, from the moment I set down this story, that it would eventually take writing to fully process it: because it left an impression, because the exploration of dreams in fiction fascinates me (as In Another Dream, among other shrines, can attest), because something cried out to be heard. I did not know until I finally sat down and commenced writing, however, what shape my thoughts would take. Dreaming through the Noise was not firmly conceived as a shrine from the beginning; a blog entry or subpage on another shrine had seemed more likely. My shrines are typically born of the desire to archive and convey something — a message, theme or narrative, a certain interpretative approach, observations — in my preferred level of detail and with utmost clarity, a response to a perceived lack of depth, discernment and appreciation for subtleties in public discourse in spaces accessible to me. The direction is thus always clear from the start.
That is not the case here. There is no clear message that I need to convey. (The story speaks for itself.) In its stead: an intangible sort of sorrow and sympathy. Perhaps what I want to express this time is simply that: a sentiment, to show that something existed, that it mattered, to call attention to it so that it will not be forgotten. In more sentimental terms, one could say that the drafting of this shrine is an act akin to mourning, an attempt to make sense of what it is that I am feeling as I wade through the mire of my own emotions. In this manner, this shrine is as much of an autopsy as it is something someplace between elegy and requiem.
If my thoughts in the following appear oblique, perhaps they resemble the sequence we go through when we try to recall the details of a dream, a dream whose heaviness we cannot quite put a finger on, yet lingers as we go about our day. Eventually, that feeling, perhaps unidentified, unquantified and nameless still, will sink down to a deeper layer of the consciousness, where it will rest until we next dig it up or encounter it in a different shape.
If you would like to accompany me on this journey of wakening, please leave a message in my guestbook. Now, let us draw the curtain, and sink into the hazy realm of dreams.
Lethe
January 2026