Join the Beginner Book Club here!
Welcome to the ひとりぼっちの○○生活 Book Club!
Introduction
Hitori Bocchi is a girl with social anxiety who has difficulty communicating with others. Before starting middle school, her friend Yawara Kai, who will attend a different school, tells Bocchi she is breaking off their friendship until Bocchi can make friends with her entire class at her new school. Thus, Bocchi is left with the task of befriending everyone in her class before graduation.
View the original nomination post here.
How it works
We create a reading schedule with a set number of pages to work through each week. Each week, we create a new discussion thread for that week’s reading. In those threads, we discuss everything from vocabulary and grammar to the characters and story. We try to help each other by contributing to the shared vocabulary list, answering each other’s questions, and keeping each other motivated.
What to expect from this book
No furigana
This isn’t the Beginner Book Club’s first time reading a manga without full furigana, but it’s always an extra hurdle to overcome.
Be prepared to have the vocabulary list handy!
If you plan to read a digital copy, look into whether you can use Mokuro.
If you don’t mind some extracurricular kanji learning outside of WaniKani, you can view the volume’s highest-frequency kanji and highest-frequency kanji readings.
The unique kanji count has increased with each manga in the Beginner Book Club recently, but it drops slightly for this one.
4-panel format
It’s uncommon for the beginner book club to read manga in the 4-panel (4koma, yonkoma) format. Prior reads include 「一週間フレンズ。」, which is partially 4-panel, and 「月刊少女野崎くん」.
The 4-panel format tends to be more dense than traditional manga, sometimes fitting the dialogue content of a traditional manga page in one or two panels.
While 「ひとりぼっちの○○生活」 is a bit on the light side as 4-panel manga go, it’s still going to feel heavier than what is typically read here.
How do I join in?
- Get yourself a copy of the book (see “Where to purchase” below)
- Click on the participation poll below to let us know you’re planning to join in
- Set this thread to “watching” so you get updates on the group (go just past the last post in this thread, click on the grey box that says “normal” or “tracking” and change this to “watching”)
Where to purchase
Physical: Amazon | CD Japan
Digital: Kindle | Bookwalker
Reading Schedule
| Week | Start Date | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | Dec 14 | Ch 1 |
| Wk 2 | Dec 21 | Ch 2 |
| Wk 3 | Dec 28 | Ch 3 |
| Wk 4 | Jan 4 | Ch 4 |
| Wk 5 | Jan 11 | Ch 5 Ch 6 |
| Wk 6 | Jan 18 | Ch 7 Ch 8 |
| Wk 7 | Jan 25 | Ch 9 Ch 10 |
| Wk 8 | Feb 1 | Ch 11 Ch 12 |
| Wk 9 | Feb 8 | Ch 13 Bonus |
Vocabulary List
- Vocabulary List (Google Sheets)
- Frequency List
Warning: May contain spoilers.
Resources and Links
- Read Chapter 1 on BookWalker
- Jisho is a popular online Japanese-English dictionary.
- ichi.moe is a tool for parsing out sentences. You can type/paste in a whole sentence, and it will try to break it down into individual parts.
- Deepl will translate a sentence from Japanese to English. It’s not always right, so if you want to check your translation, it’s often better to ask in the thread.
- Natively (Level 21)
Discussion Rules
- Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
- When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also, say what version of the book you are reading.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if they initially seem embarrassing. All of us are here to learn.
- To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation; it’s fun!
Membership
Will you be reading with us?
- Yes
- Yes, but I might start late
- Maybe
- No
Which version will you be reading?
- Digital
- Physical
I still remember the first time I heard and understood a full spoken Japanese sentence. Though it was a short and basic one, it made feel quite elated. And for the first time, I truly felt like this whole language-learning thing is possible.