Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Posting Advice
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
For the Bookwalker version of this manga, the page numbers in the panels and the page number in the UI are always 2 apart. If you subtract 2 from the UI page number, this will give you the accurate page number!
Proper Nouns
Name
Reading
Image
Notes
Main Characters
木之本桜
きのもと さくら
Main character
ケルベロス ケロ
ケルベロス
Sakura’s companion
Discussion Questions
What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
Dialect Guide
None this week! In future weeks I’ll include some hints about Kero’s Osaka dialect as it becomes relevant.
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I have finished this part before the thread was posted
I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’m reading this book after the club has finished
I’m no longer reading the book
0voters
If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”
Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!
This week is relatively short, but it’s also primarily composed of a cold open into Sakura’s incantation. This is relatively more challenging language, but the good news is this incantation gets repeated a couple of times later in the book, so if you get it here, you’ll have it in your knowledge for the other times it comes up.
わ - This is a sentence ender particle, it has many uses, but in this manga it’s used in the anime/manga sense to signify a more feminine character. Tofugu
てる - This is an abbreviation of ている, incredibly common in casual speech, manga, and certain regional dialects
Finished this week’s part - I wanted to do it before going on a training camp tomorrow until next Saturday. Not very difficult, but some interesting very formal/archaic stuff like 我, 宿りし or なんじ (汝), as befits spell formulas - I love such things, as one of my ultimate goals is mastering classical Japanese.
Yeah, I was just about to write that: I peeked at some of the later pages and the language mostly reverts back to normal. It’s not a samurai manga or something.
Yeah, I sort of expect two opposite reactions to this week:
“Archaic pronouns? N4 grammar? Wow, this is so hard”, maybe from people who are reading for the first time and have only done SRS or “pick the right word” tier exercises from a textbook
“Only 5 pages of actual text? This is too slow” from people who have read before and have built their mechanism to looking up unknown vocab/language
The slow start is really for the people in group 1, who are actually reading for the first time to build their muscles before we start tackling larger chunks of the manga. If you’re in the second group and finding the pace too slow, you can always join back in on week 6 where we start chapter 2 and increase the pace. If you’re in the first group and finding it intimidating that others are finding it easy, don’t worry, the ABBC exists to start your journey to that point
Definitely more challenging than I was expecting for my first book ever in Japanese - but having read the manga series and watched the anime in my native language helped a lot with context.
Had a few questions mainly about grammar usage - again this is my first time doing this so apologies if I am doing it the wrong way.
契約のもと - what does “のもと” mean here?
創りしカ-ド - what is the meaning of “し” in this context? (also used in “宿りし”, “移し”)
戒めの鎖となれ - is this supposed to mean something like “become warning chains”?
Basically “Under [the terms] of our [magical] contract”
戒めの鎖となれ
This is what I get for doing the vocab sheet in isolation. It’s actually this 戒め: Jotoba word: 縛め , where いましめ means bonds. So it’s basically “become binding chains”
創りしis an archaic attributive form (one of the so-called 連体形 (れんたいけい) ), reinforcing the idea that the cards were created by Clow. It appears to me that it works similarly to the modern つくった form. “Cards that were created by Clow!”
Forgot to add: “移し” is actually not the same form as “創りし” or “宿りし”.
“移し” is a common, modern continuative form ( 連用形 (れんようけい) ) of 移す (うつす), “to transfer”. It is used for example when enumerating activities that directly follow each other. It is created simply by putting the verb in its stem form (polite, without -masu). Here it can be understood as “transfer [the power to this key]” (移し) AND lend it to me!" (tried to emphasize the continuative form - transferring to the key is directly followed by the lending of power). It confused me a great deal too when I stumbled upon it for the first time, reading some folk-tale.
A few… well, actually a lot of words for those who are joining a book club for the first time! If you already feel at home, just ignore this whole post
Ask questions!
I know that some of you might be feeling shy, or don’t want to bother others with their questions, but you don’t have to worry: People love answering questions. You’re making the thread more lively, and you’re also helping everyone who has the same questions. Please, ask a lot of them!
Here’s what you need to know:
Please include the page number: [details="Page 54"]Your question goes here[/details] (See “How should I post my questions?” in the FAQ below for more.)
Check if your question has already been asked. (See “How can I quickly find out if my questions have already been asked by someone?” in the FAQ below.)
Please mark any spoilers for the current/future chapters like this: [spoiler]text here[/spoiler])
Also, it’s fine to only read the thread, but consider participating at least a little, even if it’s just short posts like “This is really hard, but I’m giving my best!” or a “Wow, reading this chapter was fun.”. It’ll help you feel more part of the club which makes it easier to stay motivated, and it’ll make it easier to ask questions later if you have some.
Some general advice
Don’t give up just because you have to look up so much that it “doesn’t feel like reading”. That’s how we all started, and if you keep at it, you’ll get better. (There’s more on this in the FAQ below under “Is it too early for me if I have to look up a lot of grammar/vocab and often don’t understand sentences?”)
If we’re too fast for you, you can go at your own pace. Post your questions in the appropriate thread for the pages (see the schedule) then. You’ll get answers surprisingly quickly!
Google: Great for finding more about grammar/expressions if you can identify them. (Example)
ichi.moe: Tries its best to identify parts of a sentence for you. (Example)
ChatGPT: Can translate and even explain parts of sentences for you with “Translate:” and “Explain the parts of the sentence in English:” as a prefix. In my experience it’s a lot better than DeepL, even for translations. But sometimes it will very confidently get things completely wrong. Take everything with a grain of salt, and if you don’t have enough experience to judge whether the answer is right or wrong, I recommend asking here in the book club threads instead!
DeepL: Tries it’s best to translate a sentence for you. Sometimes helps to point you in the right direction. Will make lots of mistakes.
You can find out more about using these tools in the FAQ below under “How can I approach a sentence I don’t understand?”
FAQ
About questions and answers
I have a lot of questions, but I don't want to be a nuisance.
Questions being annoying is a really common misconception. Luckily, the opposite is the case. Asking questions helps everyone:
The people who answer usually enjoy helping others and answering questions. Many people say that they are even learning a lot when they answer questions! And those who can’t or don’t want to answer them simply ignore them. So, literally the worst thing that could happen is that your question doesn’t get answered, and even that is highly unlikely.
All the people who have the same question will be really happy to see them already asked by you. It’s not uncommon to see people thank others for asking a question they had.
The thread gets more lively.
You get your questions answered - and on top of that, when you participate in the threads, you are probably more motivated to continue and keep up with reading!
So not only are you not a nuisance if you ask a lot of questions, you make the club better for everyone. Please ask a lot of them!
My questions feel really basic, and I'm kinda reluctant to ask them.
This is a club for first-time readers. No question is too simple or silly - we are expecting first-time reader questions. Please ask them, and help all the other participants who have the same question!
How should I post my questions?
Here’s a format I like to use, as an example:
Using page numbers helps anybody quickly go to the page, and typing out the sentence makes it searchable and provides context for those who want to answer. Sometimes they don’t even have to open the book to answer your question.
And here’s how to make it:
[details="Page 7"]
ツチノコがごみ？？らします 必ずネット
What are the ？？ on the trash sign?
[/details]
[details="Page 18"]
Kon: 隅のほう......っぽい方向から埋めていこう
"Let's fill it up... sort of into the direction of the corner"? I guess he might be talking about filling in the map?
[/details]
[details="Page 23"]
Kon: まぁ部屋とまともに繋がってない廊下なんて意味ないけど
Does Kon mean that there's no point in having the normal second floor corridor if it's not connected to the normal second floor rooms? And まともに is "normally"?
[/details]
Two things to keep in mind:
Be sure to post it in the weekly thread to which those pages belong. You can find an overview over them in the schedule.
If you don’t use physical pages, mention it. Ebook readers often are off by one or more. Many books or manga have physical page numbers printed on some pages though - you can find one of those and count forward or backwards to your page.
How can I quickly find out if my questions have already been asked by someone?
Use the search function with “in this topic” selected to look up part of the sentence you are interested in:
About reading and understanding
Is it too early for me if I have to look up a lot of grammar/vocab and often don't understand sentences?
That’s pretty normal for your first book(s) - we all started out like that. If you keep at it, I promise you that you will get better.
Feeling strongly like that actually happened to me twice, once with my first Absolute Beginner Book Club, and again with my first Beginner Book Club. Both times I felt ill-prepared and like I’m not even really reading because I had to do oh-so many look-ups, and like I should give it up for now and try again once I’m better because there’s no point continuing right now.
Well, turns out there was a point. While I actually gave up that ABBC, I did power through this feeling and stick around for that BBC, and I’m so glad I did. I learnt so much, and once I was done I went back to try that ABBC book again, and this time I could actually read through it in a few days! (Still with many look-ups, of course, but by then I was totally fine with that.)
So… the solution is usually not stopping to read and going back to learning vocab until the feeling goes away - it’s to make peace with having to look up a lot.
I read a sentence. Do I know all vocab? If not, I look it up as I’m reading by typing the words I don’t know into jisho.org (vocab) or thejadednetwork.com/sfx (sfx).
Does the sentence make sense to me? If yes, I continue with the next one.
If I almost get it, but some details I missing, I try to google for those details (e.g. if I have never seen the sentence ending よね, I will google “yone japanese grammar”). If it that solves it, I make a bookmark of the info I found and continue with the next sentence.
If I can’t find out what the heck is up with the sentence, I transcribe it and stick it into ichi.moe, which will analyze the parts the sentence is made up of. Often that allows me to look up grammar or just solves my problems, and I continue with the next sentence.
If I still don’t know what’s going on, I put it into ChatGPT or DeepL. If the automatic translation makes sense to me and fits in the context, I look at the Japanese sentence again and try to figure out how DeepL got there.
If I still can’t figure out the sentence, I check the weekly thread (if I’m reading with a club). Was the question already asked?
If so, I check (or wait for) the answer.
If not, or if the answers don’t help, I make a question with the sentence and my best guess of a translation.
If I have trouble: Googling for grammar or expressions if I can identify them.
If I still have trouble: Transcribing + putting the sentence into ichi.moe.
If I still have trouble: Putting it into ChatGPT or DeepL.
If I still have trouble: Checking the thread.
if there’s no answer: My best guess at translating + asking a question.
How much should I try to understand?
That depends on three things: How hard the book is for you, how much time and energy you want to put in, and how much you want to understand.
If it’s hard and you only have little time/energy, try to understand the gist and learn a few new things each week. Remember to ask questions when you struggle.
If it’s hard, but you have more time/energy, go for as many details as you want to after you get the gist! Ask lots of questions, the community is a treasure trove of information!
If it’s not that hard but you still want to deepen your understanding, feel free to ask questions about more minor details you don’t completely get.
Pace and don’t overexert yourself. It’s more important to finish the whole book and learn a lot throughout, than to go for 100% understanding of chapter 1 and 2 only to be burned out and stop reading there. If you realize you can’t keep up what you’re doing, start doing less - you’ll still learn a lot!
And lastly, if you don’t actually care about e.g. getting all the details and just want to have a nice reading experience, that’s totally okay too and you’re still very welcome to read with us!
About the club in general
The club is too fast for me, or I'm starting late. Can I read at a slower pace?
Feel free to read at your own pace. If you have any questions, just ask them in the weekly thread they belong to (see the schedule here). It doesn’t matter if it’s been weeks, months or years since the club read that chapter - you’ll likely get an answer surprisingly fast. (And don’t forget to use the search function first to see if your question has already been answered.)
Am I doing the book club wrong if I'm __________________?
I think the only time you do a book club wrong is when you neither enjoy it nor learn anything from it. Do as much or as little as you are comfortable with.
Any suggestions on how to get the most out of the book club?
For me, the best thing about the book clubs is that you can learn so much - but that’s only if you actually participate in the club. So, my recommendation is: Read the threads, and ask all the questions you have!
And if you feel up to it, answering questions is another way to learn a lot.
Definitely a bit daunting – not much vocabulary I already knew (besides 前, 力, 風 and 鍵, 闇, though not the kanji) and new (or old I suppose!) grammar, but from previous exposure to the anime I know that this incantation is going to be a bit of a stock phrase and glancing just beyond, we get back into the realm of more daily-life style speech and vocabulary that’s less intimidating if also less fantastical ^^
I did a quick check of the first anime episode (skipping forward until this scene which is not part of the cold open there) to confirm that it is indeed word-for word with the phrasing in the show:
page 10
闇の力を秘めし「鍵」よ！
真の姿を我らの前に示せ
契約のもとさくらが命じる
「レリーズ!」
I’ve always thought it’s neat the way fantasy and sci-fi manga use furigana to combine meaning with a made-up, nonstandard or foreign pronunciation (as is done with レリーズ and 封印解除).
Are the 「」s here like scare quotes / italics? That’s sort of the usage vibe I’m getting.
I tried a different a different absolute beginner book club a few months ago and really struggled. There was a lot of casual/informal grammar I wasn’t familiar with, and I had a hard time figuring out the meaning of sentences. I also didn’t find myself particularly interested in the plot of that manga so that didn’t help for motivation. It felt like too much work, and I dropped it pretty quickly.
I’m already enjoying this so much more. Sure I still have look up a lot of vocab and track down some unfamiliar grammar, but I feel like I’m getting the gist of things! I think this manga does a good job of getting you invested in just a few pages, so I’ve actually read ahead a little bit. But I’m looking forward to sticking with this book club!
I’ve read this manga in English and watched the anime (subtitled), and even though it’s been years that incantation was repeated so many times it’s pretty well drilled into my head. So yeah, if you struggled with that part, don’t worry–it’s used again and again with few if any changes so you’ll get used to seeing it, and as others have already pointed out it’s definitely not an indication of how the rest of the grammar/vocab will be.
(Also that sfx translation site looks so helpful, never would have even thought to look for something like that.)
For the curious, here’s the “Release” incantation from the first episode of the anime.
Warning for the extremely spoiler sensitive: Sakura is wearing a different outfit and facing off against a different critter, because there are some slight differences in the anime.
For the curious, here’s the “Release” incantation from the first episode of the anime.
While we’re talking about the anime, it’s probably worth discussing the differences between the manga and the several versions of the anime people here might have seen.
There’s of course the original manga which we’re reading here.
Then there’s the anime adaptation which is heavily expanded on the manga. Clamp are involved, so I wouldn’t call the expanded content filler, and some of that content does get acknowledged in various spinoffs and the sequel manga. In particular, there’s one new major character and 2.5 times as many cards.
Then there’s the three English dubs of the anime. The first is the Nelvana dub, which applied some quite heavy editing (in particular downplaying romance and especially gay/lesbian romance) and was released on physical media in a number of western countries. This dub was further edited into Cardcaptors, which aired in the US and other English speaking countries that cut down the anime to half the running time, and tried to promote a character who doesn’t appear in this volume to be a equal protagonist to Sakura. Finally, there’s the Animax dub, which was much more faithful to the Japanese anime and aired in south east asia, and is what most streaming services have these days as the English dub.
There’s also the two sequel movies. These are entirely anime original. The first was dubbed by Nelvana, though with less editing than either of their versions of the main anime, and the second was dubbed by Funimation with a new cast, keeping pretty faithful to the Japanese version.
Then there’s Clear Card, the sequel manga. It mostly sticks to being a straight sequel to the original manga, but does acknowledge the existence of some of the anime additions, more as a nod to fans than a major role in the manga storyline.
Finally, there’s the Clear Card anime, which tries to be a sequel to the original anime and an adaptation of the Clear Card manga at the same time. So the anime series additions which are alluded to in the Clear Card manga are wholeheartedly included in the Clear Card anime. The anime movies are less lucky though. For the portion of the manga it covers, it slightly expanded on the Clear Card manga, though not to the same extent the original series was. It’s also incomplete, as the Clear Card manga was still ongoing while it was adapted, though they have announced intent to adapt the rest. This one was also dubbed by Funimation, though using the cast of the CLAMP spinoff Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle rather than the cast of movie 2’s dub. (Tsubasa’s relationship to Card Captor Sakura being “It’s complicated”).
made it past the incantation yayy
that’s definitely enough for today haha
grammar point of the day:
until reading the incantation, I don’t think I’d really absorbed the fact that ~え is a different ending than ~て. I mean 待て ends in て so I never realized it was different than 待って. And I’ve heard はなせ before but I never stopped to consider, wait, the て form is はなして.
Card Captor Sakura Book Club!
So yeah, if you struggled with that part, don’t worry–it’s used again and again with few if any changes so you’ll get used to seeing it, and as others have already pointed out it’s definitely not an indication of how the rest of the grammar/vocab will be.
