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=”Cha カードキャプターさくら・Card Captor Sakura Book Club cherry_blossom Week 4pter 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!
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?
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Still going ! Will this be the first book club I finish ? (Well technically I did finish the first tome of レンタルお兄ちゃん, but that was long after the bookclub was finished.
Only four weeks to go ! Weeks are now too long for me to read in advance, but I should be able to just read this easily enough.
I think this was the first week I wanted to keep reading to find out what happens, lol.
All the handwritten text on page 134 was hard for me to make out so I’ll be interested to see what other people came up with! Something about how the “ghost” appeared different to each of them?
Yukito’s info box looked pretty bare, hmm…
My favorite vocab word was コンクールとか - Sakura says that Tomoyo participates in “competitions and such.” Usually if it’s katakana, I would think it’s a loan word, but I’m not sure what the root is supposed to be here. Congress?
Having a relaxing saturday so thought I’d get the jump on this week’s reading.
Pg 123
Because of piano lessons, I’m late. I have to get back early.
Pg 124
Huhhhhh??
S… sakura…
Oh, sorry!
I’m Kinomoto Sakura, a 4th year elementary student. Today is summer cheerleading practice but…
Pg 125
That park with the pond, is the great penguin king there? (we call the penguin slide the great penguin king)
It’s the sacred summer holiday and sacred break time, why would you tell such a scary story…
Naoko, you must have misseen it… It wasn’t that right?…
Let’s start practice!
What’s wrong?
N…nothing…
Pg 126
Why does everyone tell scary stories when it becomes summer… I go through that park on my way home…
Sorry, I’ll get it!
Pg 127
Ughh
Key that conceals the power of darkness!
Show your true form before me
I order you by this contract
Release!!
Pg 128
I brought this
Jump!
That song…
Pg 129
Just as I thought, it’s Tomoyo!
Tomoyo is in the chorus club, with her beautiful voice she sings songs extremely well and wins many competitions!
Pg 130
Oh, it’s over?
Tomoyo!
Sakura!
Woah, it’s high up here!
You’re using magic huh?
Is this chorus club practice?
Yeah, there’s the nationwide competition in September.
Pg 131
Sakura, when is your practice til?
Til 3.
Speaking of which, I gotta go home (╥﹏╥)
What is it?
Let’s go home together!!
Pg 132
It’s fine now.
It’s still bright out!
Y…yeah
Here!!
Pg 133
This place in particular has changed
WaaaAAA
Pg 134
[lots of screaming]
It’s a woman!
Ack, it has one big revolving eye!
Ahhh, I don’t understand… it has pointy ears!
Pg 135
It’s just the great penguin king…
Eh??
Pg 136
That was so scary
How are you calm fighting Clow Cards, but no good with ghosts and stuff
Well, it’s no good if you don’t know what you’re dealing with!
But the rumor is that there is a ghost coming from the pond near the big tree at that park.
I haven’t heard of anything coming out of the pond.
Feeling more and more comfortable every week, although I'm regretting not putting the more "niche" words in my vocab bank when I started out. Adding them now though!
Last week I said I was most excited to see the かき氷デート but no dice this week >.< hopefully they didn’t forget about it haha. This week was cute though, and there were a couple spots where I really felt like I had made lots of progress, and I’ve been making more attempts at reading the handwriting text even if it’s just in passing. We’re getting close to the end!
Yay I’ve had a few really awful chronic pain weeks, but I’ve managed to catch up today~ it was cute and I’m really looking forward to see what card this ‘ghost’ is going to be lol. I actually don’t remember. But I really liked the previous chapter where Sakura came up with the clever idea to catch the card, so I wonder what it’s going to be this time.
Because the reading pace is slow, it seems like I’ll actually be able to finish reading together with everyone for a change, hooray~
Alright, I’m caught up again and ready for next week’s reading. Hooray! I’m having fun with it too, which is great.
Grammar Of The Day: 良くわからない
I was always taught that when saying “not really X” one should use あまり + negative form, and that a word like 良く should be used for the positive form. So I was surprised to see 良く + わからない!
I suppose this is just a case of me learning textbook Japanese, and learning that in practice sometimes people will use words in ways I didn’t expect.
Apparently あまり can also be used with positive form, though in that case it’s typically used with the kanji (余まり). 余まり + positive means “a lot of/too much X”, which is why 余まり + negative means the opposite → “not much X”!
From my cursory research the positive use case isn’t very common. Still, it’s interesting!
Chapter thoughts
Lol Yukito was born on Christmas… just another detail for Sakura to swoon over I suppose
I think it’s cute how Sakura decides to go after her pom pom by using her magical girl abilities! She’s gotten really used to her powers, huh?
I’m crushing through my backlog this week for realsies this time…work has really slowed down so I actually have some mental energy to read Japanese.
I’ve been dodging all the handwriting for the most part because I find it almost impossible to read, but that one panel really forced me to work through it. Still finding it difficult though The CLAMP style of hard outlining all the hiragana makes it so hard to read!
I love that Sakura gets so in her own head and terrifies herself with ghost stories. Very relatable protagonist!
I took a bit of a break from Japanese studying but am trying to get back to it, starting by catching up with the club! I thought it would be harder to jump back in after a couple weeks but I had a pretty smooth time reading this chapter. Spoilery thoughts: I laughed out loud at Sakura using her magic to fly into the tree to retrieve the pom-pom! I’m very curious to know more about this pond creature…I wonder if we might be ending this volume on a bit of a cliffhanger