⭐ ジョジョの奇妙な冒険・JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Book Club Home Thread ⭐ *Now reading The Pillar Man - Santana*

I’m not sure about what manga type to choose, probably you can help me out with that haha.

Also I don’t think I have enough level for this. But I believe ones learn by doing so tanoshimi ni shiteru.

一緒に頑張ろう!!!

3 Likes

I’ve given Jojo’s a couple of tries before but never got past the first few chapters. I would like to try again!
Though, I’m afraid of feeling overwhelmed… Are chapters long? It feels like a big manga, and a big step in reading comprehension (maybe it’s just my impression, I don’t know the manga or the series that well)

P.S.: I read a bit of the manga but it was a long time ago and in my native language, I don’t remember anything jsjsjsj

2 Likes

They’re generally around 20 pages each all the way up until the series went monthly (which wasn’t until Part 7 which at the rate of 1 chapter a week is going to take at least a decade before that even becomes a worry). Though obviously how long that feels is going to be heavily affected by how comfortable you are with reading the text in it. Honestly though, give it a go and see how you do - there’s no harm in trying and deciding you aren’t ready yet after a bit. On the other hand you might surprise yourself and find it doable. No way to know without trying

It is a big manga series, no doubt, but it is split into multiple Parts. Each Part focuses on its own set of characters and so on, so the sheer length of the series is somewhat tempered by getting a satisfying conclusion to the current story every so often. Part 1 is the shortest by far, clocking in at 3 volumes in the bunko (or like 7 for the tankobons/digital)

I’ve already made a bit of a case for the bunko editions so I’ll reiterate how much I like them - the main downside is their smaller form factor (though I’ve found it’s not so bad personally, text is still very readable). They’re super simple to buy, you just get the boxset for the Part and you’re done - and you can get them new off amazon Japan without any trouble

4 Likes

@DIO-Berry I see you tagged me in a Jojo Book Club thread!
(…Wait, did I hear that line somewhere before? :thinking: Probably not.)

Anyway, thanks a ton for starting this! I needed a spark to work up the motivation to start from the beginning, so this is perfect! :smile: It’ll be interesting to see how hard the language is in the manga. The only manga of Jojo’s I’ve read is the first 6 volumes of SBR, but I’ve seen all of the anime (except some of the Rohan stuff).

2 Likes

No problem! Are you wanting to read physical or digital versions?

はい!一緒(いっしょ)頑張(がんば)ろう!

You’ve got this! Hopefully the comprehension questions will help too.

They’re pretty standard length for Jump, about 20-30 pages long until JoJo changed from weekly (Shonen Jump) to monthly (Ultra Jump) publication, but we wouldn’t reach that for several years. The chapters may be shorter before the change, but that’s just a guess from me. It would be about 3-4 pages a day, but it’ll definitely get easier as you go. Sometimes there are infodump pages, but they’re not very frequent. Maybe 1-2 every couple of volumes? I’ll try to summarize such pages.

I think you’re in for a treat! JoJo has some great surprising moments that are really more fun if you expect them.

Yes, this for sure! Plus if Part 1 at this time is too hard, there’s no reason you can’t try to read along when we get to a later Part, since they’re all relatively independent of each other.

It’s 4.5 for the tankobon :slight_smile:

The digital color follows the tankobon size for the most part and just digital follows the bunko :upside_down_face: it took a lot of puzzling to figure it all out lol

kekekeke

No problem! It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I’m glad I can help!

I’ve found it really enjoyable! All of the JoJos have their own speaking styles and then a lot of the secondary characters have their quirks.

I haven’t read SBR yet, so I’m not sure how it compares to the rest, but it’ll be fun! I think watching the anime really helped me to get a better idea of how the speech styles feel way more noticeable in the manga than the anime and then gave a leg up when getting used to them in the manga.

Oh? Just not a Rohan fan or something else keeping you from it?

3 Likes

Yeah, the speaking styles were something I was half aware of when watching the anime with subs. It’ll be fun to see them as they are in Japanese without being distracted by the English. I feel like the way the characters talk is so distinct in a lot of cases that I’ll start to hear their Japanese voice actor’s voices in my head. Some specific lines are burned into my brain permanently, I think. :laughing:

I will also say it took me a truly embarrassing amount of time to even notice what was going on with the Stand names. I wanna say I didn’t realize they were music references/bands until like…part 4? :sweat_smile: Although I did end up getting into some music because of Jojo’s, so that’s cool.

No, I like Rohan. It’s more like I just haven’t gotten to them yet since there’s so much of Jojo’s to appreciate haha. I was trying to prioritize SBR too, but I got distracted by the read every day challenge and wanted to use it to clean out all the manga I’ve been in the middle of for years now. Now SBR has become my reward for when I finish all the other manga. :horse_racing:

2 Likes

That absolutely happens to me, so I bet you’re right that it’ll happen to you too :slight_smile:

I don’t think that’s a spoiler. Most Japanese speakers don’t pick up on it either. It’s mostly otaku who figure it out and look up the songs lol. Most of the songs aside from the Queen ones aren’t well known in Japan it seems. I think I maybe found out when complaining about Smokey’s name? I think I was saying it was a cat name :black_cat: and someone told me it was a mashup of Smokey Robinson and James Brown :clown_face:

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, over 35 years of content really is a lot.

Lol, I’d make JoJo my reward but I think I’d never get through to it :face_with_peeking_eye:

2 Likes

Do the covers display correctly on your screen?

image

  • yes
  • no
  • sometimes
0 voters
1 Like

Ok, I’m in :fire:. I’ll give it a shot.

Sounds reasonable.

Yeah, that’s what was worrying me, but you’re right. Thanks :hugs:!
Plus 4 pages per day leaves me room for taking my time trying to read it.

I’ve been having trouble with furigana in the digital copies also. I’ll look up for these and see if they have a reasonable price. The part when you say “Araki’s art pops on paper” is the cherry on top for convincing me :joy:.

Thanks to everyone!! I’m really excited about this!

3 Likes

Welcome! :smiley:

I highly recommend BOOKOFF for physical copies, but you need a proxy. I think you can also order from Amazon Japan. Or maybe CD Japan could do it too? :thinking:

3 Likes

Great idea, I guess it will be my first book club!

I was planning on starting on my own, but this way it’s much better. I tried reading the beginning of Phantom Blood a couple of months ago but I was quite overwhelmed, especially on the grammar side.

I hope I’ll be able to keep up!

7 Likes

Hey all, been trying to get into reading in Japanese for a while now, joining a book club I think will help! I think this will definitely be above my level however at a chapter a week I should be able to persevere. Big fan of the anime so will be very cool to read the manga!

Looking forward to it :smile:

5 Likes

Woohoo! Welcome!

We should be able to help a lot in that department, plus I think the comprehension questions will make a good guide too.

Even if you need a break, the club will still be here afterwards :slight_smile: It should be easy to pop in and out whenever you like

Book clubs can be a really great way to jump start your learning.

You got this!!

This will make it even easier too

Yay!

3 Likes

If you’d like to study the vocab in advance, it’s not perfect, but there is an srs on jpdb for season 1 of the anime, which covers Part 1 and Part 2. The content of the anime and manga are not exactly the same, but there is a lot of overlap.

The preview picture is wrong, I’ve sent a message about it, but they didn’t fix it :person_shrugging:

6 Likes

JJBA might be a bit too high of a level for me and I’ve never watched the anime, but I keep hearing about how good it is… so might give it a try as part of a book club :eyes:

3 Likes

What a beautiful duwang…

2 Likes

Hell yeah! No reason you can’t jump in and out as you’re comfortable with too

2 Likes

This isn’t my sandwich…

1 Like

Are people hyped and ready for chapter 1? :smiley:

6 Likes

I am for sure - I bought the first 3 physical volumes and I can’f wait to start reading them :smile:

6 Likes