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!
If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example
For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!
OR
Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!
Proper Nouns
Feel free to add to this as new characters / places get introduced throughout the book.
Name
Reading
Notes
山田
やまだ
Main character
田山
たやま
Main character
佐々木
ささき
Main character
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m reading this book after the club has finished
I’m still undecided if I will join
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 up to date with the discussion!
We are officially moving from a chapter a week to two chapters a week! This may be a bit challenging, especially to new readers, but please try your best and keep reading! Remember that we are always here to help with questions.
Discussion about the secret from the earlier chapters
So I’ve rereread chapter 1, now that I know, and I believe the author wants the reader to know from chapter 1, since it finishes like this, showing us 山田さん’s earing and eyes:
However what threw me off on my first reread was one of the first pages, I thought for sure that this showed us that there are 3 protagonists, didn’t occur to me that this could just be from 佐々木s point of view
Yes I think the reader is supposed to know from very early on & chuckle over how dense Sasaki is!
However stuff like this can be quite confusing when we are focusing more about understanding the language than on the actual storyline. I guess it just shows how important it is to reread the chapters various times!
I mean the panel is just art after all and not a canon part of the story. But I agree - it’s quite confusing!
I’ve already read to the end of chapter 5 today and I don’t think I can wait until next week
I’m sorry for being impatient but I’ll be reading on a little bit ahead I think!!
I’m also not entirely sure, but I think that she’s sulking because, despite Sasaki always watching her, he doesn’t realise that she and Tanaka are the same person (since she showed her smile as Tanaka a few pages before, and then showed a similar smile as Yamada, but he didn’t see the similarity)
Well, the week I’ve sort of been dreading with the speed increase to 2 chapters a week.
Luckily, of all the weeks where it could happen, this is pretty much the best week to make the transition. I’m ahead on the ABBC, having accidentally read to the end of chapter 5 last week, and I have an extra day off Monday.
I normally do these book clubs in a single sitting, but I think with my level of comprehension of this manga, that might be a bit much, so my plan is chapter 4 today and chapter 5 tomorrow or Monday.
Ok, so actually this was one of the easier chapters for this manga. Again, the first page had more of the new vocab, but luckily 新卒 was pretty easy to grasp from my kanji I’d learned here and 子 obviously referring to the same person from context and not a literal child made it a bit easier than prior page 1s.
Then the rest of it focused more on feelings than a lot of the salaryman and smoking vocab of previous chapters, which also made it relatively easier. So for context the previous chapters of this manga have taken me an hour each but chapter 4 took half an hour.
I guess I could try do chapter 5 today also, but I have some other stuff I want to attend to so going to stick to my plan of doing it tomorrow.
I had an interrupted reading time today but thankfully the chapters weren’t too hard.
Pg 46
On rereading, I assume what Sasaki is looking to 学ぶ from Yamada is ‘how to avoid misunderstandings given by your tone of voice’ or something along those lines? I didn’t really get it on first read but it makes more sense on a re-read.
p59
I normally see めちゃくちゃ in kanji as 目茶苦茶 but this is the first time I’ve seen it as 滅茶苦茶.
Jisho to the rescue here.
p65
Not sure what Yamada/Tayama says as an aside to camera. にぶす木？
I didn’t understand Sasaki’s question/comment about being an elementary school student… did I miss something from the conversation that would have implied Tayama was referring to him as one?
Wow, that went straight over my head. I’m happy enough to be able to roughly follow along with the story but there are details like this that I miss. Thanks.
Aaaand I finished chapter 5. Not sure whether it’s because all the language they’re using has sunk in more now or if these last two chapters were genuinely much easier than the others, but to be honest this was one of the easier chapters, with the ultrabold and handdrawn fonts presenting most of the difficulty this week, more so than the vocab.
Me: This is going well! I’ll just read both chapters in one go!
The manga: Nice! Also, here’s two handwritten pages in between the chapters.
Me: On second thought, maybe I’ll continue tomorrow.
I too found it easier this week. Pretty sure I’m not smarter, so it must have been easier.
I have another orthography question this week.
On page 50, what’s-her-name starts speaking katakana at the end of her sentences. コト for こと at the end of page 50, and ケド for けど at the beginning of the next page.
Book Club!
