If you’re looking to purchase physical books in the US, have you checked out Kinokuniya? I ordered my copy from there, and while I’m lucky enough to be able to pick it up locally, they do ship as well and if you’re ordering over $50 worth of books (which you’re doing if you get the full set) it’s free shipping. Might come out cheaper then shipping through Amazon JP
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I started my learning journey today, and I just wanted to let you all know that this forum and the WaniKani community are amazing. Just reading through this thread motivates me so much, and I regret not starting earlier so I could have joined this club sooner. Enjoy reading !
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Hi everyone!
I took like, a month break from using WK but I am back hehe. I think this will be a really good challenge to try - skimming through the pages I could get the jist of what was going on, so I think I would like to challenge myself by reading a whole manga! It will be my first time using this club as a study method, so looking forward to trying it!
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Hey all, excited to join this group for my first Japanese book club! 
Does anyone know where I can buy the book as an unlocked (eg, DRM-free) .epub file?
I want to read it on my Boox eink, but unfortunately the page turn buttons only consistently work with the built-in epub viewer which doesn’t support any kind of DRM 
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Hello, welcome to the book club! 
I’m not sure where you can buy the book DRM-free, but you can try this really cool thing created by @ChristopherFritz that automates taking screenshots of the book if you purchase it from BookWalker!
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You can also de-DRM them following some instructions if you search on the internet a little… That’s what I’ve been doing so far, I buy my ebooks on the kobo store and I de-DRM them for personal use 
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First time poster, and also first time book club participant!
I have no idea what to expect of myself - I’m further behind on grammar than I’d like to be, but I’m about half way through Tango N5 and am really enjoying it, for whatever that’s worth.
I absolutely had to join when I saw it was Doraemon: while in Japan I met some people who mentioned how much they loved Doraemon and that they thought it would be good place to start with reading. That conversation is the main thing that has pushed me to learn Japanese, so it’s fun and fitting for this to be the first book \ manga I read.
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Is there a recommended WK level to attempt reading this book? I want to start consuming some comprehensible input, but will probably be tough if I’m only understanding 1% of vocab to start.
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According to wkstats, you’ll know all of the Grade 1 kanji by level 8, but the book has furigana, so it’s just a matter of knowing the vocabulary words or not. Additionally, book clubs typically have a vocabulary sheet to reference while you read so you don’t have to look up every word yourself. I would recommend taking a look through the free preview on sites like bookwalker to see if you understand enough to be comfortable jumping in with or without the vocab sheet to help you.
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Tempted to join in here but I have a bunch of travel coming up and am slightly scared of trying to do this on a phone / iPad. How do people find bookwalker on iOS?
*edit: would be my first time following a book club and using bookwalker
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Hello and welcome everyone! It’s great to see so many new and familiar faces here!!
Reading starts Dec 14th!
The club kicks off this weekend, so sit back and get read to enter the delightful world of ドラえもん!!
The schedule is complete and detailed in the first post. I’ll post links at the start of every week to a new thread to discuss that week’s reading.
vocab sheet
We also have a shiny new vocab spreadsheet up now
Notes on how to use the spreadsheet - contribute as you read!
The idea is that everyone contributes as they read and it makes the reading experience smoother for everyone. Please read the guidelines if it’s your first club. The key thing that will apply to this club is to remember the kanji and kana columns for vocab apply to the word as it appears in the manga. When you come across words written in kana where you will know they are normally written in kanji - then put the kanji for that word in the Notes column. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. I added what I thought looked like the trickiest word for each page as a start so people can get an idea of how it works. Then just continue to add rows in the order the words appear as you look them up.
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For those joining who are worried about whether you are ready for this - Doraemon is a pretty gentle manga, and as far as ABBC picks goes - we’re on the easier end, so this is a perfect manga for your first club. Check out this great article with tips on joining your first club. And for people who are more experienced readers - Doraemon is legend, so don’t let this one pass you by 
Some quick responses:
@andrewsouthpaw When you first start reading - it’s your grammar level that will probably be limiting, not kanji. Vocab is in between, but generally not a problem once you have elementary grammar down. Viridithon’s suggestion to check out the free preview pages is spot on. We start by reading about a page a day on average for reference. The whole first story is on the free preview I believe, so you could see how you do in the first week and decide after that.
If you’re not in Japan, then you need to complete purchases on Bookwalker’s webpage. But you can read purchased books from their mobile apps by logging in with the same account. Here is the iOS link
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Hello people.
I’m wanting to buy a Digital Copy from bookwalker.
When you put your credit card the amount is automagically converted to US Dollars? (I’m paying with an Argentinian Credit Card)
I’m afraid of buying and then getting broke 
Greetings.
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Bookwalker itself will only charge in yen the total shown. Your card converts it to its currency and you may be charged a fee by your credit card depending on their terms for foreign transactions. So to understand how much you will be charged, convert the yen price you see at checkout to the currency of your credit card. The conversion you look up on Google won’t be exact, so plan on about 1% higher cost. Normally credit card foreign transaction fees aren’t very high, but if you have never used your card for a foreign transaction, then you could check the terms/fees overview of your credit card contract. Some cards don’t charge any named fee, they just give a conversion rate that is slightly to their advantage (the 1% above).
On Bookwalker, it’s helpful to do the checkout process on Google Chrome’s browser, then you can use their page translate feature during most of the checkout process. At the final step though, bookwalker has a “Language” tab that you can click to get English.
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Like mitrac said, just google your bank/credit card and “foreign currency conversion” and you should have the information on the rate your bank applies and if there’s any fees. At my Canadian bank for instance, it says the rate is 2.5%. The last time I bought manga it cost me roughly 10CAD for a 1100Y transaction
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This is very helpful. Thanks!
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Thank you! I’ll let you know how it goes, same to @mitrac
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For those joining who are worried about whether you are ready for this - Doraemon is a pretty gentle manga, and as far as ABBC picks goes - we’re on the easier end, so this is a perfect manga for your first club.
I’m looking forward to attempting to read this, thanks for organizing this ABBC! 
I’m also in the “worried if I’m ready” camp, I have tried to read other mangas without success (never finished one). がんばります！
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I’m really exited about tomorrow, this is going to be my first book club so I don’t really know what to expect ʅ(°ヮ°)ʃ
PS: Any advice would be more than welcome!
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Oh me too! I have been looking around the book clubs for a while, waiting for a pick I would be comfortable committing to reading, so now I’m more than excited to finally start!
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