Thanks @Zaichiki@Subikun@feralfuton@tinynikki for writing some of your experiences with the club!! It’s so encouraging and makes me really happy you’re all enjoying it so much. A good friend introduced me to Doraemon and it’s been so fun to share it here!
I agree that is tricky. I’ll make a note for people to put the relevant page numbers at the top of their posts so it’s easier to skim through anything later than you are currently reading. One thing that does work well is to use the Search function (select “search this thread”) and search for just the page number.
The club used to read at a page per day pace and those threads are soo clean and helpful. I read the ABBC club’s 2nd grade biographies book (after the club ended) and at least for the first two chapters, it was invaluable to follow along like that with all the comments in order. I’m not sure of the lore why that stopped - if it took too much daily dedication or if it meant it was just too hard for weekend and faster readers to participate.
I’m enjoying it but also very surprised by what I find difficult and what I don’t. I was really satisfied with the pun flashlight chapter and found it much easier to read than I expected, but the shadow chapter felt incredibly difficult. I expected the magical map to be much harder than it was, but I also think some of grammar might have been things I didn’t really understand textbook-wise but was able to intuit from the story. And honestly that’s just fine, it’s how I’ll pick it up.
Overall, I wish I’d had the opportunity to read this as a kid. I would have loved it. But as I said in one of the weekly threads, I wish more that I had learned Japanese as a kid, so the ideal would be I learned Japanese and read this in Japanese as a kid, ha!
Join in for week 10, the last official week of the club! (Next week is an optional week for anyone interested who wants to read and discuss the afterword pages, which include comments from the mangaka on some of the educational intentions of each episode.)
Hope you all enjoyed meeting Doraemon and participating in the book club!
Learning to read in Japanese is a journey of many steps, so whether you got through your first manga episode with this club (congratulations!) or your first manga entirely (hurrah!), either way give yourselves a big round of applause.
No matter how far you got, it’s probably still further than you did before, so celebrate! I didn’t finish my first book club, I dropped out after the first week. But I kept going little by little, and eventually finished my first manga with a future club. So please, keep going, one step at a time.
I hope what you gained from this club will help you continue to participate in the various clubs here or even explore Japanese media generally.
The next ABBC club is Scary Stories, hosted by soggy! Have fun everyone and thanks for the great discussions
Thank you so much @mitrac for the wonderful work in this club!
This was indeed my first time reading a Japanese manga and I’m sure I only got this far because of you and everyone who’s been participating and commenting on every thread.
I’m proud of us all, whether you finished the manga or not, because it’s the continuous effort that will make everyone learn Japanese and have fun while doing it.
You’re very welcome! I’m so glad you both and hopefully many others enjoyed the club it’s such a great way to build up the stamina for daily reading and get to know people in this amazing community. I hope to see you in future book clubs!
And thanks to everyone who asked and answered questions! 
it’s such a great way to build up the stamina for daily reading and get to know people in this amazing community. I hope to see you in future book clubs!