Let’s continue talking about it here: https://community.wanikani.com/t/auto-generating-vocab-sheets-from-manga-for-book-clubs-possible-useful-off-topic-discussion-from-an-abbc-thread/60351
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I like how today we’re going into one off-topic conversation that gets pulled into here, then we’re taking a conversation from here and branching it off to a separate thread =D
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Haha, I was just adding a remark regarding that as an edit to my last post when I saw you post this. I’m feeling like a traffic director today. 
(This second one was definitely my bad though, haha.)
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I’ve a very broad, subjective question, but I’m quite curious to hear the opinions of others on this one. What do you think would be the progression rate of comprehension for someone going through these book clubs? Even though we haven’t even started yet, I’ve loved going through the first 8 pages of the book (starting page 9 tonight!). How many books would one go through to get to ‘graduate’, as it were, to the Beginners Book Club, then Intermediate, then Advanced etc. I know that there’s a lot of factors invovled, such as how studiously one approaches the book club, their current level of vocab and grammar, if they’re studying grammar outside of the book club itself etc. I know that there isn’t an exact science/formula to it, I guess I just want to hear from some of the more experienced users how the book clubs have helped them 
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I don’t think there’s any sensible answer to that.
It very much depends on which books, how thoroughly you read, what you do with the vocab and grammar you pick up, how fast you learn in the first place, etc. - could be three books and diving straight into the advanced book clubs for some (in theory - I don’t think it’s very likely) and ten books before going through to the beginner book clubs for others.
I personally didn’t need to read much before going into the beginner book clubs, but I did a bunch of other stuff on the side for a while. Now I’m just reading stuff for fun without really giving a damn about the level but none of it is too hard.
Either way binging やがきみ taught me a lot, enough to dive into 極主夫道 without too much trouble despite the lack of furigana, the kansai-ben and the yakuza slang, which then also taught me a bunch. I’ve also read a few other works in Japanese outside book clubs and manage fairly well, though admittedly it’s not exactly difficult stuff I’m reading and I still have to look up plenty of words as I go along.
Whatever the case for you specifically, book clubs (or other reading) will help you, if nothing else because they force you to put the language to use.
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I feel there’s a more blurred line between BC and ABBC here. Sometimes the difficulty of a series is obvious and sometimes it’s not. That said, I feel like the intermediate book club is a LOT harder. I’ve read over 20 volumes of manga now and several children’s books and I still feel like I’m not at a comfortable level for those books. It’s quite a slow burn. Everyone is different though.
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"Broad and subjective"are definitely apt descriptors. 
I read 2, maybe 3 (my sense of time is bad), ABBC books before jumping into the BBC.
From there, it was a similar amount of BBC books before I saw Spy × Family in the IBC and read that. I immediately dove into the ABC with Spice and Wolf having only read one IBC book, purely out of interest for the series with no thoughts to the difficulty, and came out okay (though I did finish 2 weeks behind in that one). But keep in mind that inbetween, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, continuing with spin off clubs for most things I’ve read (with the exception of 3: Way of the Househusband – too much going on at the time to continue at the reading pace I had at the time, though I intend to get back into the series. Yoru Cafe – I dropped it for lack of interest after the first volume. Spy × Family – it was cute and fun, but not something I felt the need to continue right away; may still come back to it. Well, and Spice and Wolf didn’t have an offshoot club, but I’ll return to that series sometime too, when I finish the light novel series I’m reading on my own), as well as scouting a number of different manga for the book clubs, and just doing my own reading on the side, as well as playing some games in Japanese.
My tracked number of read books at this point is about 64, and I started seriously reading back in 2021 with the Takagi-san club. I feel I could still keep up with the ABC whatever they picked, on top of my current reading, it’s just a matter of whether I have the interest or not. That might give you at least one perspective.
But what I would say overall is, the book clubs have been the key to accelerating my learning. I went from a couple of pages a day at the start of Takagi-san to entire chapters in a day by the end of the club. Now chapters of the same length take me 10 minutes to read, so the book clubs have been a massive benefit to my learning.
Without them, I would still be floundering, trying to read things like this on my own with no idea what I was doing wrong
(Yes, that was from one of the first manga I attempted on my own before joining book clubs. No, I’m not a smart man. 
)
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For what it’s worth, I’ve spent the last 15 minutes trying to discern how the sentence works. I’ve relied on Google Translate to try to find what each piece means.
理想郷に is “in utopia”
立てる is “to stand”
I’ve no idea what のかも means
しれない I think means “to not know (something)”
のだ is emphasis/explanation particle
から is “because”
So, the best I can garner is “I don’t know if it’s becuase one can stand in utopia”. So, that’s my current level
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If you're curious
You’re not too far off. A couple of context notes, the character speaking is a chuunibyou. So the reference to utopia is her being imaginative. She is talking about potentially being able to be with the person who she likes.
あの場所 is given as the furigana because “that place” is actually representative of what she means – standing at the person she likes’ side (in the panel, she is picturing just that…or rather, she is picturing the reality that somebody else currently stands there, and she longs to be in “that place”) whereas the kanji is what she is actually saying out loud to herself/thinking because of her chuuni ways.
立てる is “to stand” in potential form, yep!
The の that you affixed to かも is a nominalizer for that verb 立てる, turning it into a noun.
かもしれない is actually a grammar point – essentially means “might” or “may”.
How I would roughly interpret this sentence now (which has actually changed a bit since I last interpreted it on the forums, because I’ve got a better understanding now!):
“Because I may be able to stand in utopia.”
Where “utopia” just means standing in the place by his side.
Every other sentence this character speaks is that kind of layered puzzle, super dependent on context.
Tons of fun now! But at the time, I was spinning my wheels. Started somewhere far too difficult for me at the time and basically just lucked into discovering the clubs and a more achievable starting post!
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i always wondered how to get katakana outside of hoping the suggestions show them lol
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Oooh, nice to know I wasn’t too far off. Thank you! Today I learned that furigana has mutiple purposes, not just phonetic readings. Every day’s a school day 
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Hey, I just saw the mention! I missed the guys and girls of this forum, I took a 3 months break due to several reasons and I don’t remember so much, I have a 500 items review pile
Will go back to the Takagi-san manga series since the book clubs of the first volumes are very useful.
I remember asking the breakdown of almost every single speech bubble in at least the first couple volumes (and your detailed answers as well). This made me realize how useful is that section for the beginners, it’s like a launchpad to reading, and the merit is of @MrGeneric 's patience 
Looking forward to get back active on the community 
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おかえり! Glad to see you back, friend!
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ただいま (one of the few words I remember…)
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Am I doing book clubs wrong if I don’t care for transcribing every word and grammar point of every sentence?
I bailed out on しろくまカフェ as it was beyond me at the time but joined in again later for Hunter x Hunter and to be honest, I only really cared about understanding the story. I reached the end of the book, having asked a couple of plot questions, added a few words to the vocab list, and was satisfied I’d read a story. A lot of the grammar however, was way beyond my level and I’d have never gone close to finishing it in a reasonable time if was to try transcribing it.
I’m looking forward to ルリドラゴン but not sure if I’m approaching it in the correct manner?
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No, just reading it and asking questions if you have them is perfectly fine. People learn in different ways.
If you care more about understanding the story, which is the point in the end, that’s fair, but focusing on grammar and stuff makes it easier in the long run. But it’s not like you have to treat it as study in order to learn.
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I have my IME set up, so that uppercase letters instead of staying latin convert to katakana.
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The point of a book club is to have read a book, not to have a transcription of the whole thing You do whatever works for you. There are very few ways to do a book club wrong and most if not all of them involve not reading the book.
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I think the only time you do a book club wrong is when you neither enjoy it nor learn anything from it.
That said, if you want to get more out of it: Asking questions (and reading the answers to other people’s questions, which doesn’t even require any transcribing!) is a great way to do that. There’s lots of room in the middle between “transcribing every word and grammar point of every sentence” and “not asking any grammar questions”. 
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Don’t forget answering questions!
I’ve learned a bunch from just answering people’s questions, wondering whether something I think I know is entirely correct, wondering why something is a certain way, and then diving down a research rabbit hole, or otherwise just cementing my understanding of something by applying it in a certain context.
Of course if you’re a complete beginner on your first book club there might not be a bunch you can answer confidently, but even just working out your reasoning about why you think something you’re not 100% sure of can lead to a bunch of new insights - and open up a conversation about some of the things you have doubts about.
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