It’s here!
Nice! I’m still waiting on mine, finally got a delivery date, expected by February 4th
I got mine yesterday too!
Ah, the anticipation
Before we get into discussing the book itself, can I just say that after transcribing the first 20 pages so far, that the artwork is absolutely gorgeous.
I’m excited to start, but just a little sad to wait another 2 weeks lol
Hi guys ^^
I got ルリドラゴン now! I would like to join the club as well. It’ll be my first time, and I don’t expect to understand all that much, but from the initial pages, it seems like I can understand enough.
cant wait to start this. I got my physical copy in the mail today 
I was about to say the same. My special design mention goes specifically to the horns, that are not the “teeny-weeny-so-kawaii-you-will-fall-in-love-when-I-stab-you” 
type, but proper hunting knife shaped “rip-your-gut-and-slash-your-throat-before-you-say-love-and-peace” 
type…
To the othe rthing: transcribing sounds like an intersting idea 
… it seems also a bit tedious, although it obviously helps to focus and probably retain. 
Do you do that with all mangas you read? I never tried because it seemed, well, a lot of work … but maybe I will try
I don’t know how well I’ll sustain it over 12 weeks, there may be some weeks where I only do some pages, because I’m also trying to finish all WaniKani reviews and lessons the day I get them.
I’m doing the transcribing process for the basic principle of trying to get the most out of the material. There are other avenues of learning where I could be valuing quantity over quality, but for this book club I want to go all in. As opposed to every other approach, the only necessity really is time. Every other issue is resolved because every piece of text gets attention.
One thing I did in the past, is that I took the manga and basically translated it every week. If you post something like that in the thread, it’s a quick and easy way of getting others to double check your thought process, so that no sentence stays incorrect in your head.
It requires some effort, and it’s definitely a bit more tiring, than just reading the book, but it can be great for the understanding
It’s a ton of work for others to look through and correct though, since they basically also have to translate it.
And I thought @downtimes answer back in 夜カフェ was on point there:
(To me, transcribing everything seems to be similarly more work than you get out of it, but your mileage may vary.)
Not necessarily, it’s much easier to check a translation, than to make it, especially if you already have reading experience, and have gone through the chapter yourself.
Heh, he said this to me too, which is funny. There it was really basically impossible to keep up, since 夜カフェ was a proper book, not a manga, with way more text. For manga, it’s definitely doable, but yes, it will require some work. When I was doing this for ハピネス, I think it took about 1 to 2 hours to go through the chapter, and translate it into a neat little thread. Considering I have been only reading for less than 2 months at that point, I wouldn’t say it’s that crazy of an idea.
And of course, the point isn’t that you are training a specific skillset by translating. You are doing it, to make sure you get everything right. Especially as a beginner, getting something wrong can be a big issue, if that error is a large portion of all the sentences you’ve translated sofar.
Most importantly, if you decide to transcribe as you go, and later you realize it’s too much bother or it’s keeping you from wanting to even open the manga some days, you can always adjust and stop transcribing.
When I had read through the first volume of 「ご注文はうさぎですか？」, I transcribed and translated everything.
This was the first manga I read through in Japanese. I was taking in everything and learning everything.
I may have tried transcribing and translating 「しろくまカフェ」 (my second or third manga), but if I did it probably wasn’t for the whole volume. By then my main focus was on getting to know grammar better.
When I had read through the first volume of 「ひとりぼっちの○○生活」, I started out transcribing and translating everything, then after some number of days, I switched to only transcribing.
This was the first non-furigana manga I read after I started reading lots. I wanted to pay specific attention to when I could read a kanji versus having to look one up.
I can’t really say whether transcribing was worth it in any case I did it. But for my first manga, I think it may have helped me ensure I looked at every written character in dialogue to ensure I looked up what it meant.
It’s good practice to do that though, and you’ll find plenty of idiots willing to do so (source: I’m an idiot willing to do so 
)
This I can agree with. I also find it kind of locks you into translating everything as you read, which is not always avoidable but also isn’t always a good thing to do.
If you understand what a sentence says, that’s good, and it’s actually even better if you didn’t translate it in the process.
I like this discussion and agree with this point:)
For me, if I translate a Japanese sentence it is not about getting a natural sounding English sentence, but more about understanding how it is built.
So for example I wouldn’t translate 私はこの本が好きです by “I like this book” but “As for me, this book is liked”
Finally got my book in the mail! 2 days early.
Used from Manga Republic but looks new to me honestly. They also included 10 clear book covers and an omikuji lol. I got favorable luck, general luck.
Looking forward to start reading with the club!
Hey guys!
First time joining and actually participating on a post haha, I being doing Wanikani for a while I got until lvl 11 I think but fall down and decide to start from 0 now that I have a better grasp of Japanese and Kanji in general.
I have been studying for a year now, almost at the end of Genki 1, so I think it is a good time to do this type of activities.
I read this manga already in Eng, but more than happy to give it a try in Japanese. Let’s do it!!
Hell yeah! Let’s do it!
The only Manga I ever read was Orange, liked it, but not going to lie, never had the burning desire to read Manga again. However, I read the first few sample pages and I’m hooked!! Never would have thought that I would be reading a Manga like that, none the less in Japanese, but I’m eager to try. I’m really exctied, this is going to be my first book club and starting from this one, I want to read as much native material as possible.
This is also perfect since my last exam for this semester is on the 17th this month. This book club is perfect. Not sure how those work though, but I’m sure I’ll learn as I go 
There’s been a lot of replies so I won’t tag each individual person, but instead just make a few general points. Given that there is going to be so much new to me, and I’d be asking for help with every other sentence otherwise, I feel as though putting in the effort to transcribe and translate every line of text will be a way of repaying for the time time people are putting in to help me. Maybe I’m being too critical of myself here, but again, it’s my first manga, so I’d feel guilty asking for tonnes of help without contributing back.
It is tonnes of work, and I am very much aware of the enjoyability/chore balance, but there’ll always be more casual ways out there that I can revert to, and I could always just revert to a less intense approach if necessary. Still, ‘picking a plan and sticking to it’ is onenof the undercurrent principles of learning jp, to me anyways.
I mentioned before about getting the most bang for my buck, and honestly, my overarching goal of learning jp is reading comprehension, and now that I’m 13 months into learning, I’m at a stage where I want to grind and make some real gains. I have the motivation to do it, and I’m very much enthralled by the idea of one day reaching the stage where I’ll be learning primarily through non-intensive content immersion.