午后のあくび / Afternoon Yawnings - BBC Book Club - Week 4

This week, we are in full summer mode with ice cream, summer rain and watermelon !

Week 4 April 18th 2026
Start chapter 11
End chapter (included) 15
Last Week week 3
Next week week 5
Home Thread 午后のあくび

Vocabulary

Vocab sheet
This vocab sheet was generated automatically with Mokuro and Ichiran. It may thus contain mistake. Feel free to correct them !

Manga Kotoba

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! (even tho, to be fair, there is no real story in that book and not much to spoil).

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. 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 or a the very least the chapter 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!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Notes
あわこ Main character
ねね香 A little girl from the same neighborhood
かご中 かごなか Ayako’s colleague. Her head is a bird cage

Discussion Questions

What was you favorite story this week ?

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

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  • I have finished this part
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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 abreast of discussion!

I like how the stories just kinda end lol

Something I’ve noticed is the speech bubbles break up the sentences into phrases that make it a little easier to parse.

I liked the polar bear shaved ice story this week - the mood was fun, and the goof about him trying to leave town every year and never getting further than his parents’ house was funny.

Vocab:
雨宿り- taking shelter from rain
古びる - to look old
石蹴り - hopscotch
至難のワザ - herculean task
アジサイ - hydrangea
あっという間に - in the blink of an eye
そのまま - without change, as-is
シマウマ - zebra
食べ放題 - all you can eat
無性に - intensely
あげく - after (a long process); at the end of​

Grammar - くらい For Approximation

Loving this manga so far. All the stories have simple premises but have fun twists, and it just feels so relaxing and cozy. I am already sad it only has 3 volumes!

I like the fact that the chapters are fairly short, so I can aim to read one a day. The stories are cute and imaginative, but they also are separate enough so that if I miss a key detail for one of them, it doesn’t affect my understanding of the next story.

Just caught up with this week’s reading! I was actually behind a chapter or two because I didn’t pay close attention to the chapter assignments, but I’m back on track.

Discussion from this week:

I laughed so hard when the 雨雲 followed her into the apartment, was sad when it disappeared, and was horrified when she DRANK IT AS TEA. What an emotional rollercoaster!!!

I really like how some of the chapters are jokes, some are whimsical, and some are reflections on life. The way the light shined and made the old-feeling area feel bright and shiny after 達人 told them he’d laid all the tiles was absolutely lovely.

I also feel like there was something I missed with the end of the スイカ chapter, but maybe not?

A few details I enjoyed:

Love that this building is called 雨宿り:

Appreciate how the art makes it feel like tilework without drawing it out specifically:

Comedic gold:

Love the framing here. Also I totally thought she was gonna evaporate it back into a cloud:

Old school machine, very cool:

I like that the shop is named “Polaris”:

Just awesome:

Also, I feel like this series really uses a lot of WK vocab. I’d just learned 食べ放題 this week and immediately recognized かき氷, for instance.