My wife is giving me hell, because I bought this book and it’s just sitting around. I had to check that I hadn’t missed the start of this adventure! One more week, it looks like.
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I added a home thread link above the schedule!
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Just read through, with the aide of my trusty dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. I think I got a good sense of the gist, butexcited to discuss when we start properly 
That first page was intense, but after that much plainer sailing (pardon the nautical pun…)
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I bought the book last night and read the first text box this morning…It probably took me half an hour.
I think this will be quite the adventure and I should probably continue reading ahead so I don’t fall too far behind haha.
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Do you mean the first text box on page 1 (the colored page before table of contents)?
If so see my comment above about the difficulty
The first text box on the start of the prologue (page 3) is
Summary
ここが魔女の国…
If you get stuck on a sentence then ichi.moe can breakdown a sentence into its parts, but it doesn’t give a full translation so you still have to do some work, which is probably ideal for a book club. Note that it isn’t 100% perfect, so far within this book for example it’s got confused 1-2 times, but it is generally pretty decent.
Here is ichi.moe breaking down that first text box from page 3.
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Nah, I’m talking about page 1, the colored one. The first text box doesnt have difficult grammar/words, I just spent a long time trying to turn 変わる into 変わらぬ before realizing jisho lists them as seperate words.
I miiight not read the rest of the colored page but I think Im going to at least try.
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Stoked for this to kick off!
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I believe they are actually both forms of the same word, ぬ can be used to create a negative form but it is more of an archaic way of doing so - gives sort of an old-timey feel. Jisho might list the latter since it’s a more common expression perhaps. Here’s a brief article on ぬ - not too detailed, but should give you enough to understand the general idea I think
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That’s the missing piece for me, thank you! I knew あ stem is used to add negative helper, but couldnt figure out where the ぬ was coming from.
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Usually the opposite is true. If you read ahead you can waste a lot of time because you don’t have the benefit of the club supporting you. If you are a bit behind it’s easier as the vocab sheet is complete, and your translation questions will generally already be asked and answered here.
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For what it’s worth, you sound a lot like I did at the start of the last book club, so I expect you’ll be feeling a lot better about reading some of this before you know it 
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How likely is it that ぬ as making negative will show up often? Bunpro lists it as N2 grammar, so Im guessing its rare enough not to study for now? (Im still working on N5 grammar.)
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I mean it’s listed as N2, but it’s a really simple point - just keep it in the back of your mind and you’ll see it pop up again. Maybe you will have forgotten by the next time you see it, but that’s ok, you just need to look it up again. Rinse and repeat, and after a point you won’t even blink twice when you come across it
N-level doesn’t really correspond to difficulty exactly - it’s not something I recommend worrying about too much unless you actually are studying for the JLPT. Reading native material is going to have you running into grammar at all levels, and so you’ll start picking up bits and pieces from all over
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Adding on to what @VikingSchism wrote, you’ll find that some “higher level” grammar comes up more often than than you’d think, even when reading something on the easier side.
In the beginning, the JLPT N-level of the grammar is a good way to determine if you should put in the extra time and effort getting to know the grammar (versus getting the gist of it and moving on). This can be helpful up front because you’ll encounter a whole lot of grammar even in the first chapter.
A few chapters in, you’ll have seen some grammar coming up repeatedly. The more the same grammar comes up, the more time you’ll want to put in to getting to know it. You’ll know what to focus on by how often you see it.
By the way, ぬ coming up in a chapter of a Pokémon comic I read today:
If I didn’t already know about this use of ぬ, I’d be getting used to it real quick, as this character appears in several chapters, and has a lot of lines.
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really enjoyed this prologue! the art is really cute and the characters seem so charming. the first page was really difficult but the rest flowed fairly easily! i can’t find much to add to the vocab sheet that hasn’t already been thrown in, great work everyone and thank you:)
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Hey guys, Im pretty new to Japanese, but I did understand quite a bit, but I am struggling with 2 of the bubbles from the opening page.
This is how I understand the first two sentences.
どんなに時が過ぎ去っても
How much time passes by even if
幾度となく月が海を照らしても
(How) often does the moon somehow illuminate the ocean even if
I just don’t understand how ても works here, Is it trying to mean that “Even if however much time passes by, the moon often illuminates the ocean.” Why is there a second ても after the second sentence?
This is how I understand the second part:
その者の思いは揺らぐことなく…
As for That person’s thoughts, they are without wavering.
ただ祈り待ち続けていました
Was just continuing to wait for the prayer…
This is how I understand the second part, but obviously, as my translation doesn’t quite make sense, I don’t understand what is meant by this.
Edit: Somone replied to me on a discord about this same question here is their answer:
I’d say you’re about right with “even if however much time passes by” which would be more naturally “no matter how much times passes by” in English (of course, the literal translation is good for having a ‘feel’ of what the Japanese says)
followed by the same form in the next sentence, so something like “no matter how often the sea is lit by the moon”
next sentence is about right, then the last one I think is more likely to mean “they just prayed and continued to wait”
As I now understand it, the second bubble on my image essentially means: “No matter how much time passes by, no matter how many times the light illumates the sea.” Basically being all artsy about the passage of time, while there was a reference to constant/unchanging things in the panel above it.
I still don’t quite understand what they are trying to say with the third bubble. Are they trying to say that while time passes “That person’s thoughts were unwavering, just continuing to pray and wait?” Also the person referred to here, the one praying is the “Certain Witch”(とある魔女) referenced in the panel below this one?
Thanks in advance for helping with this!
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Would you mind spoiling this please?
Done, sorry.
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Np, and welcome back by the way! Im still in the process of reading the first page so I dont want any spoilers.
Can you please share the deck. It would be very helpful.
Thanks