That’s rough. It’s a shame how hard a lot of Japanese language manga is to get outside of the country. I didn’t do much digital reading either, until joining, but my old man eyes are kind of appreciating the ability to zoom when dealing with furigana.
If you’re willing to give digital a shot but just need some help getting to it, I’ve only used Bookwalker, but I’ve found it pretty intuitive (granted I’ve personally only been snagging their free volumes, but I think they allow global payments, unlike some other sites?). The book is here, you just need to make an account first: 大海原と大海原（１） - マンガ（漫画） 海底囚人（MFC ジーンピクシブシリーズ）：電子書籍試し読み無料 - BOOK☆WALKER -
And sorry if you know this already, but if you want some help navigating (I don’t blame you when dealing with a store haha), on Chrome I know you can right click anywhere on the page and hit “Translate to English” to get close enough approximations. Firefox requires an add-on, I think. If you try it and need any further help dealing with e-book interfaces or something, I’m sure someone here can help with that too!
Hello! Sorry you’ve had trouble finding the book when I nominated it I didn’t realize how difficult finding a print copy was. As @Daisoujou said I would recommend bookwalker via the chrome browser since it will translate everything into English for you, which will make shopping on the site for the first time much easier. They accept credit/ debit cards and paypal (paypal is only for some titles though) after which you can read on their website via your browser (just navigate to your library) or if you have a tablet you can download their app and it works very similar to the kindle app. The book can be purchased via amazon kindle as well (on the Japanese site), but requires a VPN and some other set up. You can also purchase via kobo (all links are in the top post),but I’ve never used their site, so I can’t give any tips. Just be sure to use the links if you use bookwalker because if you search the name in English it will take you to the English translation of the manga. I hope this helps!
I’d definitely check out Book Walker, it’s fairly straightforward to use. On the main page - click on the padlock and the word ログイン(login):
On the next screen you can click on the globe icon and change the language to English for the registration process. The same icon comes up when you go to checkout so you can do the checkout process in English.
To put something in your basket click the green button - カートに入れる (put in cart). You can also click on the book cover to go to a preview of the book.
Click on the shopping cart at the top right to go to your cart and complete the purchase.
If you’re feeling nervous you can download one of the free books that say 0 yen next to them on the home page to have a play. E.g. this one is free at the moment: クレヨンしんちゃん. Good luck!
Thank you all for your help. I decided to go through book walker like someone had suggested. I bought it as well as now have the mobile app to use it. Can’t wait to read it.
It does look cute, but the later volumes of it seem to be marked with horror and violence tags. And it’s based on a horror RPG Maker game?
Maybe bearytoast can clear that up. And possibly reaffirm the reading level for this - though it does seem to have maybe two nouns per word bubble and few uncommon verbs, so my guess is it’s an easy read on at least some pages.
Hi . I’m not sure where you were looking at the manga where it had horror or violence tags because that is different than what is on bookwalker. The manga is a two volume adaptation from a RPG game, but it is a lot more kid friendly than the game. The game gets very dark and is for an I think 17+ audience, but the manga is ages 10 and up. There is some very mild fight scenes from what I’ve seen skimming volume 1, not sure about volume 2 as I do not have a copy yet. As for reading level, I think I would place it as an absolute beginner book, and think it’s probably an easier read than some of the past club books, but maybe harder than others due to potentially specialized vocab and the fantasy/ ocean specific elements of the book. I believe @Belthazar has read the English version, so they may know more about the content than me since I haven’t read it before.
Thanks for your reply! I know a bit about the content of the game, so I was a bit cautious at first, but since the rating was for kids and the reviews I’ve seen on amazon don’t mention anything worrying (at least that I’ve seen) I figured that the content for the manga has been heavily modified.
No worries! But can I ask what site you were looking at? I haven’t seen the later digital only parts, so I’m curious to what they are. Unless you saw it on Pixiv on the 大海原と大海原 死の海編 page which is a different, but related manga, which we will not be reading in this club.
Yes it is おおうなばらとわだのはら The first reading makes sense since that is how you would normally read it for the ocean and the name reading of わだのはら seems to be a variation to わたのはら which is listed as one of the possible name readings on Jisho.
Also, since manga content got brought up recently I went back through and skimmed the pages. From what I can tell when just flipping through, there is a couple pages early on that have a bit of a scary/ horror look to them, and one page late into the manga that is grim. As for violence there are some fight scenes with mild gore such as some black being colored onto clothes to represent blood. That was all I noticed when flipping through. I hope this will help club members know what to expect. If anyone has any questions I will do my best to answer.
Curiously, Murakami’s 世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド is the same - the English title is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Kinda wonder how much of a dendency that is. (I mean, I do think the English title sounds better that way around.)
The mentions of there being a game got me interested - so I’ve just gone through a whole big ordeal to download it haha. Involved having to change my computer’s locale to Japanese just so it wouldn’t mangle all the filenames when extracting from the zip. Also had to download a separate program to emulate RPGMaker so I can play it (fortunately it’s one of the compatible ones). Since there’s no furigana (and looking up unknown kanji can be a pain), I think it’s something I’ll want to come back to later, but I tried playing a bit of it and could about follow what was going on. I’d definitely be interested to give it a proper playthrough at some point. There is an english translation - but I think that’s only for the original release and not the re-release so perhaps that’s extra incentive for trying it in Japanese haha
I’m glad you’re interested in the game, and that sounds like a lot of work to be able to play it Just be sure to do a bit of research before playing I know it gets into some very dark and trigger warning type things, so I wouldn’t want you or anyone to be blind sided by it if you decide to play! If you do end up liking it though the creator has a few other free games as well!
when I nominated it I didn’t realize how difficult finding a print copy was. As 
. I’m not sure where you were looking at the manga where it had horror or violence tags because that is different than what is on bookwalker. The manga is a two volume adaptation from a RPG game, but it is a lot more kid friendly than the game. The game gets very dark and is for an I think 17+ audience, but the manga is ages 10 and up. There is some very mild fight scenes from what I’ve seen skimming volume 1, not sure about volume 2 as I do not have a copy yet. As for reading level, I think I would place it as an absolute beginner book, and think it’s probably an easier read than some of the past club books, but maybe harder than others due to potentially specialized vocab and the fantasy/ ocean specific elements of the book. I believe 
The first reading makes sense since that is how you would normally read it for the ocean and the name reading of わだのはら seems to be a variation to わたのはら which is listed as one of the possible name readings on Jisho.
Just be sure to do a bit of research before playing I know it gets into some very dark and trigger warning type things, so I wouldn’t want you or anyone to be blind sided by it if you decide to play! If you do end up liking it though the creator has a few other free games as well!