Mandarake tell me they’ve just shipped my set! 2600yen, but +4500yen for the shipping, oof – at least the exchange rate is relatively favourable right now…
Yeah, advantage of buying secondhand. I suspect that I could have bought a few more things with it without pushing the shipping cost up any further, but I really don’t read much manga these days and Mandarake sell almost no books.
Wikipedia thinks the English version has been released as 7, 4 and 2-volume sets, and the Japanese version in 7-volumes (plus some box-set 7-volume printings) and an expensive 2-volume set.
Ohh, nice club. I’m stuck in volume 3 for a good while now cuz it’s a lot of text and most is pretty hard + I’m always so confused about who is who and what is happening XD Maybe this club is going to get me to finally continue.
Well, we seem to be largely settling on two weeks per volume. Next question, then: I imagine many of us will keep reading to the end, but how long do we want to set the length of the “official” book club?
How long?
Two weeks (one volume)
Four weeks (two volumes)
Six weeks (three volumes)
Eight weeks (four volumes)
Longer
0voters
(Though I guess the real question is “How long is a ‘fast’ book club?” And/or “when does the next book club want to start?”)
On a related note, to the six people who voted “maybe”, are there any assurances I can make to help you commit (like, a minimum length to make it worth the effort, or something?) or is it just a “we’ll see what’s happening in the real world come June” type Maybe?
Wikipedia is correct. I own both the four- and the two-volume set. (Though my four-volume Perfect Collection doesn’t have the box. I bought the volumes individually.)
For me it’s “I’m not placing an order just for this and I need to see how things work out”. I ahem may still be able to participate regardless, so I’m like 80% going to at least try the first volume, but not guaranteed.
I’ll also add that I’m unlikely to want to read the entire series over 14 weeks, assuming there’s enough demand for an offshoot to finish the series. I generally take breaks even reading series I really enjoy if they are longer than a few volumes by reading other things in between. (Just think back to how I got burned out with the Aria book club and took a break for a while.) Not sure how others feel, but I’d want at least one or two short breaks while reading it. e.g. 1-3/break/4-5/break/6-7 or 1-2/break/3-4/break/5-7, depending on what the book club ends up doing for the official portion. To that end, if this book club opts for 4 volumes or longer as part of the official club I will probably skip entirely because I’ll feel rushed.
If we do a break or two, it also depends how evenly we want to distribute the pages. Vol 1 is the shortest with 2-5 being similar in length to it. 6 is slightly longer, and then 7 is significantly longer at a little less than twice the length of vol 1
Reading difficulty is the main thing making me say maybe, not the speed. If I can manage to read it at all, then any speed people are suggesting would work for me (2 weeks per volume of manga is plenty of time for me, even for something hard). This has been on my read list since I started learning japanese. Genuinely and very seriously considering joining in, but manga at the ABC level may just be too hard for me given how much trouble 蟲師 and 桜蘭 have been giving me.
But, that’s more of a “should I try reading with the ABC at my current level?” question not anything in particular for this club specifically
Seeing the pages with mostly artwork makes it feel doable for me.
Seeing the pages filled with dialogue makes me think I’ll keep 「名探偵コナン」on hiatus for a little bit longer because I don’t think I can handle reading two series with dialogue-heavy pages at the same time.
Nausicaa does look less dense in text than the heavy parts of Conan (at least skimming through volume one), so maybe I’ll be fine.
