魔女の宅急便・Kiki’s Delivery Service 🐈‍⬛ 2025 Repeat Club

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to the 魔女の宅急便 (2025 Repeat) Book Club

This book was originally read by the Beginner Book Club in early 2018 and a group re-read it in 2020. This thread is for a group re-read in 2025.

Given that it’s been a good five years since the last group read, I would like to poll interest among any members that may want to read it this coming season. It would be my first time, but I am happy to lead the group if there is sufficient interest! I will be using the resources from the previous book club reads, so I’d like to thank @MissMisc and @Radish8 for their original threads.

Members

Are you planning on reading along with us?
  • Yes!
  • Nope
0 voters

*If you’ve already read the book but plan to join the discussion, please select yes.

Schedule

Currently voting here.

Resources

Guide to the Different Versions

Generally, it won’t matter what version you have, but in case we want to reference page numbers, here is a version guide.

Version 1: 福音館文庫 Fukuinkan Bunko

kikupdate
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This version seems to have a few illustrations and occasional furigana. The older versions have red borders.

Version 2: Kadokawa Bunko

Kiki's Delivery Service 2
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This version essentially has no furigana or illustrations. The e-book seems to be this version.

Version 3: 角川書店 Kakukawa Shoten Bunko

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Same as version 2, no furigana or illustrations.

Buying the Book

I’ve copied this text over from the previous book club thread, but I’d like to also point out that this is a very famous book and tons of sellers will have it. I’m located in the US and found it from secondhand sources on US Amazon, AbeBooks etc, so definitely look around if it’s easier!

Physical
V1 - Red Border V2 - Block Blue V3 - Balloons
V1 CDJapan V2 CDJapan V3 CDJapan
V1 Amazon V2 Amazon V3 Amazon
V2 Verasia
  • If you haven’t used Amazon JP before, note that you will need a separate account.*
  • CD Japan has (slow) economy shipping options available so is usually cheaper.*
eBook

BookWalker | Kobo | Kindle

Audiobook

audiobook.jp

Italki Course

There’s a teacher on Italki that runs a book club course on Kiki’s Delivery Service whenever requested. I have no affiliation with this teacher, but you can check out samples of her teaching style here. Part of my interest in the book started when I saw she was offering the course again at the end of July 2025, so if it’s within your price (and skill) range and you’re interested, here’s the link.

Vocabulary

The re-read group created some lovely resources, including this spreadsheet of vocabulary. There’s also a Koohi list, which allows you to pre-learn vocabulary so you don’t need the dictionary open the entire reading experience. @Jessiechiyo found a wonderful vocab list on JPDB
as well.

@Sharpevil has put together a full Anki deck tagged by chapter so that you can add words as you go.

Finally, @AmomentOfMusic has put together a Memrise course based on the vocab spreadsheets.

Lastly, if anyone has any ideas about when we should start, I’d love to get a discussion going! I’d like to suggest a “hopefully not too far in the future but not too soon” start date of August 1st. I’ll add more details to the home thread page as we discuss.

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I already have the blue Version without furigana, but it’s too soon for me to read it. And I already will start Reading ふしぎアイテムミュージアム This or next Weekend with a book club on natively.

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Funny that this should pop up right as I mentioned planning to read the book in my study log. It might be a good idea to join the club to keep me accountable though, but I might just end up reading most of the book before the start… But either way I can show up to discuss the book

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I’ll probably start beforehand too! It’s a longer book and I was hoping to finish it and have a Halloween watch party with some friends, so I’ll need to be on a faster pace. I might take the Italki 4 week course which reads the first half the book to get a jump start. But if I’m leading a reading group that might be useful for me to do anyway!

I seem to learn best when I go back through something I read a week later too.

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I’d join if there was a club, I need to start another novel to keep up with my annual goals.

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I’d love to give this a go, as I already have it in physical form, and the group would be a good motivation to do it even though it’s too advanced for me

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This is really timely. I’d love to join. Is anyone else going to join the italki read through? It looks promising.

Edit: actually strike the above – I’m competent-ish in reading (and perhaps that is a generous descriptor), but I’d get smoked trying to speak at this point. Will probably keep participation to this group.

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I might…I’m going to think it over because I have a habit of impulse signing up for lessons and then day of being like “ughhhh I don’t want to go”. I saw there’s already one person signed up for it so if I/anyone else signs up it will absolutely go through (teacher requires 2 people at least).

I will say, I signed up for a 45 minute group class with the teacher today to make sure I liked her teaching style and I give her 5 stars. Really good about every time you use a grammar she quizzes you on another way to say it or gently corrects your particles etc. But yeah, she definitely expects a higher level of speaking, at least N4 I’d say.

Edit: Ah who am I kidding, I’m signing up. :joy: But I think I’d like to host voice chat sessions in the discord for people in the club if there’s any interest too.

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That’s the spirit! :blush:

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Not related but is that the retired celebrity professor from Little Witch Academia in your profile pic?

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Yes, absolutely, and thank you for asking. :grin:

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Can I ask some very simple questions? :sweat_smile: I would like to join. Do we just chit-chat about each segment of the book in this thread/similar threads? Is there a reading schedule that we go through? Is there a recommended WaniKani level to read it?

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Hi yes of course! So now that there is interest, we will need to vote on a schedule for both pace and starting date. The idea is to “stay together” in some sense (though everyone is free to read slower or faster) and discuss in this forum as we go. You can ask questions, or just talk about the chapter, whatever strikes your fancy.

I’d like to bring back something I haven’t seen for a while here which is discord read-throughs. There’s a discord associated with the book clubs with voice channels amd we can coordinate things like popcorn reading of the chapter or an audiobook listening section, whatever we want!

As for a WK level…let me get back to you on that. There’s a natively level (website that allows users to rank books in japanese based on hardness) but I’d have to get a list of kanji in the book vs WK level. I’ll make a chart today.

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If you want to shortcut this a bit, you can find a list here:

(It’s on the tab marked “Kiki Book 1”.)

And a simple chart of kanji recognition per WaniKani level (assuming no leeches):

image
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Mmmmm yes, so I squints at the chart will simply pass away then I see. Jk, my actual kanji level is sliiiiightly higher than WaniKani cuz I just started with it, and I’ll get as far as I can before we begin. I just, uh, might have to read a little bit slower. But they say the only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by ordering a copy of the book :saluting_face:

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You are my hero!

For sure! I like your style. It’d be a bit of work, but you could add your own furigana using the spreadsheets on your book copy before reading the chapter, if you wanted.

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One thing I’d like to point out is that in many book club threads people also tend to ask about specific sentences they had trouble with and other people will help with them

There are plenty of more experienced readers who’ll join along so there’s bound to be someone to help with any questions you may have

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I’m with you and my friend Mr. Tolerance of Ambiguity :smile:

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Okay here’s a schedule poll for starting the book. I’m giving multiple votes so people can select all the options that work for them/they are okay with.

When should we start reading Kiki’s Delivery Service? (assuming a Monday start)
  • August 4th
  • August 18
  • September 1st
  • Later in the Fall
0 voters
What pace should we read at?
  • Slower pace (25 weeks, ~8 pages/week)
  • Same pace as the re-read group (21 weeks, ~11 pages/week)
  • Faster pace (15 weeks, ~18/week)
  • Other (leave suggestion in comments)
0 voters

This is my first time leading a club so please give comments if you have any!

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Thank you for organizing this, I’m pretty flexible so I’m excited to start whenever and do my best to keep up! Also for those like me who are not super familiar with this forum, there is a way to set up notifications so you won’t lose track of the conversations (it’s through the little bell on the right of the page where you can scroll dates).

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