魔女の宅急便・Kiki's Delivery Service 🧧 Repeat Club

Hey all!

Funny enough, I picked up this book a few days ago with the intention of reading it on my own, I didn’t know there was already a book club for it! I’m quite behind though, I’m only a bit into chapter one, so I have some catching up to do. My Japanese is also still pretty poor, but I plan on reading each chapter once extensively and once intensively. Hopefully if I devote enough time I can catch up to everybody!

This is my first book club, and it’s also actually my first time reading a Japanese novel. I’m sure it’ll be really tough, but I feel like it will be a great supplement to my Kanji/Vocab and grammar studies.

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Week 6

Starting chapter 4 this week, and it marks the start of a more consistent pace going forward. Two weeks per chapter from here till the end!

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Hey Kaito,

Welcome to the forum and the book club. I woudln’t worry about being behind, up until three days out… I thought this was going to be a Manga for some reason. :sweat_smile: Then my book showed up in the mail! The first two chapters were an uphill battle unitl I got used to the writing style and some specific dialects used in the writing. Chapter three is LONGGGGGG, but I’m finding it a much easier read than the previous two. The people in this group are amazing, post a question if you have one and you’ll find some assistance on grammer.

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Oof, was super behind because of personal stuff two weeks ago, so I only caught up last night. Thankfully, most of Chapter 3 was pretty easy dialogue stuff, and like @Wildjinjer noted, the holistic perspective has really come into play because I’m noticing a lot of common vocab and turns of phrases that had slowed me down prior from having to look them up.

Pleasantly surprised how used to grammatical structure I’m getting. It’s one thing to study proper grammar, it’s another to actually see it haha.

Now to finally get started on this week’s reading…

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Week 7

Finishing up chapter 4! We’re about a third of the way through, and if you can make it to next week there’ll be slightly fewer pages :wink:

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I was thinking it might make sense to be a little more targeted about our voting, so…

Just in case anybody isn’t aware, the Beginner Book Club are currently voting on our next (proper) pick! If you’re interested in taking part, make sure you vote:

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Post that in the Girl’s Last Tour thread. Coincidentally happen to mention that one of the nominations is by the same author. :smiley:

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:grin:

Well I was just going to post in current off-shoot clubs, but now that you mention it…

:mushroom: :mushroom: :mushroom:

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I just got the book (ballons edition) in physical and… I’m a bit confused. Is it supposed to be a very small book? :joy:

The balloons book is pretty small, yes. The red-border one is larger.

I see. Because it’s a novel, I was fully expecting a big, thick book, but it’s smaller than a manga. :sweat_smile: Is there a reason why it’s so small?

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That’s the Japanese standard size for books :joy_cat:

Don’t know why this is the case, but I like it a lot - it’s easy to take a book with you…
Also the thickness is rather limited. Longer books are often split up into volumes like 上 and 下, or even with numbers.

Edit: This is the wikipedia entry for those books: Bunkobon - Wikipedia

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If this it your first Japanese paper book I can see why you were suprised.
Japanese novels are tiny.
I guess it makes the easier to stick into a pocket and to store.

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Ooh, thanks! I didn’t know, haha. That’s so cool. I really like the size, too.

Yeah, I usually buy everything as ebook or a physical manga here and there (buying physical is quite expensive unfortunately… $5 for the book and about $15 shipping :persevere:). I also got the Kitty Detective book which is bigger than a manga. But when it comes to true novels, this is my first buy, yeah. :smile:

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I bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Japanese. At least I thought I did. Turns out I only bought half of it. :sweat_smile:

They split it up into two books so they could keep it that small pocketable size. They do it with all of them, though some are made up of more volumes than others.

I like it too, means I’m definitely more likely to read on the go :slight_smile:

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Also keep in mind that this is a children’s novel, not a full novel. This is pretty well in line, sizewise, with what I was reading around 12 years old. A bit bigger than one of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books, a fair bit smaller than Harry potter.

That said, the red-border hardcover version is pretty sizable. You’d have trouble fitting it in a pocket.

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Memories! :smiley:

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Week 8 - start of Chapter 5

I feel like such a rebel every time I necro these threads :grin:

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Didn’t post in chapter 4 thread yesterday, but I did read! I was obsessively working on 3d prints, and understood the pages well.

Now, you might wonder, what could I have been working on that would be more important than talking about 魔女の宅急便?

A 3d printed and hand-painted Jiji! He’s sizable, too, at about half a foot tall.

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OMG he’s amazing!! Now all you need is a 鳥かご for him to sit in, ha.

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