what!
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Oh, he shared his email! I was going to ask him about the omitted description of lip peninsula. Do y’all have any other questions for a translator?
He is also active on Twitter:
I’m guessing Emily is an old name, and he still uses it for professional purposes. I’m not going to ask though, that feels squarely under “prying.” I did notice that he lists the name Tristan Felix on Twitter.
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Eh, he talks openly about this:
Can you tell us about yourself?
I’m Tristan, a nonbinary trans guy (he/him) from Wisconsin currently living in Tokyo; I’m in the process of coming out this year and transitioning. So I still honestly don’t really know what I’m doing, but the idea right now is to continue publishing under my birth name, Emily.
source: Emily Balistrieri - Literary Translator - Interviews With Localizers
Anyway, I’m looking forward for his explanation about lip peninsula 
I wonder if he’ll even remember something so specific 
Nice contact you got there ^^
Ah, and happy birthday~ 
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Perfect. Asking is different than finding the info in his own words!
And thanks. For birthday wishes! I’m trying not to notice that my new age is a very unlucky number in Japanese culture! Oops, I just noticed it again.
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I’m so late to the party but just want to say thank you to all the resources here.
I tried to read Kiki twice on Kindle but it took me too long and it was too choppy. Now I am roughly an N4 standard (yet to take JLPT) and I’m going to attempt again! Wish me luck!!!
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Feel free to ask for help in the forums, I’m sure folks will be willing to help out. Try to stick to the weekly schedule if you can–if you force yourself to read consistently and push yourself through the first few chapters it will get a lot easier and more rewarding.
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Thank you! I’m experimenting now to print out the vocab list and go through it once before reading the chapter.
You’re right sticking to the schedule will definitely be a good motivation. Once I’m done with this I’m hoping to jump to one of the live beginner book club sessions…
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Noice! I already read this book in a mini club of sorts on here! Good luck and have fun everyone!
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I just want to necromance this thread a bit to share something with everyone subscribed to it. You might remember the 3d-printed Jiji I made partway through the repeat club. Well, I’ve gotten a bit better at painting, and gotten a much larger 3d printer, and decided to take another run at it, with a slightly different (and much bigger!) model.
First, unpainted, with a pretty clear gap where the two pieces come together:
And now, painted, with a replica of the same mug from the movie.
I decided to leave the whiskers unpainted and just let them catch the light. Thought they might be a little too jarring if I painted the whole whisker white.
Anyone else starting to get a hankering for book 2? I’m definitely considering it. It’ll be a much tougher journey, for me at least, since there’s no existing chart of vocabulary I can pre-study. I’ve been a little lazy about my Japanese study over the last year or so, but I’m diving back in with aplomb now.
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I need to finish book one =(
How about this? It only includes certain part-of-speech words, but most of what’s not included you probably already know (such as これ and その and ありがとう).
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I already read the 1st one…There’s a second book???
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There are even 6 books in total:
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Since this thread’s been brought back, I’m wondering how many people are reading Kiki right now 
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Yep! When I went to buy the first book off Mandarake, I saw they had a box set of all six hardcover books for super cheap. Ended up buying that instead of just the first book.
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すごく可愛い！おめでとう
ジジさんはとても可愛いです!!
I’m not going to read book 2. If anything, I might read Book 1 again and see where I can actually READ it, yet. 
I haven’t finished Harry Potter (but I go back and try from time to time). I was hoping to crank through コンビニ人間 next and then get back to Harry Potter… But I’m kind of into cranking through Wanikani levels, lately, and that’s all I’ve been having time for…
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I’m currently reading book 1, but at a suuuuuper slow pace.
Afterwards I want to read 2 and all the others, since I’m curious 
(Kiki is so adorable.)
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I’m also super slow! I started off only being able to read one page a day, now I’m reading a few pages a day. Varies depending on how much time I have though.
Haha, I bought the whole set so I’ll have to read them all!
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started reading the first chapter. Slogging through 20 WK levels and a bunch of grammar finally feels somewhat gratifying. Reading 2 pages a day now. Will buy the remaining books too one by one as I finish reading them.
BTW can we organize reading sessions for this on discord? Would be fun to read aloud in a group
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