New Bookwalker feature: full color manga optimized for mobile phone. Here’s some free samples of やがて君になる.
8 Likes
Agreed, volume 5 was a drag…
On the plus side, things are fun again for volumes 6-8. Volumes 9-10 sadly aren’t that good either (although, still better than volume 5).
Still, volume 11 is coming out in 2-3 weeks. Hype
7 Likes
Ohh, colored manga 
With how the panels are spaced, it feels like reading a webtoon. I like it!
Scrolling on phone: When I scroll slowly (by dragging my finger across the whole screen) it’s fine, but it’s kinda laggy / not smooth when I scroll faster (swiping while barely touching the screen). With how much empty space there are between each panel I can’t help but quickly swiping to get past it so I can read the next panel. I hope they’ll optimize faster scrolling a bit more.
But otherwise, super cool! (Not entirely sure what to think about the coupon method though. 
)
6 Likes
By the way, I just took all the chapters covering arc 5, divided the number of published chapters (from the webnovel) by the number of books published in that arc 6, and divided the number of remaining chapters by that number, and I get 5.4 volumes, this reaching 32.4 (smack in the middle of the predicted range!)
Considering that the end of every arc has a lot of extra chapters, I can really see the author doing that as well with the last volume to fill the remaining space (thus 33 volumes total), potentially making a bridge towards the spin off series.
Anyway, that means exactly 2 years left until the end of the main series.
3 Likes
Isn’t “feature” a bit misleading? It’s just a new way of selling by chapters for a specific catalogue. With the annoying ticket feature 
.
At first I thought you meant they optimized the reader for all color manga 
.
2 Likes
I mean, it is a new feature. They had to do work to optimize manga for this mobile scrolling approach. Also, what does “optimized the reader for all color manga” even mean?
1 Like
For me, a feature would imply it would somehow add to the current experience. But this is a completely different store. Maybe I’m thinking it too much from a software perspective, but it feels weird to me.
That’s why I was so confused! But how are these chapters optimised for mobile, anyway? Just the scrolling? I thought maybe you could read all the manga that way now.
3 Likes
I think they took a single page and had to split it in order to show continuous panels. The phone screen is thinner than the physical manga pages after all.
2 Likes
Just finished 京都寺町三条のホームズ vol. 2, which brings me to seven novels this year (still behind pace but getting there!). I’m going to start reading vol. 3 right away and hopefully finish before the end of the month.
Something I didn’t realize since I was reading the ebook is that this book was actually surprisingly long. When I logged it on bookmeter it came up as 312 pages, compared to the 153 pages that I was seeing on my ereader…so my average of ten pages per day was actually more like 20? Very curious.
6 Likes
Already! I somehow thought it would take longer.
(And I have no idea how to quote the “Hype” to make it look the same as in the original post)
3 Likes
It took a while! Roughly 6 months. But that’s indeed less than the 10 months it took for volume 10.
Hype is in math mode. You just need to put some part between $ for that mode.
2 Likes
For the first time I just came across text that has been crossed out. Its so hard to see I honestly thought it was just something on my screen at first.
11 Likes
Whoa, never seen this before, looks really funny! Also, from looking at the two words the meaning becomes clear immediately 
5 Likes
Yeah usually its something that they would just do with furigana so I don’t really know why they picked this way. Maybe because it feels more menacing? lol
5 Likes
Furigana feels more like they said one while meaning the other. Crossing out feels like the person slipped and said 脅迫, then caught themself and said 説得 immediately instead.
11 Likes
Well, in the audiobook this is actually exactly what happened, so you’re absolutely correct lol. He started saying the first and kinda caught himself partway through. So I guess the real alternative would have been the usual typing out of part of a word and stopping.
5 Likes
I recently read 魔女の旅々 and キノの旅 and I liked them both more than I expected.
In both books the main character is traveling (surprise!) from town to town and there is usually some interesting story in each one. Conceptually the two books feel very similar and I’m almost sure 魔女の旅々 was in some part inspired by キノの旅, but also almost every detail is different between them, so it felt funny to me. The first is a utopic magic world with a cute witch, the second is a distopic post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a boyish girl and a talking motorcycle. I also think 魔女の旅々 was inspired by 魔女の宅急便, but maybe it’s just that all witch themed books feel somewhat similar.
When I started to read those books I was a bit wary of the short stories style in which they are written, but it turned out to be a non-issue and I think the structure works very well for them. One thing I don’t understand is why do they need to introduce the main character in each story? I guess they were originally written as unconnected short stories, but now it is a book, so…
Anyway, I don’t have much else to say about 魔女の旅々, it’s been some time since I finished it, so I forgot the details and I don’t think there were stories that particularly caught my interest. On the other hand my memory of キノの旅 is very fresh and it really felt like the author had a very clear idea in mind before they wrote stories around those ideas. Also, there was a book club for キノの旅, so some people will know what I am talking about. I don’t think it is possible to spoil this book, but spoilers:
キノの旅1 spoilers
My short impressions on each story, not sure if people will be able to remember the contents of those stories, but anyway:
- 人の痛みが分かる国. Very good opening story, and since I am a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, it was right up my alley. Overall quite consistent story and idea.
- 多数決の国. I liked the tone of this story, but found it a bit too exaggerated with only one survivor though.
- レールの上の三人の男. I liked the idea, but I find it too unrealistic, so it distracted me a bit, also very predictable plot.
- コロシアム. The start of the story was OK and I also liked that Kino tried not to kill people unnecessarily. What I didn’t like is excessive gory descriptions of king’s head being blown off and the fact that Kino decided to turn the whole country into battle royal, so much for not killing people unnecessarily. Also, didn’t really get the part with the couple she met before going to this town, who presumably killed each other. If it was so easy to spare people in the first place, why didn’t everyone who wanted did so.
Btw, I really like how コロシアム sounds like 殺し合う. - 大人の国. A very good story that describes how Kino started traveling and why she can’t come back, really liked it.
- 平和な国. This is another one that I understand conceptually, but I think it was overdone with excessive violence. Also, the model of killing primitive people with modern warfare for sport doesn’t seem very sustainable.
And in the end Kino kills one of those people without even trying to avoid conflict.
In the end, I think the fact that the book made me want to write all that stuff out really shows how good it was.
11 Likes
I just finished 伯爵と妖精 18! With that, I have now read over 5,000 pages of 伯爵と妖精 this year. 
I am very much still loving these books. Lately I am enjoying progressions of complex relationships of all kinds, as well as several instances of things where I was a little frustrated turning out to be on purpose by the author and now she is working through them and it’s very satisfying ahh. One of my favorite things from this last book was the scenes of ケリー, ニコ, and レイヴン, an odd and delightful trio. ニコ and レイヴン were one of my favorite parts of two books back, and I’ve loved ケリー since day one and she only gets better and better, and all together it’s just, yes, good times.
Very loosely paraphrased scene that was one of my favorites; spoilers for various things
Cast:
レイヴン (emotionless manservant/murderbeast who often doesn’t notice ケリー’s presence)
ケリー (brave, competent, pragmatic lady’s attendant who is increasingly fed up with レイヴン’s everything)
ニコ (cowardly cat-shaped 妖精; proud to consider himself an elegant gentleman)
(Odd trio is trapped in a tiny island castle with violent dudes literally there to kidnap women.)
レイヴン: I must go after my master at once. Therefore, I will destroy the dudes.
ケリー: … There are thirteen of them?!
レイヴン: Understood. I’ve already destroyed three, so ten left then.
ケリー: …
レイヴン: Please go lure the violent dudes to me one by one.
ケリー: … What!
レイヴン: That is your job as a lady’s attendant, is it not?
ケリー: IS IT THOUGH?!
ケリー: (tries anyway, gets chased by a bunch of dudes, falls down as レイヴン leaps over her to destroy said dudes)
ケリー: (on castle hallway floor surrounded by destroyed dudes; confused about the state of her life)
レイヴン: (politely) Did I not say to lure them one by one?
ケリー: …
レイヴン: By my count there are four more in the courtyard to destroy (steps over ケリー and leaves)
ケリー: …
ニコ: (has been a coward and hiding this entire time; holds out a paw to help her up because he is a gentleman)
ケリー: (takes paw and receives no help because ニコ is a cat-shaped 妖精 with no upper body strength; stands up on her own) … Thank you. (realizes レイヴン is probably now surrounded by a group of terrified women and goes off to save him from his utter lack of people skills)
(I love them.)
Thank you for letting me get out some of my emotions even though I’m 18 books into a series no one else here is reading! 
My friend who started reading them is already starting the sixth book, so that helps as an outlet as well. 
11 Likes
So, it took a while to comment about it, but a week or so ago, I finally found the time and willpower to read something again (other than manga). Obviously, 本好き 27 coming out has been a major motivation, and I just rode that wave into reading かくりよの 5.
While the past volumes had a lot of talk about food (between 1/3 and 50%), this time, the plot revolves around preparing a very special banquet, which bumped that up to 90%. It was a bit hard to stay motivated, especially since the romance part was at nearly 0 (there’s a thing at the very hand of the book, but still). I found that it was easier to read when I was hungry, interestingly.
Anyway, at least volume 6 starts with 大旦那様 brazenly asking 葵 to go on a date, so that sounds better.
8 Likes
I’m not actively participating in this round of 多読, but I feel the need to whinge where people might be able to commiserate.
I’ve mostly been playing video games and reading manga in the last few months, but I decided to pick up a light novel I’ve had laying around for a long time.
I’m having a lot of trouble adjusting to this author’s writing style. It’s not that the sentences are overly complex, but (for me, at least) they are loooong.
example sentence
働き始めてしばらく経つと、基本的なことをひと通り覚え込んで、しかもテキパキと作業をこなす彼女の存在は、もうすっかり主任たちの間にも認められてしまって、どうせローマに戻っても家の手伝いをするか友達と会うか、ファーストフード店のバイトに出掛けるかぐらいしかないのだから、しばらくここに居座っていようか、という気持ちにもなった。
It’s like my brain is waiting to fully parse what’s being said until I hit that period, but by the time I get there, I don’t really remember what the rest of the sentence was.
I’m assuming (read: praying) that it will get better with time, because right now the book is a bit of a slog to get through.
Anyone have a similar experience when dealing with different writing styles?
9 Likes