I finished another book I’ve been meaning to read since it was released in January: 世界の真ん中の木. Originally published in 1989 and re-released in January in a fancy new edition for its 30th anniversary. It’s a picture book by late Ghibli animator Makiko Futaki, and boy, you can see that. The drawings are beautiful, just pure magic. I couldn’t stop reading yesterday because it was so beautiful.
Admittedly, the story is not too original and reminds me very much of Miyazaki’s シュナの旅. It features Ghibli staple themes like nature, pollution (this time not man-made), the interconnectedness of all living things and the absence of a good-and-evil duality. Not all strings come together as well as I had hoped, and the end feels a bit rushed, but the strong sense of wonder, the beauty of the drawings and the feeling of adventure still make the book a very attractive read. I had a lot of fun with it yesterday and today.
It’s only about 150 pages, some full-text pages, some pages only pictures, most of the time a mix of both. It didn’t take me too long to read all of it, maybe 3 or 4 hours, so it might be a suitable candidate for the Beginner’s Book Club (language and vocabulary is also simple for the most part).
I posted some more pictures and impressions on my blog, if anyone is interested. Price point is a bit high (2500 yen), but it’s basically art book level of quality, so I think it’s justified. But you can also get the old paperback version for 864 yen.
So, I think I just reached something of a milestone and thought I might share. Because what’s the value of doing things if you can’t brag about them?
I finally reached the point in 新世界より which I think corresponds to the end of the first of three volumes. My edition has it all in a single book, so it’s hard to be sure, but since the whole thing is divided in six big “chapters” and I just finished reading the second one, that seems like a reasonable guess.
I’ve been going very slowly with this book, mainly because every time I tried to read a lot in one go, it would just hit me with difficult kanji I can’t read left and right and tire me out, or else bombard me with Buddhism vocabulary that I just can’t understand no matter how hard I try (like, what even is 大日如来?). Fortunately, understanding the Buddhism stuff in detail doesn’t seem to be essential to the story so far.
I mostly read visual novels and light novels, and this is the second actual novel I’ve read (if you want to count 時をかける少女 as the first, since that one’s apparently a novella). I kinda bought it on a whim because I watched 4 or 5 episodes of the anime adaptation and then found out it came from a novel, but it’s been very interesting so far. There are some interesting science fiction concepts, and I find myself wanting to know more about the society they live in.
Anyway, I finally feel like I passed the point where I can read this more smoothly, and it feels good. Here’s hoping I can finish before July, wish me luck!
Yesterday I finished reading 10th volume of Yakusoku no Neverland and that makes it the 25th volume of manga I’ve read since I started reading with this thread every day. I’m really grateful for it, so thanks
for making it and for everyone who participates
If I continue reading with the same pace (hopefully I’ll get more proficient though ), I’ll read 100~ volumes by the end of the year, so look out @jprspereira
I also wanted to read Kiki at some point, but I have so many plans for reading, that I’m a bit torn:DD I managed to get through “Breaking into Japanese literature”, alongside with Yakusoku no Neverland, which was paaaainful to read, but I still did it \o/
So I hope that my speed will increase with time and the amount of words I need to look up will decrease, so that I’ll be able to read more books not only in Japanese, but in English too \o/
Ohhhh, careful Flamy. I advise you to be careful with such s In Portuguese we have a saying “O último a rir-se é o que se ri melhor”, which means that the last person to laugh is the one that does it best
In arabic we say لدي ثلاثة ضفادع سامة في مؤخرتي which means the same thing pretty much. Very cool how different languages have sayings for similar ideas.
But there’s also an identical saying in Swedish, so maybe I will end up beating both of you! (by accident in that case, because I’m not actually trying to or anything, just felt like mentioning it)
I read また、同じ夢を見ていた about a month ago. Thought I’d recommend it here but kinda forgot . It has the same author as pancreas. I really liked it, was a great read, not very difficult too and a heart-warming story.
I am so close to the end of this volume (Tsuki no Kage, Kage no Umi part 1) I can almost taste it.
After the inciting incident, there’s a lull asYouko flounders in the new world and she is merely reacting to everything that is thrown at her. The story really hits the ground running around page 150, I think, when it begins filling Youko in on the facts of her isekai situation, and she starts making real decisions and determining her own fate.
I’ve been slowly progressing with ペンギン・ハイウェイ.
Listening to the audiobook too whenever I can. It’s been a great mix so far, I can progress so much with the audiobook, but the understanding is much less, specially 'cause it’s easier to get distracted while listening.
But on the other hand I can then read and have already a vague idea of what it’s coming while reading, so that makes it somewhat easier.
Anyway thought on mentioning this mix. Audiobooks weren’t in my radar some months ago and I’m still trying to see where they might fit .
), I’ll read 100~ volumes by the end of the year, so look out 
s 
We have the same in Dutch.
. It has the same author as pancreas. I really liked it, was a great read, not very difficult too and a heart-warming story.