Volume 4
when Nana and Hachi go to the Trapnest concert. It ends with them both crying and holding hands, and I think I could just pretend like Nana was crying because she was saying her final goodbye to Ren.
Instead she goes back to Ren, Blast becomes famous, and Hachi gets pregnant and engaged to Takumi and she and Nana stop talking.
I really like Ai Yazawa’s manga, but Nana just kind of loses me around volume 6-7.
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Isn’t there like 25 volumes? That’s a lot of story after volume 4.
I didn’t know Nana wasn’t complete… I bought it a while ago but haven’t gotten around to reading. Now I’m just hoping I end up liking it. 
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I think it’s like 21 volumes.
I really love NANA, it’s probably one of my favorite manga.
But it does contain a lot of drama, and it just keeps getting worse, so I can also get what @Quarkles is saying.
Still, I really like the characters post time skip. I hope the author will get back to it one day…
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I’ve been sick (nothing terrible, just a long cold, probably not corona but who knows) nearly the whole february, so I had a lot to catch up to the past weeks. Fortunately, I have started reading again, so hisashiburi no table update
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I really should try and power past the point where I stopped. Normally I like over the top drama in stories, but with Nana, the characters were so likeable that I preferred to just watch them chase their dreams and enjoy each other’s company.
Now, Paradise Kiss, I could read that over and over, and ugly cry over the ending every time.
Belerith - you should really give Nana a try, a lot of people really love it, for good reason. My opinion on it is admittedly not a popular one.
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And done with volume 6.
And I’m glad there was no fan service this time (if we exclude the color pages; I’m not even sure who that’s supposed to be; 命 maybe?).
The Hestia familia is finally getting bigger! I’ve been looking forward to リリ finally moving there, but didn’t expect 命 and ヴェルフ to tag along as well. And they got a new home too, that really reminds me of the feeling you get when you establish your base in the 水滸伝 video game series. I wonder if, like in those games, we will progressively have new members joining over time, or if there will be mostly focus on those? Also, I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to learn the stats of… well… anyone. I was mostly looking forward to those of リリ (with a possible level up? She hadn’t updated her stats in so long, and she’s been all the way to L18), but it would have been fun to learn about the others as well. Heck, I only got Bell’s stats from the おまけ pages…
I wonder if I should be posting that in the DanMachi thread instead? 
But it’s been my habit to post comments on my personal reading here instead, so… I don’t know. 
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I spent the last couple days playing Persona 5: The Royal again to prep for its English release, but I guess to talk about an actual book, I finally got around to reading 探偵日暮旅人の探し物. I’ve read the first two pages of that book like 10 times, but I’m at the halfway point now and will maybe finish it today.
Overall, it feels like it fits sort of nicely into a high beginner to intermediate range for novel reading. There’s not too much furigana, and when there is, they only show it for that word once for the rest of the book so that it’s not too much of a crutch.
I’m also not on this chart, but I wanna read stuff too
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If you are talking about the table, you can just add yourself 
Anyone can join.
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Yeah, I’m just not sure if I wanna make that kind of commitment just yet 
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February:
March:
um… I was too busy studying Japanese to have time/energy to read =P
I actually unburned ALL of my turtles! I have zero burns now! =D
Some of them was in dire need of repeat after a whole year off D=
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About half done with All You Need Is Kill, and I also broke into triple digits on manga volumes finished! I’m behind on 2 book clubs but at least I’m still reading a lot. With my novel being what it is, and my main manga being Claymore… I will be glad when I finish one or the other and am not spending so much time reading about battles and death, lol.
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How is it so far? Both in terms of difficulty and enjoyment.
Hmm, I don’t think it’s that difficult. There a lot of words that I either don’t see a lot of in other places or are made up for this particular story, but the nature of the story means all of those words get repeated a lot. Sometimes I’ll see a long string of kanji and my brain will start to zone out, but then I think, no, that is the same long string of kanji from before, he is just talking about what troop (or whatever) he’s in!! Once you get over the vocabulary hurdle, the grammar seems normal (other than some run-on, no-punctuation sentences in dialogue or thought), and the situations are not at all incomprehensible. Also so far I would say the word that feels most repeated is ファック.
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Oh right, enjoyment! I am enjoying it. I find the main character interesting and I’m curious where the story will go in the second half of the book.
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: I finished volume 7 yesterday. That makes DanMachi the longest I have read any series in Japanese (I previously had multiple instances of 6 books). (Just tagging @afunian instead of posting in the DanMachi thread).
This book took an interesting turn toward the “darker and edgier” by taking place in red light district and featuring things like (spoilers and trigger warning) human(oid?) trafficking and sexual assault. In particular, those points were handled relatively well for a light novel (meaning none of it is played for laugh). I also think the terror the main character is feeling about his situation is well transmitted, and provides way more tension than the fight scenes: during a fight, you get one arm lopped off? Have a potion, you’re all set. Actually, in this very book one character literally blows herself up (as in literally; she uses magic to turn herself into an actual bomb). Soooo, she’s dead, right? Right? Nah, she got better (how??? Well, thanks to a potion of higher plot invincibility of course). On the other hand, the book conveys explicitly that sexual assault will leave mental damages that cannot just be magically healed. (And I’m going to leave it here, because that’s not something I want to expand on).
Anyway, the story centers around the attempt of the main character to save one victim of (demi?)human trafficking, and that forces him to face some hard facts: even if he saves her, well, there are still hundreds, probably thousands of others in her situation. Is he going to save them too? No? Why? Also, there’s a huge demand for prostitutes in the city (well, female ones, at least, I haven’t spotted a single male one, even though adventurers, the main group of “customers” seem split roughly 50/50 in terms of gender, and even if only male adventurers go to brothels, they can’t all be heterosexual?). Even if the main character saves a hundred of them, they will immediately be replaced. Closing the red light district is not an option either, it would just become more underground, illegal and thus dangerous. Additionally, the red light district is controlled by a very powerful ファミリア, meaning that if he does anything funny, basically not only him but also his friends will be at risk.
Sadly, at the last minute, the author backpedaled. Or maybe the editor? I don’t know, but suddenly (1) nobody died (even people who were slaughtered during the last fight scene), no explanation is given. (2) actually said girl is still a virgin by miracle (!), thus completely different from all the others and thus justify saving her specifically without any cognitive dissonance.
I have to say, I’m not super happy about that resolution. Not only is it unbelievable, but I also think that having to make hard choice between multiple wrong options would have given an opportunity for the main character (and the story telling) to mature… Well, I guess you can’t really go against what your target audience is supposed to expect (<- that’s one reason why I think the editor backpedaled).
Anyway, that was still an entertaining read, especially for a light novel. I’m moving on to volume 8; let’s see if the author will keep adding some dark and edgy in the future. I’m assuming volume 8 will be back to goofy plot, to give a bit of a breather after this volume, though.
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Would you…recommend this series? The title makes it seem iffy, but I’ve seen you post a lot about it, including the fan-service illustrations. It happens to be 50% off on Amazon (through points) right now, so I’m a little curious.
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That’s a tough call. I can tell you that the title is a click read(?) bait, and 2 pages in the main character mentions that it’s definitely stupid. There’s more fan service than I would be comfortable with usually, and despite that all potentially romantic interactions basically go nowhere, with the characters involved just blushing. The writing is also very light-novel-like, with space just wasted with lines of あs instead of simply saying the character is screaming. Still, the action is good and the overall plot is entertaining if you like J-rpg.
I’d say it’s good pulp; it allows me to unplug my brain after a rough day at work. I would not pay (full price at least) for it, but it’s available at my local library. At the same time, I would not just recommend it to everyone.
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I’m trying to start まちカドまぞく, but the first chapter is quite a challenge. There’s a lot more exposition than I’m used to seeing in manga, and mostly about complex topics like clans of light and darkness and their demon powers being sealed or some such stuff. Probably best to start fresh tomorrow when I’m not as tired.
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Well that still went poorly. I really need to get back to reading samples of manga before buying, rather than just buying them because they sound interesting. I kind of assumed it would be a comparable difficulty to ご注文はうさぎですか because they are both from Manga Time Kirara, and I didn’t really consider the fantasy premise. This is the second time now, after 此花亭奇譚 was similarly difficult (based on the first couple chapters). I scanned through the rest of volume one of まちカドまぞく, and it is dense (for a manga) throughout, so I think I’m gonna to pass on it for now.
Since I have to concentrate and look up a lot when reading books, right now I want manga to be a more relaxing activity. I’ll eventually get back to these harder manga, but for now I want something I can understand by only looking up a handful of words. On that note, I’m really enjoying こみっくがーるず. It’s pretty funny, and I like the characters. I’m still getting used to a small number of manga/art specific terms, but it’s not that hard overall.
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