[2025] 多読/extensive reading challenge

[KazeTachinu]

Done with 鹿の王 3!

I finished the last third in one sitting and have to retract my statement from yesterday: While the middle part was tiring, the last part was great. We’re really getting closer to the core of the mystery behind the disease and it’s always great when the characters finally meet (very minor spoiler) in a story that’s told from multiple perspectives the.

Now I’m really struggling. Despite my words yesterday I kinda want to delve right into volume 4. Hope it keeps the momentum going.

[valkow]

@Naphthalene

I finished volume 10 of 伯爵と妖精

Yay, I’m so glad you liked it!! 10 is definitely the season finale.

the part where they finally meet again thanks to the church’s shadow

Ahhh, these books sometimes, they get me with the romance. It can be such a mess (on purpose, lol, not unintentionally), but then sometimes it’s like they find just the right angle to come close to each other and everything is good~ And then エドガー usually ruins it somehow~~ I think by this point リディア is just resigned to a lot of his shenanigans (though he has SO MANY shenanigans that there is a lot for her still to deal with!! --perhaps even 20+ volumes worth).

still 20+ volumes to go

(<-- this one’s evil)

ロタ was the absolute MVP

AGREED. Also, lumps of steel DO suit her better than jewels, and that is entirely a compliment in her case. <3

And the fairy has then a good excuse to stay at the bridge, so that she isn’t overpowered moving on.

Yeah! It really was a team effort between her and the two fairies, and everything had to come together just right for that moment to work. It definitely didn’t seem at all like the kind of thing she’d be able to do every day.

Hooray you’re through the first ten volumes! Here is some light logistical/arc-type information if you want it: 11 is in some ways a stand-alone volume, though it still focuses on エドガー and リディア, and 12 is short stories. Both are good, I say as if my opinion carries any weight when I’d say that about any of them.

[WeebPotato]

I’m close to finishing the first volume of 三月のライオン and it’s extremely emotional. Hits right in the feels. I don’t think I’ve read a story like this in a longer while. I think I will continue as long as I can get my hands on volume 2 and so forth.

Meanwhile continuing with Jujutsu Kaisen vol 0.

[cineebon]

I kept getting frustrated and quitting the more difficult interesting novels I was attempting, so I decided to accept my fate and embrace the more childish series I liked when I was younger.

I always knew that the yugioh manga was darker than the anime but wow there sure is a lot more murdering done by the protagonist in the beginning than I remembered. I have no clue how this manga evolved into a vehicle for selling card games when it’s got kind of a horror/game of the week vibe.

[rodan]

I finished this month’s Harta!

I really enjoyed it! Four debuting series, and enjoyable chapters in a lot of my favorites.

ハルタ ９２号

The first debuting series is 対岸のメル ‐幽冥探偵調査ファイル‐ by 福島聡, following up on an earlier short (I think from Terang?). It’s about a girl who can talk to ghosts and a detective-inclined boy who are together going to set up… well, a 幽冥探偵 agency I suppose. I think it did a good job building out what was intriguing in the short into the start of what should be an interesting series!

The second debuting series is ウスズミの果て by 岩宗治生, and I think it’s very promising! It’s about a lone person traveling through a post-apocalyptic city cleaning up the remains of the disaster. That vibe feels fairly familiar from things like… I dunno, Girl’s Last Tour, or even Yokohama Shopping Trip, etc. But I really like the art and I think the world shown has the potential to develop in its own interesting ways going forward.

The third series debut is 珍獣のお医者さん by 二宮香乃 about exotic animal veterinary medicine.
It seems like an interesting series, of the “here’s an interesting specialized craft or profession” type! It wouldn’t be the faint of heart if you don’t want to see hurt animals (that are then healed, but still).

The fourth series debut is かわいすぎる人よ！ by 綿野マイコ, about an uncle raising a niece - and the uncle happens to be extremely cute and androgynous. It’s pleasant and heartwarming! Seems like one where the premise is more of a bit of additional flavor than like, the main driver of the plot.

Other memorable stuff:
猫のまにまに this month is about a cat girl peeing. So… for someone out there, this is really really up their alley. Let’s all be happy for that person.

ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ makes great use of the Finnish setting by having a “go have a fight in the extreme cold then immediately get in the sauna and bond” scene. (volume 2 out now btw)

I remain very taken with 希釈王 - it’s… hard to describe, and even harder to predict.

I liked the ショートショート by 池袋万里 called ホビーショップヤッホー a lot. (it’s about two employees reading the manual to turn off a realistic cute electric doll at the end of the day, to everyone’s horror)

Finally, I feel like I haven’t talked as much about あかねさす柘榴の都 as some of the other series (like the Hotel one), but it’s awfully good too.

One negative memorable thing for me is this issue has another appearance of 東田裕介’s very infrequently recurring boy detective stories, which remain pretty much the one thing in Harta I actively don’t like. The artstyle’s just very… shotacon? and exaggeratedly sexualized in general in a way that isn’t for me at all.

One very positive thing though: the ads for next issue promise the debut of an ongoing series by the author of some of my favorite 読切, 田沼朝! I liked their work to the point of translating a story to share it with my friends, so I’m very excited to see what the ongoing will be like! Growing to recognize an author’s name from shorts and being excited as their career progresses is a really cool positive about reading manga in magazine form! (it’s why I tend to put the author’s name a lot in these recaps, if that wasn’t clear - just so I remember them better and can look them up better later if a name or art style in a different story seems familiar)

Manga report:

• ちびまる子ちゃん (1)
  I picked this one up a long time ago thinking it might be an easy read early on. It turned out to not really be well-suited for that purpose at all though, as it’s very wordy and full of hand-writing and cultural references. Now that that’s not a barrier though, I really enjoyed it a lot! It’s a semi-autobiographical account of being a kid in 1970s Japan that’s vivid enough to be a fun picture of the time and place, and self-deprecating enough that it feels frank and relatable. A good way to feel the memories of shirking summer homework, begrudgingly participating in school plays, etc. It’s a slow read still for the reasons I mentioned, and being very episodic, but I’d definitely like to read more sometime!
• ハクメイとミコチ (4-10)
  I’ve caught up now with Hakumei and Mikochi, and I really grew to love it over the course of these volumes! It’s got a similar kind of chill comfort and joie de vivre that say, Yokohama Shopping Trip has, but Hakumei and Mikochi takes a much much more maximalist approach, stuffed to the gills with food, clothes, crafts, neighbors and friends, outings, etc. Over the course of the series, despite not really being plot-driven, it develops a really surprisingly voluminous and memorable cast of characters, who will often borrow the spotlight or interact with each other for a bit with the two leads always being somewhere in mix as well. Some of my favorites include the skeleton re-animator Sen, the librarian, the flustered beetle, the bartender, the singer’s neighbor, etc. … there’s really a lot!
  I was especially impressed that even though the tenth volume was mainly or entirely made up of chapters I’d already read and enjoyed serially in the magazine, it was my favorite volume! As having gotten to know that sprawling cast over the course of the series made the stories that much richer even if I hadn’t been missing out on plot details or anything like that the first time.
• ドラゴンボール (3-4)
  In the mood for something light, I picked up where I left off at some point with Dragon Ball!
  I really like Dragon Ball! I think Toriyama’s style is delightful, and you never really quite know what direction things will take since the world has so many strange and fun elements. I’ve seen Dragon Ball Z (as an adult) but not the earlier episodes, so it’s interesting to see where things start out too - like the first 天下一武道会 is in these volumes. I like the silly martial arts vibe, and the 武道会 announcer/referee/bewildered onlooker is an A+ background character. Now it’s transitioned to more of an adventure story where Goku has to fight an army looking for the dragon balls in a snow area? which I might be less into but again, it’s fun how Toriyama will go in whatever direction he feels like, and I caught a glimpse of Frankenstein’s Monster so I’m looking forward to that.
  Whenever it was that I read the first two volumes, I remember having some trouble with them… now I can read these lightly and easily without a dictionary! Pretty cool! And gives them that extra breezy fun that feels like how they’re meant to be read.
• ゴールデンカムイ (3)
  Nothing to say I didn’t already for the first two volumes! I remember not really liking the part where Sugimoto briefly ditches Asirpa and with this one I was less sure I was right to reread rather than skipping right to where I’d left off in English. Still got a long way to go!
• ふしぎの国のバード (8-9)
  These felt a bit less special since we aren’t reading them out loud anymore and I’d already read (to varying degrees) most of the chapters as they were coming out in the magazine. Still good though, and I really enjoyed the most recent chapter in this month’s Harta!
• 大ダーク (2-4)
  I’ve caught up with Dai Dark, and I think it’s great! Comparing it to something else doesn’t really do it justice, but I’m gonna gamely try anyway and say it feels a little like… Adventure Time, but in space and everything is a weird death metal album cover? Like it’s got a free-wheeling easy-going anything-goes attitude, and stars a plucky kid and his weird transforming… friend? guardian? as he makes new friends and tries not to get killed by… well, everyone else. The vibe is very fun and pleasant although the aesthetic involves lots and lots and lots of bones and guts and such. The presentation of the volumes is also fantastic - the transparent covers are inventive and cool, and there’s a fun little crossword at the back of each volume that teases the next.
  Getting on this series’ wavelength makes me a lot more excited to give ドロヘドロ another shot down the line.

[Natsuha]

Somehow I managed to finish one of my goals for this year reading 25 manga volumes. Now I just need to read 10 books and either read/play 5 games or visual novels in japanese.

I started reading the first ノーゲーム・ノーライフ novel and it’s still super hard for me. But I need to finish it regardless how hard it is. I can’t give up.

[KazeTachinu]

I’ve finished 角野栄子エブリデイマジック the other day and really liked it. I skimmed a few short travel accounts I wasn’t too interested in, but overall it was a very fun read, covering a variety of topics.

I particularly liked what she wrote about writing as a profession and how it’s always important to have fun doing it. It was also interesting to read more about her time in Brazil and her subsequent travels to Europe during her youth – when travelling still meant going by ship which makes it so much more adventerous.

I’ve also started reading 鹿の王 4. I’m making good progress (60% mark) and should be done in another 2-3 days. I’m liking it so far, but I can’t say it’s an easy read. The pacing is slow, but so many things suddenly come together that it takes a lot of focus to be able to follow the explanations and events. I’m glad I didn’t take a break, though, because it would’ve become only harder the more time passes.

More impressions later. I’m looking forward to the conclusion, but also to reading something lighter next.

[KazeTachinu]

I’m done with 鹿の王 4! Today was a good day, so I managed to read the last ~140 pages in two sessions.

There’s still a lot I have to think about, but here are my spoiler-free impressions about the book and the series as a whole.

I really like the story. The focus on the medical aspect is very unique and handled with a lot of care. The amount of medical knowledge the people already possess in this medieval world does require a wee bit suspension of disbelief, but the depth in which everything is explained and combined with other parts of the story make it very rewarding.

As most Uehashi books, it’s a fantasy story without a simple good-evil conflict – something I always loved – and a lot of time is spent on crafting an organic world with complex relationships between people, organizations and countries. This is what makes the books compelling, but also overwhelming at times. There are a lot of characters and names and places and if you don’t pay attention to their positions and goals, you may end up lost in some scenes.

More than other Uehashi books, this one is aimed at adults rather than children. Children probably can read the books and still have fun, but the complexity of the plot, the political scope, the focus on the exploration of a disease and the subdued sense of adventure will probably better appeal to older readers.

I did like the characters. Vaan and Hossal are two very different protagonists and I think Uehashi balanced their parts very well. Including a very young girl as a central character also added a “parenting” dynamic not often found in fantasy books. That being said, I personally prefer stories that follow the growth of a character throughout the course of the story (like Erin). With two adult protagonists this wasn’t the focus this time. While I liked them, I didn’t get overly attached and there weren’t many cathartic moments in the story anyway – it’s more focused on the smaller moments and the overall worldbuilding than personal drama.

I definitely did like the ending. I really didn’t see that coming and until at least the last book it really wasn’t clear where the story was headed at all. As expected, it didn’t answer all questions and definitely didn’t solve all problems, but it did have a sense of closure that quite suited the overall tone of the story.

I’m sure there are many more details and messages hiding in the story that I wasn’t able to fully understand or appreciate. But that seems to be common for even for native speakers who suggest taking notes or rereading the books at a later point to get most out of it. I don’t think I’ll reread them, but I’ll definitely watch the movie, though I’m really not sure how they want to tell this story in just two hours of screentime.

Some more random thoughts:
– I’ve you liked Erin, read Moribito rather than 鹿の王; read 鹿の王 if you want a ひと味違う take on Uehashi fantasy – is what some Japanese wrote on message boards. I haven’t read Moribito yet, but I think I’ll agree. That being said, if you like the tone and sense of worldbuilding in Uehashi’s works, you’ll probably also end up liking 鹿の王.
– In terms of overall enjoyment, I’d rank the books 2 > 1 = 3 = 4. I think they’re all very good, but 2 was the only one that didn’t exhaust me at times. In general you’ll want to read the books with enough focus; they don’t make for a good bedtime read (not for me, anyway).
– I terms of language, they’ll definitely be challanging for learners who’ll read them as their first Uehashi book, and even advanced learners won’t be able to breeze through them as there’s a lot of medical vocabulary and 敬語 involved. It’s written in a way children can understand, though, so while it’ll be more difficult than the average YA novel, it’s much more digestible than your typical 純文学 work.
– There’s a lengthy spin-off novel called 鹿の王 水底の橋 that, from what I’ve read, expands on Hossal’s story. I’m not sure I’ll read it – at least not anytime soon. I’m more inclined to read the Erin spin-off novel or her new series first.

[seanblue]

@KazeTachinu

That being said, I personally prefer stories that follow the growth of a character throughout the course of the story (like Erin). With two adult protagonists this wasn’t the focus this time.

Did you get attached to the characters in books 3 and 4 of 獣の奏者? Or did already being attached to Erin help? I would like to eventually read those two entries in the series so I’m kind of curious.

@KazeTachinu

– I’ve you liked Erin, read Moribito rather than 鹿の王; read 鹿の王 if you want a ひと味違う take on Uehashi fantasy – is what some Japanese wrote on message boards. I haven’t read Moribito yet, but I think I’ll agree.

I haven’t read Moribito but I did watch the anime adaption around the same time I watched the 獣の奏者 adaption many years ago. I liked 獣の奏者 more, but the Moribito anime was good too. I do think the main character is an adult, with a secondary younger character. I don’t know which characters are the viewpoint characters in the books though. Honestly my main reluctance to try this series is the length. I don’t know which books stand alone and which require reading many books in the series to be satisfactory.

[KazeTachinu]

@seanblue

Did you get attached to the characters in books 3 and 4 of 獣の奏者? Or did already being attached to Erin help? I would like to eventually read those two entries in the series so I’m kind of curious.

It definitely helped and until the end I was much more attached to Erin than the other characters. The relationship between Erin and Lilan was what I liked most in the first books and it wasn’t such a major theme in book 3 and book 4 which was a bit sad. But there are other aspects of Erin’s personality that get explored and I really liked that.

Honestly my main reluctance to try this series is the length. I don’t know which books stand alone and which require reading many books in the series to be satisfactory.

Apparently book 1 and 2 can be read standalone. The anime only adapts book 1, but about half of the content was original content not present in the book (according to an interview with the director & Nahoko Uehashi).

[seanblue]

@KazeTachinu

The anime only adapts book 1, but about half of the content was original content not present in the book (according to an interview with the director & Nahoko Uehashi).

That’s not surprising based on the anime length. Can’t really adapt a 350 page book into a 26 episode anime otherwise.

[NicoleIsEnough]

@KazeTachinu

The amount of medical knowledge the people already possess in this medieval world does require a wee bit suspension of disbelief

Haha indeed Sometimes I was like, wow they still ride on horses and deer but they know about diseases and have microscopes and vaccines?

@KazeTachinu

but the depth in which everything is explained and combined with other parts of the story make it very rewarding.

Oh I wanted to ask this all along! I found these explanatory parts to be pretty exhausting because it felt to me like they were always explaining the same thing, but with a slight change in the narrative, or they built a completely new narrative, but without saying “yes that’s how it is”; and on the next occasion they would build another new narrative that was at times pretty unrelated to the previous ones… Did you experience that as well? And what was it like for you? BTW I’m totally aware that my then much lower level of Japanese added to the exhaustion because I had to look up tons of words over and over again, and probably also added lots of misunderstandings, but just from the sheer contents it felt like a pretty weird and repetitive technique of describing these things… Therefore I’m wondering whether it was just me or whether it was really so repetitive, and what you thought about this plethora of theories that was laid out in front of the reader?

[KazeTachinu]

I personally didn’t find it too repetitive. There definitely were some repetitions – when things were first brought up as theories and then later discussed in more depth when it became relevant again. The beginning of book 4 was a bit extreme because so many things came together and the entire first third of the book is just one single explanation. But it made sense to me because the conclusions would’ve been much harder to understand without the “what we know so far” refresher. I personally like this style of storytelling where instead of having conclusive segments information from previous segments becomes relevant again later on.

At times it felt more like a detective novel than a fantasy story, though.

[NicoleIsEnough]

@KazeTachinu

the “what we know so far” refresher.

Maybe I didn’t realize at the time that it was such a refresher, and always took it to be a new and slightly altered theory

At some point I’d probably like to reread the books in order to see how much I misunderstood back then But not right now, as there are lots of other books waiting to be misunderstood by me

[KazeTachinu]

I’ve started reading 島はぼくらと by Mizuki Tsujimura.

I’m still only at the 15% mark, so I can’t say much, but it seems to be a slow slice-of-life story about the microcosm of a small-ish island and a central mystery – a strange guy appears on the island looking for a “legendary script” for a play. While the children don’t take him seriously at first, they also get engrossed a week later or so.

I really do enjoy reading something lighter and can see the dynamics between the 4 main characters become really interesting. Can’t wait to see where the story goes, but I’ll probably read this book at a slower pace. Don’t think I’ll be able to add it to my March list, but we’ll see.

[Naphthalene]

Finally finished かがみの孤城!
I had a really good time reading it, but life kept getting in the way, so finishing it felt like

1. read 2 pages
2. have to stop
3. open the book again
4. where the heck was I?
5. go back 2 pages
6. repeat

Overall, I went in completely blind, and it didn’t turn out to be the kind of story I imagined. I had a great time, though, so I highly recommend the book.
I’m not sure I enjoyed the book the expected way, though, since I guessed the time differential as early as humanly possible (when 風歌 said 多くない about the number of students not going to school at the same time. So my reflex was to immediately think “what if it’s not at the same time?”, and then a lot of the hints that were shown before fell into place).
I did relate hard when “オオカミさま” said いい加減、自分で気づけ。
I took much longer to guess the nature of the “story” and the place of the key, but that’s mostly because I didn’t focus so much on it at that point. I felt really involved in finding out if the time differential thing was correct or not, so when a hint about the other thing came around, I was just thinking “that sounds meaningful, but meh, I’ll learn about it soon enough”.
I kept getting back and forth on who is 喜多島先生. It turns out that my first guess was the right one, but I discarded it since こころ didn’t notice she looked similar to アキ. Oh well.

I was thinking to follow along with the club, but… that didn’t happen

[seanblue]

Glad you liked it!

@Naphthalene

I’m not sure I enjoyed the book the expected way, though, since I guessed the time differential as early as humanly possible (when 風歌 said 多くない about the number of students not going to school at the same time . So my reflex was to immediately think “what if it’s not at the same time?”, and then a lot of the hints that were shown before fell into place).

Funny enough, I also predicted it early (I think most people in the book club have been predicting it as well), but I felt it wouldn’t land properly so I kept thinking “please don’t be this”. Of course, once I finished the book I actually thought it came together nicely, but it’s kind of funny I spent like half the book hoping it didn’t go the way I predicted. Another big reason I thought it ended up being fine was because while that twist was obvious (to the extent that maybe it wasn’t even intended as a twist), I thought some of the other twists weren’t obvious. Like, I figured out the 喜多島先生 thing (don’t remember how far in advance though, probably not as early as you), but the other twists I had no idea!

Here was my original comment on the story if you’re interested: [2023] 多読/extensive reading challenge - #4124 by seanblue

[Naphthalene]

@seanblue

Here was my original comment on the story if you’re interested:

Oh, nice! I see others wrote about the book as well. I’ll check later today.

[seanblue]

And speaking of かがみの孤城, I just bought the audiobook. It was 30% off, plus 300 yen new user discount, so it ended up costing about 1000 yen. It’s always nice when companies actually let you own the thing you purchased. That is, I was able to download the audiobook and it doesn’t have any kind of DRM. Their app is also pretty good, so I’ll probably use that whenever I decide to listen to it. I just like knowing that I can listen to it any way I want and that I’m not locked into their ecosystem. I’m not usually an audiobook person, but it seems really well made from the preview. And listening to the first few minutes, there’s a certain emotion to it that I don’t get when reading the book myself.

I don’t actually know when I’ll listen to it though. I was originally thinking I would later this year, but with the anime film also coming out at the end of this year, I’m not sure anymore. It may make sense to listen to the audiobook after I watch the film so I can do a more direct comparison between the film and the book at that time.

[Naphthalene]

かがみの孤城

@miwuc

I wonder if its more famous in Japan than in my country (France)?

I don’t know if it’s a generation thing, but as a French person, I can say it was very popular when I was a kid (well, as popular as those stories can be, I mean). It was in pretty much every collections of children stories that I read as a kid, just like little red riding hood, Hansel and Gretel, snow white, etc.

Actually, now that I think about it, it was also in the collection I was reading to my kids when they were small, along with little red riding hood, boucle d’or, le vilain petit canard, and poulerousse (I don’t know any of those titles in English)

… I still didn’t guess until the last moment

@seanblue

was reasonable enough that I was fine with it

I still think it’s weird they didn’t notice when they discussed the days of the week, especially 成人の日. That one was the biggest confirmation for me, as I learned this year (on 成人の日 specifically) that it used to be on the 15th until 1999. Both こころ and 理音 were already in school when the change occurred, so I feel like they could have remembered it… Oh well, I’ll chalk it down to “they didn’t pay attention” 嬉野 style.

@miwuc

up to the details of the gaming consoles names and the fact that the TV was an old cathode-ray tube one.

I was quite surprised that the author used actual consoles names. I feel like the tendency would be to use more generic names or hide the name altogether (like the author did in the beginning). I tried to check if カレオ used to be a thing, but I can’t find anything.

@seanblue

It may make sense to listen to the audiobook after I watch the film so I can do a more direct comparison between the film and the book at that time.

That’s a lot of dedication to this story! Are you going to check the manga adaptation as well?

In other news, that’s my first non-light novel book for this year