Absolute Beginners Book Club // Now reading: Horimiya // Reading Next: Miss Shikimori is not just cute!

[MaraVos]

Here’s a link directly to the vertical reader … If one is like me and can’t stand reading on a screen it would be easy peasy to print out five pages and have the whole story, plus extra room on the page for making notes. I’m excited about the video you linked, that looks great, and I would love to give this story a try at an absolute-beginner-friendly pace! (I think between the audio recording and the ability to copy-paste any words you can’t read, that pretty much makes up for the complete lack of furigana.)

eta: also many people have fancy browser extensions that can just provide the furigana for them …

[Akashelia]

I didn’t even think about printing, great idea thanks for the link too, added to the nomination post!

[araigoshi]

ガールズ＆パンツァー リトルアーミー / Girls Und Panzer: Little Army

Summary

This is the story of Miho Nishizumi in her elementary school days, taking place six years prior to the events in Girls und Panzer. Having been raised in a prestigious household that adheres strictly to the values of tankery, life isn’t easy for young Miho. With an older sister who has already risen to great heights, Miho has some very large shoes to fill. Together with a group of new friends, and a blossoming interest in tankery, Miho will set out on a road that may very well change her future.

Availability

Physical: Amazon
Ebook: Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

Honestly, now I’ve started reading manga I went looking for the manga associated with my favourite anime franchises and spotted that Little Army has full furigana and at least from my read through of the first half of chapter 1, not overly difficult language. There is some domain knowledge, but they don’t seem to expect the JP audience to know them either as they go out of their way to explain it (e.g.:

)

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

• A recognizable franchise, with a story that’s new if you’ve watched it and decoupled if you haven’t.
• Near-full furigana (it does drop it with some effect fonts, like the image caption on page 3, text on diagrams, or a character talking without a bubble to indicate excited babbling)

Cons

• Some pages can be relatively text-dense, there’s not as many “free” pages as in the last two manga. Pages 2/3 are actually near the top end in terms of density (esp kanji density), but that’s not to say there’s not plenty of other pages that are 80% of the way there.
• Tank/vehicle specific language, though it seems a lot of it is explained
• Based on the description, volume 2 might go into more spoiler backstory stuff if you haven’t watched the anime.

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Additional Pages

A standard-ish page and one of the somewhat frequent large spreads

Page with some tank/vehicle lingo being explained:

Two typical pages in a row:

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

• No effort at all
• Minimal effort
• Moderate effort
• Substantial effort
• So much effort my head might explode
• I don’t know
• I am an experienced reader, so this is not much effort for me

[MrGeneric]

@PhilipZ

I suppose pacing is key here

That would be my one concern, @Akashelia. What is the intended reading pace? How many weeks do you think you want to spread it out, are there reasonable stopping points, etc… At only 15 pages, I imagine it would be a really short read.

I’m not necessarily opposed to it, to be clear, but the format doesn’t seem to quite match the usual club format, and it may be better suited as a one-shot club. Just curious what the actual gameplan would be, essentially. Especially if it gets selected, I’ll need to know if it would be a considered a short run and require a second victor so that we aren’t just immediately holding another selection poll.

That said, that discussion really can wait for now. No sense planning it out until the polls are done and we know what’s happening for sure. It was just a slightly different format than what I’ve seen before, so it made me start thinking!

With those two nominations, we now only have ONE nomination slot left!

[Akashelia]

Sure I can answer that now, I already gave it a bit of thought
So the total character count is around 3000 (3300 but I didn’t remove the punctuation).

To compare, here are some other numbers:

• Ruri Dragon: 12k
• ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん : 7k
• Yotsubato! vol 1: 13k

Though it’s not completely fair to compare the character count to one of a manga, because in a manga the sentences are usually way shorter and there are a lot of breaks with just drawings (except for Ruri ).
Here we are talking text only.

So some other numbers I went to look at, was how long the episodes on Satori Reader are. I looked at a few of Akiko’s foreign exchange, one of the most popular story and the one I’m reading now, and an episode is around 300-350 character long.

So that’s what I was thinking we could go for. Around 300 characters a week, for about 10 weeks. Of course if the book gets picked I will look closely for where to break (in between two sentences obviously) and also probably having a ramping up period.

[TobiasW]

@Akashelia

I went on Natively to try and find a short story and found this one as the most popular one that wasn’t yet read on WK (unless I missed it), level 25 .

Seeing “level 25” makes me a bit sceptical that this is a good fit for the ABBC - that’s pretty firmely in BBC territory.

(Sadly, the BBC doesn’t seem to be too fond of books. My nomination of lovely short stories collection is gathering dust at 16-17%…)

edit: I think a short story that might be closer to the ABBC range could be 手ぶくろを買いに | L20.

[PhilipZ]

@TobiasW

I think a short story that might be closer to the ABBC range could be 手ぶくろを買いに | L20 .

seeing foxes on cover I’m in.

[Greymanic]

Yet to vote / look at the text itself but I agree with @TobiasW. Anything above level 20 on Natively feels out of my comfort zone at this point and would immediately make me hesitant.

That said, while I’ve only been part of this club since the start of ルリ, it might be good to get a bit of variety and try a short story or two since the focus has been on manga lately.

[MaraVos]

While I might usually agree, I think this is sort of a different situation, and could be a good experiment. Because the content is short, the pace would likely be something like 1-2 pages a week. That gives plenty of time to slowly work through each sentence, and having the company of others of various levels helping would make it accessible, I think. It may be a little drier than the usual ABBC book club, but on the other hand, working through a classic story for adults could provide a lot of motivation for some.

It’s definitely different, but I think it could be a really great experience! General interest level will become clear in the voting, I guess, but I would definitely encourage folks to give it a shot!

[Gorbit99]

A userscript that automatically shows the natively level on the amazon store would be nice, because it’s increasingly difficult to find something that wasn’t yet covered, is in the appropriate range (or isn’t yet rated) and is actually interesting looking.

[TobiasW]

I agree that it could be a great experience in general, but to me it still doesn’t sound like a great experience for the first native Japanese media you read (which is the focus of this club, I think). Much easier content is already plenty hard for first-time readers.

I’m a bit worried we might have another HxH / Cells at Work situation, where the club is busy trying to read something much too hard for it, and first-time readers have to wait until it is over. To me, this sounds more like some sort of off-shoot book club between ABBC and BBC.

[Gorbit99]

ネトゲの嫁が人気アイドルだった - My wife in an online game is a popular idol

(yes, it used to be a light novel, how did you guess?)

Summary

Summary from amazon (translated by me):

The ordinary high school student, Ayanokouji Kazuto has a wife.
However, this is a common story in the online game, that’s his hobby.

Even so, Rin, the girl he’s marrying, turns out to be his classmate, the popular idol, “Mizuki Rinka”!?

With their identities leaking, their relationship is over… or so you’d think, but in reality, Rinka starts acting like Kazuto’s wife.

“From now on, we will be together even in real life”

Let the love comedy spun with the cool and love-heavy wife begin!

Availability

Be careful, the story has a light novel version, check before you buy!
Ebook: Amazon, Bookwalker
Paperback: Amazon, CD Japan

Personal Opinion

My opinion is twofold.

First of all, the actual enjoyment of it. I started reading this manga at 5pm right after leaving work, and finished it at about 6:45. Let’s say, it’s quite cute. The story is about Kazuto and Rinka, both high school students, with Rinka being a very popular idol. They realize, that they were playing together in the same online game, and they’ve even gotten married there. The story goes on from there. I’d be hesitant to call it a comedy (though it has comedic elements), it’s closer (somewhat) to a romance drama.

It’s not the most complex of stories, it only really has a few story beats, but the difficulty of it is very much in the absolute beginner range. The text density is very low (check pages below), but still offers more challenge, than for example Happiness did. The vocabulary is quite simple, barely uses slang, doesn’t go into very difficult grammar or vocab. It’s also quite short, clocking in at about 160 pages of actual content per my estimation.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

• Very easy language and grammar
• Low text density
• Cute, simple story

Cons

• It’s a very new manga, with only one chapter released sofar
• The art is a bit crude
• The story isn’t the most complex

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Additional Pages

These pages are probably representative of the text density you can expect

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

• No effort at all
• Minimal effort
• Moderate effort
• Substantial effort
• So much effort my head might explode
• I don’t know
• I am an experienced reader, so this is not much effort for me

[MrGeneric]

With that nomination, that puts us at 20, which, unless something has changed in the forums, is the maximum number of line items for a poll, so I’m closing the call for nominations today.

I’ll get a selection poll up this evening or tomorrow, and still allow it to run until the 2nd (unless votes really dry up before then).

In previous polls, we have only been allowing 3 votes per person, but it seems that is no longer in line with what the other clubs do. They have been allowing 5 votes, so I think I will do the same and expand the votes allowed.

Given that we have actually hit the nomination cap, this is just a reminder that picks that have fallen under 15% consistently for the past 2-3 polls will need to be removed for lack of interest so that we can clear up space for the next nomination period.

As a reminder, you are free to re-nominate, but please seriously consider whether you think there will be interest before doing so.

Thanks, everyone! I look forward to seeing what we pick!

[MrGeneric]

Also, just out of curiosity, @Gorbit99, have you already requested the manga be added to Natively as well?

[Gorbit99]

Not yet, I’ll get to it. The light novels are already added though.

[MrGeneric]

Alright, cool. I’ll leave the requesting up to you, then.

I did see that LN; I was just curious if it already had a rating for the manga, since it will obviously be significantly easier than the LN. At least from those screencaps, it’s definitely not a 28.

[Gorbit99]

Yeah, it’s likely very far from 28. It’s much easier than Ruri, and the sort of speed I could read at was basically like what I can do if I’ve been following along a series for several volumes, which is obviously not true here. My guess is about 18-ish, since it’s easier by a long shot than Ruri in my eyes, but I’m not a good guesser.

[ChristopherFritz]

@Gorbit99

Even so, Rin, the girl she’s marrying, turns out to be his classmate

Sounds like a complex read

[Gorbit99]

I’m not good with gendered pronouns.

[AuoraMorgan]

Omg. I might need to track this down, it sounds like something in my interest sphere. I’m so glad I decided to check out the book clubs, it’s been a wonderful addition to my learning!