Absolute Beginners Book Club // Now Reading: Granny Girl Hinata chan!

Thank you! That’s a really helpful explanation. I definitely did a double-take when I saw how many people marked them as Minimal Effort, and I was questioning whether I was in the right thread.

Maybe have a Helper/Senior Member option in the poll? That might keep the polls looking active, but not be quite as scary.

I’m super excited to join!

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Something like that might not be a bad idea for sure! I’ve been trying to workshop some ideas on how to improve the difficulty polls a bit because I’ve noticed that they just don’t seem to drum up much participation sometimes, especially in comparison to our nomination polls. :sweat_smile:

I do understand they are bit more work, so to speak, since one has to look at the preview images and read to get a general idea of how difficult it might be. Ironically, the people for whom it is easiest to read thus are more likely to vote in the polls.

It’s far less a commitment for me to read through the first few pages of ルリドラゴン than for somebody who is just starting out reading. What takes me a couple of minutes might take someone else ten. So I understand that it can be a little bit harder to vote in them. Not really sure there is a way around that bit of it though. :sweat_smile:

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On the topic of scary: The beginner book club is currently voting on what to read next. If you want to try more challenging stuff or just read more in general, check it out!

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Wait what. Damn that sucks I hope he gets well soon.

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ギャルと恐竜(きょうりゅう)・Gal & Dino

Summary

We’ve all been there—a couple drinks too many, and a hazy wander back to your home, where you wake up wondering how you got there. But in Kaede’s case, not only was she not sure how she got home … she wasn’t sure how the dinosaur got there, either! The two are soon fast friends, but though their personalities jive, they’ll have to learn how to communicate in order to live peacefully together! (Source: Kodansha US)

Availability

Physical: amazon.co.jpamazon.comCDJapanKinokuniya USA

Digital: AmazonKoboBOOK☆WALKER

Personal Opinion

I love the humor of the dinosaur learning about the world and the people around it being kind and accepting in return. Misunderstandings and hilarity ensues! This also gives a good setup to learn a bit about Japanese culture (although I guess this goes for a lot of slice-of-life manga).

I think the difficulty is right for the club. I haven’t read the whole thing, but it starts off fairly easy. Glancing ahead there are a few parts with longer sentences but nothing seems too hard for an ABBC book. The Natively level is 18.

I think it has a good chance of holding people’s interest, even for multiple volumes, but I admit the type of humor may not be for everyone.

The biggest downside is that it may be hard to find a physical copy. Amazon.co.jp has one copy left and amazon.com only has used copies. CDJapan and Kinokuniya are sold out. If anybody finds a better place to buy it, I can edit this post to add it.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Furigana
  • Page numbers!
  • Natively level 18
  • 7 volumes released (I can’t tell if it’s a completed series, sources are conflicting)
  • Anime adaptation (12 episodes) for listening practice

Cons

  • Some people may not enjoy the type of humor
  • Hard to find a physical copy

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Additional Pages (the rest of chapter 1)

Bookwalker Preview (first 2 chapters)

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 :exploding_head:
  • I don’t know

0 voters

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On that note, I think for nominations after this run, I will add this option for difficulty polls:

“I am an experienced reader, so this is not much effort for me.”

What does everyone think of that wording? Would it help take the edge off for some of the beginners to see it made clear where those votes are coming from?

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Looking forward to the day, I can vote for this option :upside_down_face:

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“I am an experienced reader, so this is not much effort for me.”

As someone who was looking into the Absolute Beginners club… I think that option would be wonderful. I was happy with my moderate effort for Ruri Dragon and when i voted and saw a bunch of minimals I went ‘ope’. However I’m looking forward to diving head first into a bunch of stuff that I dont know so I wasn’t personally put off by a bunch of minimal efforts.

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I look forward to no longer being this guy:

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You’ve been making good progress, so that day will sneak up on you before you know it! :grin:

Thank you for the feedback!

Before stepping into the role of organizing (and thus just being able to throw my own vote away so I didn’t impact the results), I was definitely that guy also. :joy:

So far, sounds like it will be a good option for everyone! Glad to hear!

Great idea @quilltips, and thanks for helping me refine the wording @TobiasW. :grin:

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As a side note, I think something that is “moderate effort” probably leads to the best book club experience - enough challenge to learn lots of new things, but not so hard that it becomes stressful. So just ignore all of us minimals from other book clubs, “moderate effort” is a really good level to read at!

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I think seeing all the “minimal effort” votes kind of turned me off from joining a book club for a while as well >_<
I thought if something that seemed really hard for me was minimal effort to most of the people voting, it meant that I wasn’t ready to start reading yet.
So I agree with the idea of making an option for more advanced readers!

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Awesome, thank you so much! I really like that. It’s nice and clear, and it’s also encouraging to see how many experienced readers might be helping out/commenting.

Also, some of these nominations look really fun. I hadn’t heard of a bunch of them before.

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I’ve been lurking around here for a while just reading through comments and nominations. Looked through a few of the finished ABBC books as well.

Although my grammar is still pretty weak, I think I’m about ready to take the dive!

Thank you so much for the gentle nudge and for agreeing to change the polls with an option for more advanced readers! I’m also one of those who were intimidated by the results, so this is really helpful!

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I just watched the first two minutes of this and this is hilarious!! :joy: I’m also quite surprised how much I understood without subs. To be fair, it was a pretty simple conversation with her mom, but still made me feel good! :slight_smile:

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The results of the poll are in favor of allowing it as a nomination. As I mentioned, I personally don’t want more than 2 of my own nominations in the running at any given point, so I won’t be nominating it, but if anybody else wants to see it in the next poll, they are free to get a nomination post up for it! :grin:

When I first tried out the ABBC with Takagi-san, my grammar knowledge was a half-hearted attempt to get through Genki that failed because textbooks cannot hold my interest, some Japanese Ammo with Misa videos, and a hodgepodge of random bits I had picked up on my own while trying to read things by myself (discovering along the way that just because something has furigana, doesn’t mean it’s going to immediately be easy!) Pretty much all of my grammar since then has been learned from reading and asking questions or looking things up. :grin:

All that is to say, I just want to encourage you that even if you start out reading a little weak in grammar, you’ll be able to get there! Reading at first will always be a bit of a big bite, and it will feel less like reading and more like putting together a puzzle at first, but ultimately, it’s worth the struggle. The satisfaction from being able to understand something you didn’t before, and the gains in learning as you begin to recognize grammar patterns more and more until they become second nature just can’t be beat!

I’m glad we were able to come up with something that will make things better for everyone!

As I said, this club is intended to help beginners get a leg up in reading; if beginners are getting intimidated away, the club is failing in its goal, and I want to do everything I can to correct that! I’m so pleased to see so many people speaking up and coming up with ideas for improvement. A club lives and dies by it’s participation, and it is unfortunately very easy to lose track of what it felt like at the start of one’s journey once you’re a few years in, so feedback from those who the club is intended to serve is invaluable!

Looking forward to having you in the club! :grin:

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I know, right? It was already really funny in the manga, but hearing the voices takes it to a whole other level. And it’s so well done too!

And man, since making the nomination post, I’m getting more and more excited about reading Ruri Dragon. If it doesn’t win, I’ll probably just start reading it on my own immediately after the poll closes. :smile:

Nice, grats! Simple or not, that’s always a great feeling.

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If you plan on reading it either way it’s currently like $10 on manga republic (at least for the US and this includes the shipping!) Ruri Dragon The voice over of the totally unbothered teacher really sold me on it :joy:

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I’m a bit far from the US, but thanks!

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Oh sorry! They ship world wide but the price varies by location. Thanks for introducing me to such a cute manga!

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