Currently gauging interest for a Re-Reading Club! Please check it out if you’re interested!
Even if you haven’t read a single book yet, this club might be helpful to you if we end up rereading any ABBC books since first time readers would also be encouraged to take part. So please check it out!
Kuku the bear cub finally gets his club: こぐまのクーク物語春と夏 offshoot book club
@soggyboy go ahead and cull remove him from the nominations
Nooo, this is a happy occasion! Kuuku has finally been adopted!
Hi! I’m from Argentina and I just discovered this club! I want to buy some digital manga to start reading, i am a little bit confused by the medium to get one. For example amazon.jp, do i need to live in japan to use that? I have an account with amazon.es and i dont know what will happen with the books i’ve already bought there if i switch to japan configuration… or for example, if i buy it by BookWalker, how do i get the product? they send a pdf to my email? (so i can print it, wich i would like) or i only can acces through the website (and can’t print it) the same question goes for Rakuten.
Any guidance would be appreciated, i really would like to be able to print or at least get a pdf so i can swap to different devices, but i have the guess that most of them need an app wich you have to have a VPN that says you are in Japan.
Unfortunately, none of the vendors just give you a straight pdf or ebook. There are unofficial de-DRM tools that will let you convert your copy but you do need to use the provider’s app or website to read otherwise.
Amazon stores the accounts separately. You’d have a separate Japanese account. You can theoretically use both at the same time, but you’d need to switch between them constantly. In theory you need to live in Japan, but using a vpn just once solves that issue, and you can freely purchase books from then on without one.
As for bookwalker, they have a built in reader and they give you no way to download the book.
ありがとうみんな！Wich one is your favorite to get digital ebooks?
I mostly use Amazon.co.jp, which is for me the easiest and fastest way to get DRM-free* books once you are set-up, which takes some time (and for books released after 2020 or so you need a Kindle do be able do de-DRM* them). I also like to read books on my Kindle, so it’s the obvious choice there, and it’s the only way I know to ultimately get DRM-free* non-manga books with selectable text.
But what I would recommend to you for manga is Bookwalker. It’s easy to sign up for non-Japanese customers (e.g. no need for a Japanese address or a VPN or anything like that), easy to use, has apps for multiple platforms and if you ever want to you can also de-DRM* them.
PS: If you want to join the club, maybe you also want to get Tamamo no Koi - we are starting reading this here in 2 weeks!
*) I don’t think we are supposed to talk about de-DRMing details on this forum, even if it’s just for personal usage, so don’t ask me how - you’ll have to google around yourself.
I use Bookwalker. Easy for purchases without needing a VPN or Japanese address, and I’m not tech-savvy.
While you can’t download to print per se, you can download to their app for offline reading, which is what I usually do.
I’m personally very partial towards amazon, because apparently being one of the biggest companies in the world means that you can make a phone app that doesn’t take ages to load a new image. This might sound like a non-issue, because realistically you only need to load in a new image when you’re flipping pages, but in practice the bookwalker app is very reload-happy.
You minimized the app for a millisecond? Reload
Changed the size of the app (for example with multi tasking or having the manga as a floating window)? Reload
Looked at the image a bit too hard? Reload
In the olden days even zooming sometimes caused reloads, but apparently this seems fixed?
And if you want to flip through a book, good luck.
It’s also worth mentioning, that the simple fact of being able to remove the drm off of kindle books opens them up to a whole array of potential uses, most of which would barely be possible with bookwalker, if at all.
Thank you for inviting me, I’ll be buying Tamamo no Koi then. I guess I’ll be using BookWalker for now meanwhile I figure out how to read manga on my kindle aswell.
so im an absolute beginner to japanese. mainly wanting to learn it to be able to read manga and light novels, and hopefully get good enough to follow anime without subtitles or at least native subtitles, maybe if its in the cards in the future move to or visit japan. im at level 4 here on wani kani and have been kind of drifting through other japanese study materials like japanese from zero, and genki. I have a pretty good grasp of hiragana, bit shakier with katakana, but that is something i can work through a bit quicker. I know that was a long introduction for me to simply ask if this manga is too far above my level to join the book club and also if it is too late to join…
Hiya!
One thing before going any further, generally the “absolute beginner” in the book club title refers to being an absolute beginner in reading. It will be a struggle the first time around regardless if you are coming with a lot of japanese knowledge or very little.
However
Usually we’d recommend at least N5 grammar knowledge or equivalent (so for example, the first genki book should get you there). It’s not a requirement, and nobody will shout at you if you don’t bring that with you, but it will help you tons.
Of course, you can never be late to a book club. Even years later, if you feel like it, you can read any previously covered books.
Now, the current book club. It’s on week 7 out of 11, so I personally wouldn’t recommend jumping into that one just yet. Actually gonna ping @soggyboy, since we are a bit late to voting as far as I can tell. Instead of trying to catch up, which would be a bit difficult if you are already struggling, I’d suggest going along with your grammar studies and joining in for the next book club in roughly 1.5 months, probably with a bit more japanese knowledge acquired.
Agreed with the above comment, also maybe check out this guide before joining to have an idea of what to expect 
For some reason I had it in my head that I didn’t need to set up the poll until August. My bad! I’ll get it set up in a bit.
Does anyone have any nominations for the Absolute Beginner’s Book Club that you’ve been saving? Now’s your chance! There are currently 16 nominations so we have room for 4 more.
I will be posting the poll for the next pick at around 2024-07-28T23:00:00Z. Sorry for the short turnaround time, feel free to throw rocks at me or whatever.
If a regular could update the title for seeking nominations, that would be great. 
Home post update: Reorganized the ‘Removed Nominations’ tab into tables that are easier to navigate.
Natively: Level 20
This won POLL 14: Book Club starts Sep 7th 2024
Sakura Kinomoto, while exploring her family’s library, accidentally unleashes the Clow cards, a series of cards that spawn familiars that can grant magical powers to the wielder. With the help of the beast of the seal, Cerberus (who really doesn’t like being called a ぬいぐるみ, despite his current diminished form), Sakura sets out on a quest to recapture all the Clow cards.
Physical: Honto | Rakuten | CD Japan | Amazon US | Amazon JP | Kinokuniya JP
Digital: eBook Japan | BookWalker | Amazon Kindle JP
This is one of the genre defining magical girl series, to the point that this (and Sailor Moon) were the series all the other shows tried to imitate up until the launch of Madoka Magica. Unlike the more modern wave of magical girl shows like Madoka and its successors, it’s a more upbeat adventure / coming of age story. Later on the series also has some romance elements, but that’s beyond the scope of the volume 1.
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