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And the winner isā¦
Cardcaptor Sakura!
@araigoshi are you good to run the club? Iām thinking you may want to do a start date poll for the folks ordering physical volumes, but itās up to you.
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Bonus:
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Apologies if this question or one like it has already been asked - is there a way to purchase an ePub/digital copy of this book or something like that which is DRM Free? (Legally of course , not looking to pirate).
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Fair question:) as far as I know the answer is no, but you can get pretty close by buying on bookwalker and then saving the images locally. thereās also a script from that somewhere in the forum, let me know if you need help finding it
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You can purchase off of amazon and legally remove the drm from it as long as itās for your own purpose. I donāt think Iām allowed to link any tools, because thatās specifically a legal grey zone, but Iām sure a couple search terms gets you what you want.
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its just the first volume right?
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Correct, just the first volume.
But when the first volume has been completed, if there are enough interested readers, someone will likely run an offshoot club to complete the series.
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Yeah, Iāll run the threads, will get a home post up some time during the week and poll from there on schedule etc.
(Also apologies to bath fans for ninja-ing you yet again)
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Kero says CCS is for bath fans, too.
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Hey all - new here and considering whether or not to join for this round of reading. Iām leaning towards waiting for the next book club but I do really want to dive into reading as soon as possible. Iām on lesson 5 of Genki I (didnāt have access to my textbook for most the time Iāve been learning), have about 1500 Anki vocab cards seen (1000 mature), just got back from a month abroad in Japan, and have passing interest in Cardcaptor Sakura. Itās not my usual jam but Iām pretty easy on what I can get into. Thinking grammar will be a real pain point, maybe going to wait for the next one or when Iāve finished Genki I. Any thoughts/Advice? Thanks 
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Join! Itās not a binding contract that you need to keep up with the book and actually see it through to the end. If itās too hard, or you donāt have the time for it, you can slow down your own pace or even drop the thing entirely and not continue reading it. But it will be pain either way, so might as well start early.
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Fair enough - I guess Iāll try to give it a go! Thanks for the response
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Take the time to give this a read.
The short version is that, at your current grammar level, youāll struggle with every page, every panel, and every word balloon.
But youāll be struggling to read even if you wait until you finish Genki 1 and even Genki 2 before you start.
You need to read to get good at reading because you need to expose yourself to grammar to really understand it.
The question you want to be asking is, āHow can I best use this month to prepare properly?ā
My recommendation is:
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If you at all struggle with reading hiragana or katakana, work on that a bit.
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Skim through the rest of Genki 1 (and Genki 2 if you have it). Expose yourself to the grammar terms and concepts, even if you are not learning them yet. This makes it easier to learn the concepts when you encounter them later because youāll already be aware of them.
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Read about at least one grammar point each day (maybe this is one chapter per day of Genki?)
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Start learning the highest-frequency words you donāt know from the first volume of Cardcaptor Sakura. I have a list all ready to go.
If you have enough time for it, you can do all of these each day.
Also, expect to spend at least an hour a day on the book club reading, at least for the first month or two, as you get used to the common grammar and vocabulary.
This will be the case even if you wait/learn for a few months before you start reading, so thereās no harm in starting sooner!
Otherwise, you may fall into the trap of waiting and waiting and never making actual progress.
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This is awesome thank you. I did read over the joining guide, hence my hesitation, but as you mentioned I do feel like at some point you just gotta jump into the deep end. Iāve been practicing my reading with low level graded readers, but obviously it wonāt translate super well haha. I usually have 1.5 - 3 hours of study a day so should be able to realize a lot of these goals youāve mentioned. This high-frequency list is also such an awesome resource I didnāt know about so thanks! A bit of a confidence boost seeing so many words I recognize. Gonna toss the rest into Anki and get to work
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The opposite occurs when you see a sentence where you know all the words, but you have no idea what itās saying. Be sure not to lose hope when this happens, as itās a normal part of the process!
Itāll take time to build up grammar recognition and comprehension, but if you keep at it through to the end of the volume, youāll be able to look back at week oneās pages and see massive growth.
Granted, at this stage, most first-time readers will still require a lot of time each day to work through a few pages, but even if just a little, the results end up very noticeable upon reviewing the early pages.
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You can do it! I started reading in the abbc around Genki chapter 6. It was hard still but possible! If you donāt get through all of Genki beforehand, make sure to check out the chapters on short form verbs- I believe 8 and 9.
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So hereās my newbie question for all this: Howās the easiest way to acquire a digital copy of this as an American? Is there a method you guys use for it, or do most people just order the physical copy?
The easiest way is bookwalker, where you can just sign up to their japanese site with your american address and pay with your american credit card. The con is you have to use their website or app to read the books and itās a bit of a pain to get around that.
Rakuten and Amazon JP are a little more awkward to sign up for, but are easier to use tools to remove the DRM so you can use other tools on, if thatās your thing.
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This sort of breaks my brain lol. They even rewrote some of the lyrics that were already in English!
Growing up, I think we got the US cardcaptors dub here. Though at this point Iāve also seen the subbed anime and the south east asian english dub. And the funimation dub from the second movie, which is super weird hearing the same voice actors as everything else from the 00s in a classic anime.
Anyway, as far as openings go, Iāve always liked Platinum
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