Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった // Next 葬送のフリーレン, then ウスズミの果て

I was bound to forget something :sweat_smile: linked! Should I add the start date, or do you want to keep it simple?

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Nope, let’s keep the master list simple.

Thanks!

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Got this today :smile: Along with other manga (absolute beginner). Was out of stock when I was going to buy it before… so thought…meh why not :wink: and man this looks so much easier than our current read :rofl:

Sadly no stickers though …but there is also an Easter egg :cat: in the lower left corner in Vol 2.

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Is everyone buying ふしぎねこ? :stuck_out_tongue:

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no I am not.

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I’m a dog person… But it’s just too cute hehe

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ふしぎねこ is the best!

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We have officially started reading Zenitendou! :tada:

For those who are a bit confused, I’ll be posting the discussion threads around this time each week (hopefully a bit earlier, actually), so that those far to the east can enjoy reading from the very moment they wake up on Saturday morning :wink:

And now… to bed I go :grin:

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Alright! We should probably start thinking about what we’re going to read next, so if there’s anything you’d like to nominate please try to get it up in the next week or so.

I’ll probably open voting on the 24th - that should give us enough time to vote and set up the new thread in time for people to order the next book.

Please do read through the guidelines for nominating if there’s something you’d like to propose, but anybody is welcome to make a nomination :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think I might nominate something, but probably not until next next round. I can’t read another thing right now. :sweat_smile:

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Did we ever nominate 霧のむこうのふしぎな町? Because that sounds like a very nice book for the club.

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Shhhhhh. Next next round!

I was actually thinking 聲の形 though.

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Wait, when is the next book supposed to start?

Edit: I was hoping to reply to @seanblue or @Radish8. Somehow I ended up replying in the middle.

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According to the schedule, the last week of 銭天堂 is July 27th.

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Hm, yeah, that’s going to fall right in the middle of the intermediate book club.

Yeah, we should be starting the next Beginner book on the 10th of August.

And no, we haven’t nominated that one yet :stuck_out_tongue: I also have it on the back-burner but was going to save it for the next round :grin:

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I’m currently reading a Manga that I really like, and that I think would be a good fit for the Beginner Book Club. So here goes :slight_smile:

青の島とねこ1匹

Summary

The freshly graduated teacher Souta escapes the capital’s buzz and moves to a small island in the inland sea where he wants to start his first job. He is planning to live at his senpai’s place whom he knew from long ago, but when he gets to the place, he discovers that the senpai is not there, only his daughter and a cat. So he moves in to live with the two…

都会の喧騒から離れて草太が訪れたのは瀬戸内海の小さな島。大学時代の先輩をたより下宿生活をしようと考えるが、そこには、先輩はおらず、少女とねこと生活することに…。『ぱすてる』の小林俊彦が放つ、瀬戸内島女子高生×同居コミック!! 読み切り作品『セーラー服と監禁中。』を併録。

Availability

Amazon.jp
Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

I’m halfway through the manga, and I really like it so far. It tells the story of life on the small island, as the teacher gradually discovers it, with the girl as his guide. This gives a nice feeling of summer chill-out :slight_smile:

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Easy read, vocabulary- and kanji-wise (I found it easier to read than Girls’ Last Tour)
  • Nice and easygoing story, quite funny sometimes
  • Beautiful drawings, very realistic

Cons

  • The islanders speak dialect (seems to be a mixture of Kansai and Hiroshima ben?) which is mainly expressed in different verb endings, not so much in different vocabulary. (Please have a look at the additional pages, where I captured some of it.)

EDIT: I just discovered that the manga itself only has 190 pages (there is a (totally unrelated) bonus manga added at the end).

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One



Additional Pages

The first appearance of dialect, where the teacher meets the girl (who uses dialect):



Beautiful drawings:

Heavy use of dialect (meeting the neighbours at a party):

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

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You had me at cat. :relaxed:

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Oh, I forgot to mention (can I still edit my post or will this kill the poll? :sweat_smile:)

This is a brand-new manga, it was released in April 2019. This means that probably the availability of used books is a bit limited? (No idea how popular this manga is.)

Also, for people who want to keep reading the series, we can only read as quickly as the author releases new volumes. (Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing though, given my current reading backlog :rofl: )

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So, I also feel like suggesting a manga. Not the first one I read, but still one of the earlier one. I was still (officially) under N4 when I read it. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already on the forum and somehow felt like reading it again :stuck_out_tongue:

ご近所物語

Summary

幸田実果子 は、矢澤芸術学院(通称ヤザガク)の服飾デザイン科に通う高校1年生。夢はデザイナーになって自分のブランドの店を持つことで、夢の実現のために頑張っている。同じマンションのお隣さん 山口ツトム との恋愛や、彼女を取り巻く友人・知人たちの人間模様・恋模様を描く。

(The English summary on wikipedia makes no sense, have a bad translation instead:)
Koda Mikako is a first year student in the Clothing Design department of the Yazawa Art Academy (Yazagaku for short) [Nb: that’s a specialized high school, not a university]. She is working hard to accomplish her dream of becoming a designer and creating her own brand. This story depicts the relations of the friends and acquaintances who surround her, as well as her romance with Yamaguchi Tsutomu, who leaves in the same building as her.

Availability

The one I read is this one: (standard edition)
Amazon.jp
Bookwalker

However, there’s also a complete edition available, with each volume being two volumes of the standard edition… I don’t know which one would be best for the club.

Personal Opinion

As I mentioned, this is one of the first manga I could read in Japanese and I really loved it. The story is fairly straightforward and the language (and situation) very close to everyday life, which makes it a good pick for the beginner book club as well.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Language isn’t too complicated
  • Furigana on everything (… wait, is that a cons?)
  • Story grounded in real life and easy to relate too, which makes it easier to understand what’s happening even without full comprehension.

Cons

  • I dunno? Maybe the fact it’s yet another manga?

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One



Additional Pages


Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

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