Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 葬送のフリーレン // Next: ウスズミの果て

I personally liked all of them so far :slight_smile: (and I also like the chapters of the fifth and final volume that have been released so far - the newest chapter is always readable for free online for a month so I’ve been keeping up with them from after volume 4 was released).

There are a couple of things in the story I’ve personally found pretty relatable, and overall I like how the series, even if it has some drama that occasionally gets slightly heavier, is a bit more lighthearted than many stories about LGBTQ+ people often can tend to be(at least in manga). There are also some things from the first volume that I was a bit ambiguous about that in my opinion got resolved pretty nicely when they actually were dealt with fully. (but opinions I’ve seen online from other LGBTQ+ people about how well it handles various things vary. A lot of people find it really relatable, some find it very unrealistic, some have an opinion somewhere in between the two, some people just don’t like the somewhat “cutesy” art style. Oh, and a decent amount of people don’t like the cover of the first volume :laughing: ).

Other than that, one more general miscellaneous thing I noticed is that it gradually starts using the proper terms for stuff more as the series progresses(I read an interview with the author and apparently that’s partially because they got permission from the publisher to be more explicit about things after the series did pretty well overall and the publisher became convinced it’d still sell well. The author commented on how there were some things that they did research on and interviewed people about that they originally thought they wouldn’t actually get to use in the story but that did get to show up eventually).

Overall… to be honest I mostly feel like I would want it to continue longer because I feel like there’s a lot more it could do that it hasn’t yet :laughing: (but the spot I think it’ll end at should still probably make for a decent ending)

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