Thanks, I’ll try to remind you before next time 
This post did manage to send 午后の欠伸 to 2nd place, so who knows ?
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You may also want to change it on Natively. If you go to the homepage of the book, click on “Have feedback? Let us know!”, you can ask the site owner to change it from children’s book to manga.
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If any BBC members are interested in a small challenge, there is an informal IBC offshoot club for a book by 赤川次郎 (あかがわじろう) 夜警 🌃👻 Informal Bookclub（IBC 赤川次郎 Offshoot )
夜警 (やけい) - the nightwatchman
Akagawa is a great gateway author to Japanese novels - his books are often full of action and a generally very readable, with plenty of dialogue and not too much slang. We’ve read a couple of his books in the IBC. (They were my first novels in the IBC)
This book is a pulpy light horror suspense that is rated very highly by others here and on Natively (“Jerry Springer crossed with Deathnote…”)
The club is informal, so you can read along with me (about 1 chapter ~15 pages/week) or at your own pace.
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I remembered the part about kanji that try to act out their meaning, but couldn’t remember the name of the book. I think I’m going to vote for this because of the post reminding me what it was called.
Edit: already voted, forgot about it
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Oh. I completely forgot there was a poll running over here. Though, so did @araigoshi, it seems. 
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While I’m looking at this thread I have a question about potentially nominating the Zatch Bell manga. 金色のガシュ is the Japanese name and its level 24 on natively. I’d rank it a little higher and the first few chapters in particular I remember struggling with some but that was over a year ago so maybe I just sucked at reading it then. Anyway my question is about the length. It was originally ~30 volumes but has been reprinted in 16 kanzenbans making a volume nearly double the length it originally was. Does that make it too long for this club and better suited for the IMC or would it be okay to nominate and then read half a volume if it wins? The premise is also demon children in a battle royal, so there are some fantasy related words to learn. I’m just not sure which club it would be more suited towards.
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Anyway!
Our winner is Look Back!
By the regular rhythm the start date should be February 15th. As the nominator, @Jintor are you ok to run the club this time?
In other news, we’ll be saying goodbye to Tsumiki Ogami & the Strange Everyday Life / 尾守つみきと奇日常 and Friends on Mondays / 月曜日の友達 having both scored less than 15% in the last 3 polls - (12%, 13%, 5%) and (7%, 2%, 5%) respectively.
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So I had difficulty finding this, it’s actually 金色のガッシュ。
I think 384 pages for the newer volume 1 is definitely too long for this club, it’d take nearly a year to go through at our reading speed.
I think we can nominate the chapters that made up the original volume 1 as long as they can be clearly delineated - we already had similar with CCS in the ABBC where some people were reading from the (longer) anniversary edition
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Woah! Unexpected but happy to run it. I’ll add a note in my calendar.
Might need to ask @ChristopherFritz for an ocr word check - I don’t fancy doing it by hand again
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Coincidentally, I was planning to skip this one until I saw it’s a single-volume one-off, at which point I bought a copy.
My method of generating an OCR-based vocabulary list does require that I skim through the whole volume (so the vocabulary words appear in the right order per page), so hopefully there’s no big visual spoilers!
I’ll let you know when I have something together.
The minimal you’d want to do is create an empty spreadsheet for others to populate.
Going the OCR route, there is the task of fixing errors, but likewise, that can be done by anyone looking through it as they read if they feel inclined.
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I don’t mind fixing stuff (and the kids are pretty slangy at the start), it’s just generating the words that can be a pain. Thanks kindly!
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Initial Sheet:
Considerations
Right now, everything is on one tab with all duplicates.
Once the schedule is worked out, I can split the sheet into weekly tabs and remove duplicates per tab.
I didn’t include vocabulary from the in-manga manga pages because Mokuro probably wouldn’t have done as well on hand-written text, plus the pages were sometimes tilted. Some people running a club will take these hand-written parts and type them up to include with each week’s post, but that is of course completely optional.
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Sorry for the typo, but thanks for looking at it. I made a draft post for the nomination specifying that it’s the first 8 chapters. Should I post that now or should it wait? I think with the poll closing some slots just became open for new nominations.
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I accidentally deleted my draft because discourse only saves a draft once I think.
My bad, I’ll rewrite it sometime closer to the next poll then.
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Woooo! So stoked that lookback won, it’s been on my shelf for months but I’ve been holding out in the hopes that it would win here soon 
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On suggestion from the ABBC, I’m moving this nomination here!
ポケットモンスタースペシャル (Pokemon Adventures)
Summary
Red, an energetic boy from Pallet Town, is the best Pokémon trainer in town. Professor Oak is interested in Red and gives him a Pokédex, and he sets off on a journey to complete it. Red gradually grows through encounters with Green and Kasumi, who also aim to complete the Pokédex. Then, Team Rocket, an evil secret society, stands in their way. What is waiting for Red? The adventures and excitement of the popular game “Pokémon” are brought to life in this comic book!
Availability
amazon.co.jp (Physical and Kindle)
Bookwalker (Ebook）
(Available through other retailers)
Natively Level: 23
Full Furigana: Yes
Personal Opinion
This book makes a great fit for a number of reasons but also has some drawbacks which I’ll address in the pros and cons. Generally though, this series is a very well loved piece of one of the most well loved pieces of media in the world. Pokemon Adventure’s brings a more serious tone to the pokemon franchise and is widely considered the best piece of Pokemon media excluding the main games. I think one of the most important things for sticking through a manga is interest and Pokemon is likely to have many fans here. On a personal note, this manga was the first one I ever read when I was a kid and I loved it then!
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Well loved/WellkKnown IP (familiarity)
- Uses common grammar structures very often and doesn’t rely too heavily on super casual speech patterns
- Fast paced linear story
- 64 Volumes (And counting !)
- Fantastic Art (opinion :p)
Cons
- Kansai ben
- Super high text density
- Specialized Vocab
Full Bookwalker Preview
Pictures
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Yes for the ABBC, maybe normal for BBC? Not sure, someone else who has seen a broader cross section of this club’s reads will have to comment if that looks extraordinary for this club.
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I didn’t get a chance to respond on the ABBC thread (or, rather, others responded first), but this series is a bit deceptively difficult. (I’ve read the first seven or so volumes.) It’s a much better fit for BBC than ABBC, so this is the right place.
If picked and for those interested in an offshoot but not ready to dedicate to so many volumes, I read through the end of the “Kanto” volumes and was satisfied, although it feels like there are some story threads that continue into the “Johto” volumes.
- Low-quality scans on the official purchase for those who read digitally.
- If you’ve made it to BBC level without leveling up your katakana recognition, this is the perfect manga to practice with!
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Thanks so much (@mitrac as well!) for the clarifying/additional info! I do think for me personally if an offshoot happened I’d tune in for a few volumes but probably not try to catch up
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Hi checking in, I haven’t been following the BBC for a bit so not sure about timing. Look Back will start up on Feb 15, is that correct? Gotta get my ducks in order.
/edit yup okay, i’ll gin something up soon and start setting a bunch of calander reminders.
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