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 just thinking the same thing.

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Just a bit of cheeky advertising :innocent: If you’re considering making the jump to slightly more challenging works, now is the perfect time, because we are starting a new book in the Intermediate Book Club this weekend! It’s a collection of short stories, so it’s quite forgiving if you can’t quite keep up. You could even dip in and out, skipping a story here or there :grin:

Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by many spirited women—who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive “feminine” passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.

In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millennia-old tradition of Japanese folktales—shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells—and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.

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I’d just like to say that if the beginner book club decided to read 古見さんは、コミュ症です, I would very much be on board. I highly enjoyed the animated series (one of my favourites actually) and would love to read the source material both out of curiosity and because I’m sure I’d enjoy it too. Though with the following 2 books already decided, I suppose that’s still a ways away lol.

Hah, although I would love to try my hand at that, it’s far from the perfect time for me anyways. Things are kicking up this semester and I’m barely keeping up as is XD but during the next “semester halftime” holiday I’ll definitely give it a try, even if the IBC is already halfway through a series.

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Any reason the next pick is starting one week after the current pick without an extra week of break in between? :thinking: Thought all the book clubs had that custom.

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Maybe just an oversight? @Shadowlauch was that intentional?

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I don’t really remember it being a conscious decision, so it is probably an oversight. I’m sorry that happened I try to pay more attention next time.

Since the date was already announced everywhere I don’t think it makes sense to postpone it now, if you guys have a different opinion please let me know.

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Makes no difference to me since I don’t plan on keeping to the schedule anyway.

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The first week of 神さまがまちガえる has started!

If one of the regulars could change the title to Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 神さまがまちガえる that would be great. Thanks!

Looking at our next book would someone be interested in hosting the 月刊少女野崎くん book club?

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I think you meant 月刊少女野崎くん, right? Sorry to seem nit-picky. :sweat_smile:

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I just want to point out that 夜カフェ is continuing as an offshoot club, so perhaps someone could edit the list in the original post to reflect that?

(Oops, sorry @MissDagger I replied to your post by mistake lol)

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Seeing the lack of response so far, I could do it. I’ve read it pretty recently. Though it might be better if someone who is going to read along real-time hosts it.

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Sorry for the late reply. I’m back from Japan and done with the JLPT so my responses should be more timely again.

Since no one has come forward it would be great if you could do it!

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Ah, good. I just thought I’d wait to make sure I wasn’t overstepping :grin: I’ll get on it right now. Hope the JLPT went well for you!

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Come and have your say about the schedule everyone :grin:

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Thanks for doing the book club!

Pretty sure I passed the N2 exam but I’ll know for sure in January.

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With the currently poll results it looks like the last week of 月刊少女野崎くん will start on Feb 4th so we will start the next book on the 18th. With that in mind and with shipping probably being a bit delayed from Japan due to new years celebrations we will run the poll in the week leading up to christmas.

With that said if you have any nominations you want to bring forward: go ahead!

Schedule:

  • Dec 19th: Vote will start
  • Dec 24th: last week of 神様が間違える starts
  • Jan 07th: 月刊少女野崎くん starts*
  • Feb 04th: last week of 月刊少女野崎くん starts*
  • Feb 18th: start of the newly selected book*

* pending the schedule of 月刊少女野崎くん will end up taking 5 weeks

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さよなら絵梨

image

Natively: Level 23

Summary

With his mother dying, Yuuta attempts to capture her last days on his phone. After her death, Yuuta heads to the roof of the hospital to commit suicide, but a meeting with a strange girl leads him on the path to making a movie.

私が死ぬまでを撮ってほしい――病の母の願いで始まった優太の映画制作。母の死後、自殺しようとした優太は謎の美少女・絵梨と出会う。2人は共同で映画を作り始めるが、絵梨はある秘密を抱えていた…。現実と創作が交錯しエクスプローションする、映画に懸けた青春物語!!

Availability

Physical: Amazon | CD Japan
Digital: Kindle | Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

I picked this one up on a whim in a bookstore without really knowing anything about it and was surprised to find out that it is a oneshot by the same author as Chainsawman. The story is a lot more grounded compared to that manga, but it nonetheless has an art style that I have never quite seen in a manga before. It basically uses 4-koma format but with only one column per page so you get these wide frames that allow for some very unique perspectives. From a story point of view it is, as one can probably gather from the synopsis, quite a sad story.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Unique style/framing
  • Oneshot (we can finish it in one go!)
  • Because of it being a Oneshot the pacing is quite fast

Cons

  • No furigana

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One


Additional Pages

Bookwalker preview

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • 1 - No effort at all
  • 2 - Minimal effort
  • 3 - Moderate effort
  • 4 - Substantial effort
  • 5 - So much effort my head might explode :exploding_head:
  • I don’t know

0 voters

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The story is appealing, definitely something I’d read

The main con, as you already highlighted is the lack of Furigana. For me that alone would place it in Substantial Effort, because looking up word from a kanji dictionnary is time consuming and kinda breaks the pace of reading.

Using an OCR or if the vocab sheet is well contributed by the readers, I would downgrade it to Moderate Effort

However I also think it’s good practice to not have any furigana, since I would try harder to recognize any Kanji I know.

Considering everything I’m mostly favorable and I could see myself joining, should it be the one chosen

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Omg, I’m already annoyed by how his mom talks and it was only 3 pages. :joy:

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I dare say that you might not need to suffer her way of talking for a very long time… :speak_no_evil:

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