I usually participate in the ABBC, but I have a nomination that would fit the ABBC except it doesn’t contain furigana, so I’m sharing it here. Maybe I’ll also suggest it in the ABBC (since it would be perfect except for the no furigana part).
午后のあくび (afternoon yawning)
Natively: Level 22
Full furigana: No
Summary
This is… kinda hard to describe.This is a collection of short (4 pages) stories about weird and magic stuff happening in the protagonist daily life.
We’ll meet a talking cat showing shortcuts throughout the city, an anti-sleep hat that may not work as expected, a shop that only accept acorns as currency, kanjis escaping from a book with 逃 trying to run away while 隠 and 秘 try to stay hidden…
The whole thing has a very relaxed, cosy and dreamy vibe. The drawing itself is super cute.
Availability
BookWaker
AmazonJP
CDJapan
Ebook Japan
Some chapters are available for free on the website.. There are three books in the series.
Personal Opinion
This is something I discovered through the french translation at the library. After reading the first volume in french I bought the second one in japanese at a japanese bookstore.
This is quite easy to read since each story is always 4 pages long, which means we could read one, two or three per week, and people would not even need to participate in all weeks.
The japanese inside is not too hard, but there are no furigana and some magical characters can talk funny with some made up words.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Easy to divide, readable in small bites.
- Fairly short. Could be a quick, simpler book between two longer, harder ones.
- Fairly simple japanese with a couple twists.
- A “feel good” read.
Cons
- No furigana at all
- No overarching plot. It’s only short stories
- Pages for the physical print are larger than standard manga, so the text might been a bit small on e-readers.
- Might not be challenging enough for this club ?
