Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

Oh boy, let’s get ready to have to read both at the same time!

(By the time I posted, it already wasn’t true anymore :rofl:)

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No worries, Belthazar and I took care of it :grin:

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The heros we deserve!

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Stealth voting even though I’m like two weeks behind on キノ because of Easter holidays

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As long as you are planning to read the next book (at least the ones you picked) then it’s pretty legit, I think.
(Plus, there will be some time to catch up anyway)

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That’s still two weeks ahead of me!

In other words, I am four weeks behind. Fortunately, I have much less than usual to do next week… and if I can’t catch up then, I guess reading nearly everything the week before the next book starts should is a viable strategy if I can’t do it before then

It kind of feels like I’ve posted more about being behind on the book club books lately than I’ve made posts actually discussing the books lately. Maybe I should try to change that.

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So uhm, I’m thinking of joining the club for the next book, and I just discovered there are " Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko" versions of some books that has furigana with them. But I was wondering, is that the only difference between those versions and the normal versions ? Or are there differences in the content too ? Also what are " Kodansha Aoi Tori Bunko" versions ?

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I’m not completely sure on this, but I think of these as versions for younger audiences. That can mean two things. One is that some kanji is either completely swapped to hiragana, or at the least has furigana on it, where the regular version would not. But I feel like I’ve heard that some “soften” or abridge the content.

I suspect it is like the version of “Moby Dick” my daughter (3rd grade) recently checked out from the library. It’s geared toward a younger audience, so strips out all of the non-fiction chapters and focuses on the tale, and switching up the language to map to works that an elementary school student would be expected to know.

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Until recently I thought it was just the furigana use (based on reading Kiki’s Delivery Service and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time). But we discovered the hard way that this wasn’t the case for Kino’s Journey (the current book). In that one, several sentences are missing/added/changed, and the entirety of chapter 4 is different. So I’d recommend finding a preview of each version to compare before getting the Tsubasa Bunko version.

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I’m really thankful for your reply. I actually thought this might be the case,but I had no way of making sure, so I guess I’ll still wait for someone else who owns both to give me an answer :3

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Oh ! I see. So it depends on the book too. I currently ordered The Girl Who Leapt Through Time so that’s good to hear.
Big thanks !
As for the previews, does Amazon.jp have them ?

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Sometimes. Best to check there and a couple ebook websites (like Book Walker or eBookJapan). The previews aren’t always available though, which is unfortunate.

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Hm, that did not quite go as intended :joy_cat:

image

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I feel bad for voting even though I’m pretty behind on Kino, but I’ll try to catch up after my finals (or just skip chapter 4 :smirk:)

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And it’s again the case. How does it keep happening :joy:

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I think they just want to be read in parallel :joy_cat:

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If they tie we’ll have to have a run off where you can only pick one! :open_mouth:

It’s still early in the voting though. Last time we had 60 voters, but there’s only 21 so far.


EDIT: I love how @StarLi just voted for each of the top four (so those two are still tied)… but also the one in last place. :joy:

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I was super surprised when it showed me the results. Some of my students were reading The Closet of Nightmares. XD

This time I don’t have strong feelings about a single book like last time (I REALLY wanted Kino no Tabi to win), so I’ll be happy with whatever wins.

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Nice. Since shipping to the U.S. is somewhat expensive I really want to read one of the two I already bought (Haruhi or Raising Project). If another one wins that I’m interested in maybe I’ll just get the ebook.

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We have another tie right now.
I guess it’s time to bring up the big guns shoe that quacks.
@QuackingShoe

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