Intermediate Japanese Book Club (Now Reading: 地球星人)

[Ditto20]

ポーション頼みで生き延びます!

Summary

Japanese

長瀬香は、世界のゆがみを調整する管理者の失敗により、肉体を失ってしまう。しかも、元の世界に戻すことはできず、より文明の遅れた世界へと転生することしかできないらしい。 放り出されてはたまらないと香が要求したのは「思った通りの効果のある薬品を、自由に生み出す能力」! さらにアイテムボックスと言語理解能力と少し若返った身体を手に入れたカオル、生み出した薬品――ポーションを使って安定した生活を目指します!

English

One day, the supervisor in charge of watching over Earth was taking care of a distortion, when they made a mistake that caused Kaoru Nagase to lose her physical body. Not only that, but reincarnating her into a different, less culturally-advanced world is the only thing they can offer to do for her.

Not one to take this turn of events sitting down, Kaoru makes a demand: the power to create potions at any time she pleases, with whatever effect she wants it to have—and it doesn’t stop there either. She asks for a magical Item Box, the ability to understand and speak every language, and the same body she had back when she was a fifteen-year-old girl.

Using her newfound powers, Kaoru has to try and make a stable life for herself in a whole new world!

Availability

Amazon
Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

While it is an isekai and that is fairly overdone in general, we don’t really have a lot of them nominated for this book club, so it’s still a different kind of story than most of the current nominations. Other than that, it seems to have a slight twist on the usual formula for such books. It also has a female protagonist, which most similar books don’t, and I’ve seen some people say they liked it. So, that is why I’m interested in it.

Pros

• Has some furigana
• Not too horribly long at 276 pages
• Seems to be somewhat different from the current nominations

Cons

• 276 pages is still kind of long
• Some elements of the story have been done a lot in other works already

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Additional Pages

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

• No effort at all
• Minimal effort
• Just right
• Challenging
• Impossible, even with everyone’s help
• I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

[Ditto20]

As usual, I hope I didn’t forget anything Since it seemed like people didn’t mind that much, and since I figured it would be nice with a tiny bit more variety in the nomination list(not saying there isn’t already, just that more is nice too), I went ahead and made one last nomination.

[Naphthalene]

By the way, are you going to write a proper nomination later, or was just for information/gauging interest?

[ekanek]

ah no! i’m not nominating it. that was just because i stumbled on the manga here and then suddenly it was free for a few days and i thought i’d let this group of readers know because so many here read so many interesting things! thanks for asking though.

if i had to nominate anything, it would be this book or this book because i actually own physical copies of these and i’m so tired of reading ebooks but i’ve got this self imposed ban on buying and shipping books till i’ve made some space for more books at home. and that’s such an impure motive to nominate something, i’ll just not bother. ahaha.

[Sylph]

氷菓

Summary

Japanese

いつのまにか密室になった教室。毎週必ず借り出される本。あるはずの文集をないと言い張る少年。そして『氷菓』という題名の文集に秘められた三十三年前の真実―。何事にも積極的には関わろうとしない“省エネ”少年・折木奉太郎は、なりゆきで入部した古典部の仲間に依頼され、日常に潜む不思議な謎を次々と解き明かしていくことに。さわやかで、ちょっぴりほろ苦い青春ミステリ登場!

English

(Translation from fandom page)
A classroom that unexpectedly becomes a locked room. A book that is borrowed every week without fail. A boy who insists that there shouldn’t be an anthology. And an anthology entitled " Hyouka " that hides the truth from thirty years into the past. Houtarou Oreki, an “energy-saving” boy who is seemingly unmoved by anything, due to a series of events, slowly brings interesting mysteries hidden from the ordinary into light with the help of his friends from the Classics Club.

Availability

Amazon
Ebookjapan
Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

This book was mentioned before in the forums, and after checking out the (very short) first chapter I thought it seemed interesting. I think reading a mistery novel would be an good option for the bookclub. It’s a genre that we haven’t explored yet and it could be fun sharing theories with the others as the reading advances.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

• Not too long at 224 pages
• Different genre than previous selections
• Names appear to have furigana

Cons

• Another story concerning a high school club
• Some people might find the concept boring
• If the people reading are too smart with their theories they may accidentally ruin the book for you

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One

(Chapter one doesn’t even have 3 pages)

Additional Pages

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

• No effort at all
• Minimal effort
• Just right
• Challenging
• Impossible, even with everyone’s help
• I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

[Sylph]

I’m jumping on the nominations train
I have a few books I’m interested in lined up but I’m still scared of reading on my own so I’m pitching them in hopes the club picks them up but if it doesn’t…I’ll have to face my fears.

By the way, did we say when we were going to vote? I remember talking about it but I don’t think I saw any solid dates.

[seanblue]

Noooo! Stop nominating books I want to read but don’t own!

[seanblue]

Next couple weeks or so I think.

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

I was wondering if I am the only one that finds the option “Impossible, even with everyone’s help” in the difficulty polls somewhat confusing.

Considering that we have some users that have a very high degree of japanese ability, it is hard to think of a normal book that they wouldn’t be able to understand, and thus help those who are struggling with it.

On the other hand, there are times when I see a sample text and it looks worse than just challenging, but “Impossible, even with everyone’s help” doesn’t seem right since it seems to depend on “everyone’s ability” and not just mine. I only have a vague, nebulous idea of what “everyone’s ability” is, after all.

[Ditto20]

I think there is a point where a book basically becomes impossible to finish on time each week no matter how much help you have, because it just takes too much work to understand it and you don’t have enough time to put in that work. That’s how I’ve always interpreted that option, at least

[Naphthalene]

That’s what I had in mind originally.
The idea is that, even assuming everyone else is helping, i.e. answering questions about grammar, sentence structure, etc, it’s just not feasible time wise to finish a week’s worth of reading in time.

[Airdramon]

Oh my god that sounds like the best thing ever I need it.

[seanblue]

I read the sample from Amazon and it was pretty entertaining.

[seanblue]

I think that’s too long for the book club though. The limit is 350 pages, which would already take nearly half a year at 15 pages per week.

[Raionus]

It’s 330 pages in the original print and 380 in other print. No worries though

[seanblue]

It’s tough finding books short enough to read at this pace.
But I guess that’s why people are trying to start more advanced / faster paced clubs.

[NicoleRauch]

at 15 pages per day

Welcome to the world of speed-reading?

[Belthazar]

Haruhi takes me about half an hour per page (anecdotally, though I’ve not actually timed it). Fifteen pages a day at that speed would quite literally be a full-time job.

[Naphthalene]

I assume you’d get way more efficient after a day or two, though.

[Belthazar]