JBC's はたらく魔王さま!(The Devil is a Part-Timer) It's the final week!

Link to the original description:

はたらくまおうさま!

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Current Week: 15
Start date: June 3rd

Proposed Schedule

Proposed Reading Schedule

Week Chapter/Position Pages*
1 魔王、生活のために労働に励む
week 2 starts after the picture or with the line "二人は最低限の職へ"
28
2 魔王、生活のために労働に励む
week 3 starts after the break or with the line "翌朝にはバレだ"
24
3 魔王、生活のために労働に励む
week 4 starts after the break/picture or with the line "今にも背景に薔薇を飛ばさん"
22
4 魔王、生活のために労働に励む
week 5 starts in the next chapter
29
5 魔王、新宿で後輩とデートする
week 6 starts after the asterisk or with the line "くっそ、警察のせいで貴重な休日"
24
6 魔王、新宿で後輩とデートする
week 7 starts after the after break/picture or with the line "ですよねー。なんか、わかってました"
21
7 魔王、新宿で後輩とデートする
week 8 starts after the asterisk or with the line "エミリア・ユスチーナが"
30
8 魔王、新宿で後輩とデートする
week 9 starts after the break or with the line "お邪魔しまーす"
25
9 魔王、新宿で後輩とデートする
week 10 starts in the next chapter
16
10 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
week 11 starts after the asterisk or with the line "気持悪いい!"
21
11 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
week 12 starts after the break or with the line "ちょっと!さっきのは"
22
12 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
week 13 starts after the break or with the line "映画...じゃないよね"
33
13 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
week 14 starts after the break or with the line "おぇっぷ...いったい、"
23
14 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
week 15 starts after the break or with the line "恵美とエメラダとアルバート"
22
15 魔王と勇者、笹塚に立つ
read until the end
24

*Page counts are from my kindle fire which have higher counts than printed page counts so this projected plan is quite conservative. Additionally, I’ve omitted pages that only had one line on them, illustrations, or were blank.

Characters

真奥 貞夫 (まおう さだお)/魔王サタン the protagonist
遊佐 恵美 (ゆさ えみ)/勇者エミリア the heroine
芦屋 四郎 (あしや しろう)/魔王大元帥アルシエル one of Sadao’s Generals
佐々木 千穂 (ささき ちほ) Sadao’s friend and fellow employee at MgRonald’s

Word list

Available at floflo
Note that it was generated automatically from the text, and thus can contain incorrectly parsed words.

Additional Things to Note

Due to the structure of the book, we are going to clear a chapter in about a month's time. However unlike past threads, we won't be having regular discussions until the end of the chapter. So please use the schedule to help pace yourself so that you can reach the end of the book and prepare for the discussion of each chapter.


This doesn’t mean that activity prior to the end of the book won’t be allowed. Rather, we encourage you to participate in a way that will ensure that you will complete the book. When posting content that would be considered a spoiler, please use spoiler tags. Feel free to discuss grammar, vocab usage, and context in order to check reading comprehension, etc., but please state where in the book you’re referring to. Approximate pages or paragraph number from the start of the chapter (for those who are reading digitally).

Please keep an eye on developments in the book club!

Intermediate Book Club Thread

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270000483106684928

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Nice. I have this book but haven’t read more than a couple of pages yet. Hopefully this motivates me to finish it.

You forgot the ら

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How diverse of you

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Soooo, since no one has said a thing yet, mandatory opening message saying “yay, it started for real” :sweat_smile:

I have to say that I like it a lot more than our previous book so far (not that it’s much of a challenge).

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I’ve changed the OP to reflect that everything’s changed. Sorry I was away from my computer over the weekend and forgot to update the OP this morning.

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I have never engaged in the reading clubs till now but this seems to be of my interest. I will give it a try.

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thanks for putting everything together

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Wow, that’s impressive. I’ve read like 10 pages and it is a bit of a struggle for me personally :sweat_smile: I hope this is “first page syndrome” + “just establishing the world” + “basically getting used to the style of the author” thing and that it will become more comfortable later.

Question:
Page 12 line 3:
夏を前に食料の保存にいささか不安を覚えていたから、絶対に必要な買い物だった。(I don’t think I need to blur it, it’s the first page)
What is 夏を doing? Why not 夏の?

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Nath might have meant being better than the previous book wasn’t a challenge for the new book. Just a thought.

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It’s to convey “with summer approaching”, rather than “before summer arrives”.

I came across this pattern in some particle workbook years ago, but grammar - How does one analyze "N + を前に + V", where N is not an object of V - Japanese Language Stack Exchange does a much better job of explaining the difference than I could.

For me, having gone through the first five pages, I’m feeling out of my depth in terms of how long some of the verb-phrases are. Also how much I still rely on furi. Yay, challenges!

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Thanks @fl0rm, that’s an interesting nuance. My take on the translation: “in the anticipation of summer”.

Question:
Page 14 at the end of the page (physical book)

本来ならば勤勉励行、健康保持の第一人者であらねばならないのに。

Well, I actually found the answer ~ねばならない is just a more formal form of ~なければならない but it was new to me. Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar says there is no difference between those two except that ~ねばならない is used only in written Japanese and it’s funny アルシエル uses it in a dialog.

Question:
Page 17 line 1 (physical book)

魔王サタンの名を知らぬ者など、エンテ・イスラの世界広しと言えどいるはずがない。

What is 言えどいる?

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I’m about 10-15 pages in and the beginning was also harder than I expected. I think that was mostly due to the several pages of description of the 魔界 and getting used to the author’s style and the relevant vocabulary as @NickNickovich mentioned. It feels like it’s starting to get easier now that I’m through that though.

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I’m not sure about this but maybe it’s といえども with the も dropped which would mean something along the lines of “even though”? I think the いる is part of the いるはずがない clause.

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Yeah, makes sense. Thank you :slightly_smiling_face: ^^^

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You guys were not kidding about the length of sentences.

説教されろ中肉中背黒髪の青年を〝魔王〟と呼んだ、上背のある青年は、本来はそれなりに鋭いであろう眼光に諦観をにじませつつ冷蔵庫の扉を開けて 〝魔王〟 を睨んだ。

What @seanblue said.

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You can replace the comma by a period after 呼んだ. That’s just two sentences put together for the parallel (? Forgot what that writing technique is called exactly)

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@brrricane already answered, but have a short description just in case:

Even taking into account how wide Ente Isra (?) is, there’s no way someone had never heard of Satan, the king of demons.

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