Join Us! デスノート ・ Death Note (Beginner Book Club) // Reading: Volume 12

Yes I do the typing myself
I used to do that with the last book as well, not having (or even knowing of) Yomichan installed then, so this doesn’t really make any difference for me
But once you got the text typed in you can just move over it with your cursor (press shift if you don’t have it on automatic) and Yomichan will translate it (word wise, not whole sentences) if you say you use deepL though, I think it should also be possible to just copy your text into deepL and get the whole sentences translated (?) though I don’t have any experience with deepL myself

I’m sorry if I misunderstood your question, feel free to ask again :see_no_evil:

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I’m in for the first 5 volumes as that’s what I own. :high_touch:

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This is the first anime series I’ve tried to read. Getting through that first chapter was … interesting. I did order all 12 volumes and I do plan on reading the entire series. One chapter a week might to fast for me right now though, I’ll do my best to catch up.

I didn’t realize that the first chapter was split amoungst two weeks. This gives me some hope.

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Week 7 is live

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I fell quite behind as I was prioritising finishing Demon Slayer v3, I’ve been back to Death Note for ~10 days now and I realise that I’m getting a lot less from it, so I’ve decided to put it on hold for now.

I think Death Note is sufficiently above me that and I’m subsconsiously leaning very heavily on already knowing the story rather than soaking in the grammar as much as I’d like - so I think parking it for now is the best for me.

I also want to make sure my plate is clear so I can focus on the next pick Night Cafe.

Thanks everyone for the great support, questions, and vocab sheet - I’ll be coming back to use them at a later date =D

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Week 8 is live and with that we have reached the last week! I will post the feedback polls soon!

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With that we have reached the end of volume one!

Did you finish the first volume?
  • I finished it
  • I’m still reading and I plan on finishing it
  • I don’t plan to finish it
  • I never even started

0 voters

How would you rate the volume? (1: hated it, 5: loved it)
  • ★★★★★
  • ★★★★☆
  • ★★★☆☆
  • ★★☆☆☆
  • ★☆☆☆☆
  • Unsure

0 voters

If you read the book, how would you rate its difficulty?
  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Moderate effort
  • Significant effort
  • So much effort my head might explode
  • I don’t know

0 voters

Would you like to read the rest of the manga with the book club?
  • Yes, with a schedule
  • Yes, without a schedule
  • No

0 voters

These are the stats for this club we had quite a big drop of in the start but remained steady (ignore the last week it has only been 2 days) after the half way point.

After reading this volume I personally have to say that I think it was a bit much for the beginner book club especially the ICPO? IPCO? chapter really packed a punch, I would love to know everyones opinion!

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Just a gentle reminder that week 8 started on March 12th so it will run until March 18th :wink:

Just in case anybody feels a bit rushed now… no I’m not talking about myself :upside_down_face:

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Yes, that chapter was a little loaded :grin:. I think it’s fairly difficult to pick a not too challenging manga for the Beginners book club. I guess something in general light, but not aimed strictly at kids, like Naruto or Bleach might not be a terrible idea.

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Whenever the police gets involved, it does become more convoluted to read. Overall it reads alright and the schedule seemed fair. That said anyone with little experience will have trouble even keeping up. At this point, I’ll also have to be honest that I’m not really a beginner and as an intermediate learner this one can be pretty challenging to understand. That said it is not impossible and I’d like to keep reading it as I’m sure it will prove useful encountering more advanced grammar.

I hope it gave people that pushed through more stamina to read larger volumes of text. For those that dropped out, revisit it again when you’re bit further along your studies and gained more experience reading. You’ll be surprised what a few months can do and in a year you’ll be so much better.

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Some parts (the interpol parts specifically) were indeed quite dry, which made them a little harder to slog through, but the rest felt okay in difficulty for me. I enjoyed it well enough, but as I’m familiar with the story from having watched the anime years ago, and I have so much else I want to read but can’t find the time for, I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading.

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Yes, as a beginners book pick, it’s a bit much. If you’re further along on your learning journey, the furigana keeps your reading fast-paced and easy

(though, as I’ve already started in on volume 2, I can already say, that there are some pages where there will be no furigana either. ^^’ minor spoiler (it’s when L chat with the police, having the police read what he’s saying on the screen of the laptop. Then the furigana are dropped - we’re seeing what they’re seeing, in other words)

The positives with a manga series like this might be the repetitive use of certain words, making it gradually easier to keep up, and the draw of the story itself - having a great story is very helpful I find when it comes to challenging reading. But, there has to be a balance between challenge and enjoyment. :thinking:

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Oh it’s super helpful to hear this.

I stopped ~ at the end of chapter 2, I was able to follow most of it except for the police dialogue scenes which were all super dry and using particular language constructs. I felt like I was leaning very hard on my anime recollection.

The difficulty spread of past manga picks is interesting, at least based on learnnatively levels it looks like Death note is somewhat of an outlier.

Yotsuba 17
Girl’s last tour 21
Flying witch 19
Laid back camp 24
Fruits basket 24
Shimeji simulation 25
Haikyuu 26
Nichijou 24
Hanako-kun 24
Househusband 27
Death note 32

There might even be an upward trend in difficulty.

I wonder if this is because we are running low on beginner-friendly + interesting manga, or if the average skill of the club is rising so our rating of books is changing too. For death note it could also be that the difficulty varies between pages.

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both! :wink: As the beginners become intermediate the difficulty drops and those voting tend to be big book club users…tend to believe that the difficulty is getting skewed upwards over time…

also finding beginner material that’s properly beginner and not ABBC or IBC isn’t always easy…and as someone said… a lot of the time the difficulty it’s just a guess :rofl:

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Yeah, just wanted to say, if you haven’t read it yet, how are you supposed to know about its true difficulty? :rofl: Often the best thing one can do is “does it have furigana?” and if yes, then it might go into the Beginner Club :woman_shrugging:

That’s an excellent idea by the way - maybe we should add those levels (where available) to the proposals in the book club OP?

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Awesome, I’d been considering proposing this but I’m not a regular yet =p

I was hovering over making that post in the BBC thread but hesitated, I’ll make a post there tonight tomorrow asking about it.

EDIT: tonight → tomorrow as wrists playing up.

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I don’t think there is a rule that only allows regulars to propose things :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: (and besides that, who defines who is a regular anyways?)

On a more serious note, this is a book club for beginners, and usually the beginners themselves know better what they need and what is helpful to them than the more long-standing (and therefore more experienced) members.
So, please, you and everybody, fire away with your ideas! :blush:

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You’ve been in a bunch of bookclubs, and are always active and helpful in the threads. You may not be one of the people who has been here the longest - but I definitely think of you as a regular!

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I’d been thinking the same thing. I thought the natively levels you quoted for BBC books fitted nicely with my experience of those books. I’m planning to add the natively levels for the previously read books for the ABBC.

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Although it’s likely this series has already been read in the beginner’s book club but “Flying Witch” is one which I’ve read a couple chapters of and it’s quite nice easy to follow/understand, if it hasn’t been done before perhaps we could propose it?

(I imagine there’s a list of books already read somewhere but I don’t know where to find it lol)

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