Thanks everyone for the heads up that it was free! That’s always nice, and what timing, eh? I picked it up today. (I also went ahead and picked up the からかい上手の (元) 高木さん volumes that were free. May as well even though I dunno if I’ll have time to read them for a bit yet!)
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I think the Takagi-san books are on a slightly different offer. You get them free but you only keep them to the end of the month. There will be a timer icon on the book cover when you download it indicating you have a time limit for viewing.
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Just as an addon to this, the first three volumes of Attack on Titan and first two volumes of Flying Witch also seem to be free to keep at the moment - Flying Witch is a series that gets recommended for beginners a fair bit and I’ve been reading the first volume and enjoying it. Attack on Titan seems to have furigana too. Costs nothing to pick them up so might as well
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Hm, I didn’t notice any timer on the books when they were in my library (I did this through Amazon JP Kindle, to clarify, not Kobo or Bookwalker), so maybe it’s different there? There certainly doesn’t seem to be any indication that they will disappear.
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This is what I see if I look for it on amazon. Looks like it’s available until the end of this month (It tells you if you click on it)
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Ah, I missed that when I downloaded it from the app. Thank you. (:
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I’ve downloaded this one just this morning, it’s so cute ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
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Looks like Kobo has finally made its move, with the free release:
(And as noted with the other e-shops, this one doesn’t list an expiration date either.)
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Thank you so much, added to the “Buy” section!
I’m so happy that it’s free till July 1st, so anyone can join the club without any budget constraint!
Thank y’all who noticed it and post it here ☆彡
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Hello. This will be my first time trying to read a book from the book clubs (also my first time trying to read a manga in Japanese). I am very new to Japanese and have only been learning since Jan 2021. I don’t know tons of words or much about the grammar but it cant hurt to give it a try. I apologize in advance but i may end up having tons of questions about translation. I’m just going to do my best with what i know and hopefully learn something along the way. I hope you will have me along for the ride on July 10th.
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Same here! This is also my first time reading a manga in Japanese! Good luck to the both of us! ( ´ ▽ ` )/
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Thanks a lot for hosting this, and all of the assistance it looks like you all do! Just picked it up on Bookwalker and I’m going to try to join. I started learning at the beginning of this month and I’m only late level 4 in Wanikani right now and starting Genki 1’s 8th lesson, so I know I’m gonna be over my head, but I’ll do my best to fumble through and see if it feels productive. It looks very cute, so at least the motivation’s there.
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The secret is that even if you had over a year of learning already, your first try and reading something will likely be the same: in over one’s head, and fumbling through. (It definitely was for me, and with many years of learning bits of pieces of Japanese in advance of it!)
Do you have prior experience in watching Japanese media, such as anime (in Japanese) or Jdramas? Or in playing video games with a lot of voice acting in Japanese? It may seem unrelated to ask, but having a general feel for how the language sounds can be very useful for making progress when reading.
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That’s good to hear, thanks! I think I’m only setting up the “this is gonna be a big uphill struggle” thing not to psyche myself out but just to set expectations right about the work I’m gonna have to do. Some low level graded readers are tricky enough still (others I’ve seen big improvement on though and that’s cool), but I’m powering through those, and as long as I feel like I’m getting something out of it, I think I’ll do the same here.
And yeah, loads of experience at least hearing the language. I watch a lot of non-English movies including quite a few Japanese ones, have played tons of games and visual novels with Japanese voice acting, etc.
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It sounds like you’re in a good position to enter the reading arena!
When I first started reading, I was sometimes spending half an hour on one panel of dialogue. I was looking up everything on my own (no book club!), and didn’t have anyone I could check my findings with.
I also found I was looking up the same grammar, because I didn’t immediately recognize it as something I’d already read up on. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking something up, taking it in, forgetting it, then looking it up again…is actually very much part of the process.
You’ll find there’s a lot of concepts in Japanese that just won’t “click” when you first learn about them. It’s the repeated exposure, the large uncertainty that slowly becomes clear a tiny bit at a time, and re-reading those grammar explanations as you become more and more familiar with the language that help build your ability to recognize and understand what you’re reading.
It’s a long journey, and it sounds like you’re ready to climb that first big hill.
P.S. It may take a while to feel like you’re getting something out of this. I highly recommend sticking with the book club through the whole volume, and then afterwards look back at the first few chapters. That’ll be a good way to gauge your progress. The only exception to this would be if you find you don’t like the material.
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Finished Genki 1 today ! Now i have some time to review the grammar points and the vocab before we start the book 
Looks like there are many first-timers here Im really excited for this one.
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Not much to add, just thanks a lot. Loads of good advice there. This has all been really helpful, and we haven’t even started yet! The last point especially is something I kind of know but it’s always good to be reminded of. Can’t always see the learning and reinforcing the moment it’s happening. I’ve already noticed that in some simple ways. Like, after about a month, it’s very noticeable that I can convert hiragana/katana into sounds without too much effort, where when I had first learned them, that alone was a mentally draining process. But there’s obviously no moment to pinpoint there; I just have to look back on where I started and remember the “easy” parts weren’t so easy at one time.
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If anyone’s been procrastinating on getting a free digital version of the book, you have ~15 hrs left! (On Bookwalker, but I’m assuming the other stores will follow a similar schedule)
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Hello there,
I’am an absolute beginner (started to learn japanese less than a month ago), i did download it im afraid im not good enough to understand anything, still i’ll try that !
Thanks for the idea.
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