JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Book Club (Volume 1) [Volume Finished]

From now on we’ll commence reading ジョジョの奇妙な冒険. The pace is 2 chapters a week, so the schedule for volume 1 is:

Chapter Dates
プロローグ
侵略者ディオブランドその1 January 15 - January 22

侵略者ディオブランドその2
侵略者ディオブランドその3 January 22 - January 29

侵略者ディオブランドその4
過去からの手紙その1 January 29 - February 5

過去からの手紙その2
石仮面その1 February 5 - February 12

Warning: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure contains graphic violence.

Plot: Volumes 1–5, 44 chapters. In late 19th-century England, the young Jonathan Joestar meets his new adopted brother Dio Brando, who only wants to usurp Jonathan as heir to the Joestar family. However, his attempts are thwarted and he resorts to using an ancient Stone Mask which transforms him into a vampire. Jonathan, with Italian Hamon master Will A. Zeppeli and former street thug Robert E.O. Speedwagon at his side, uses his newly found affinity for Hamon to stop Dio whose sights are set on nothing less than world domination. With this Hamon, Jonathan has discovered the only power that can kill a Vampire, and thus is especially necessary in his rivalry against Dio, who has tormented him his whole life.

For those new to this series in Japanese, this is in the intermediate book clubs and I would call it that and beyond, depending on the part. Nevertheless, this’ll be a lot of fun. I think I’ll make a thread per volume (Tankobon release organization, for reference the original volume 1 is the first 8 chapters) and go like that.

Where to Acquire:
Ebay, Kindle, Japanese Amazon, eBook Japan, your local Kinokuniya, etc.

We can begin reading!

13 Likes

I am the only one reading image when the kanji should be image ?

Not just you. It’s showing that way for me as well.

image

Are you on Android? I seem to remember there was an Android issue a while back which caused this. I’d have to look for the details. It’s been a while.

Edit:

here’s what I was thinking of.

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36932622

Sorry if this isn’t helpful at all.

Weird, it’s showing fine for me. I’m using chrome on windows.
image

Nope, Chrome on Windows like Chopped. My iPhone shows it correctly with Safari. Oh well…

Gonna start really diving in as soon as my lunch break comes along. Can’t wait!

1 Like

Just popping up as a problem now? I’ll have to check if it happens to me on a Windows device later.

First time I was looking to notice, but I don’t remember ever seeing it look that way when doing lessons/reviews with that kanji with the same browser.

Edited to add:

Looks correct on other pages like wkstats and even the WK item pages. Seems to be related to the forums only from what I can see. :man_shrugging:

Okay, I’m two pages in and I have a question :laughing:
On the second page of the プロローグ, the guy with the stone mask says 「美女の返り血はこの石仮面にある無数の細かいヒビに吸いこまれていく!」
I managed to translate everything except for the verb form. Is this the potential form connected to いく? I’ve never seen something like this before that’s why I’m asking.
If this was the case, would the whole sentence basically mean “The beautiful woman’s (spurt of) blood will be able to be absorbed into the countless small cracks of this stone mask!”?
(I still have to figure out how to put furigana, sorry :sweat_smile:)

Btw: I’m enjoying the (rather difficult) read. I also watched the first episode of the anime and I’m sure I’ll stick to this book club a bit longer :slightly_smiling_face:
I need to practice the potential forms more though :caught_durtling:

5 Likes

No. It’s the passive form of すいこむ which is 吸いこまれる. Potential form would be 吸いこる or 吸いこめて when conjugated to て form.

Paring down to just that part, ‘the blood is being absorbed by the mask’ is how I read it.

2 Likes

Oh god, of course :sweat_smile: Mixed them up. But I did understand the sentence now! Thank you for the explanation! (<-- I will say this very often I suppose, prepare haha.)

3 Likes

I think we all will. The difficulty ramps up even more just after the first few pages.

2 Likes

:sweat_smile:
I better get to reading now then!
I’m certainly glad these bookclubs exist. Reading this on my own would be wayy too difficult.

5 Likes

There’s no need to feel bad about asking lots of questions here. Think about it, this is a comic book series, in Japanese, that deals with murder, betrayal, science, spirit, and politics. The fact that you can understand the gist of this story, even with the first few chapters, is impressive to a lot of people. Shows how WK and your independent studies pay off. When I read manga and people see, usually they don’t believe I can understand it, unless it’s Doraemon or something like that, because it’s a skill that takes a lot of practice. I’m not even an expert of the contents of this story, that’s part of the reason I started this, hahaha! We’re all in this together.

8 Likes

On page 24 Jonathan says [知らない子だがぼくには戦う理由がある」, I think it means something along the lines of “even tough I do not know her I still have reason to fight you” but I got this guess by inferring since I was not too sure about the grammar in this sentence, so I would like to ask whether my guess is accurate.

Yes, this is spot on.

I hope not to be annoying but on page 29 Erina says [これも彼の言う本当の紳士になるために必要な事なのね」, I think it is something like “I say this is what a real gentleman needs to do” but I do not understand the [これも彼の言う] at the beginning since she is not actually talking to anybody, does [言う] has also an informal meaning of thinking to oneself?

1 Like

I believe the ‘彼の言う’ means ‘he says’ where the が has been substituted with の?

これも this too (in reference to taunting the bullies with his name)
彼の言う the … he is talking about (see @athomasm’s explanation)
本当の紳士 a true gentleman
になるために for the sake of becoming
必要な事 important thing

=> this, too, is an important thing (action/step) toward becoming the sort of true gentleman he is talking about.

2 Likes

@Bruford can you put the plot behind spoilers? I stopped reading when I noticed it was going past the point I had read about so far, but it’s inconvenient to have to remember to dodge text in the OP all the time :sweat_smile:

4 Likes