Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった // Next 葬送のフリーレン, then ウスズミの果て

Yup, that’s the genre of old yakuza movies - ごくどう. It’s in one of my Anki decks for that reason :joy:

Not sure if I’ll be joining this time around. Let’s see. End of the year is going to be super busy and I have some books from Aozora I would like to read through (Edogawa’s style really got me!).

Hmmm… but judging by the first 3 pages, it wouldn’t really be too hard to read so hmm… The yakuza slang might fun し.

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it’s a great manga and I really recommend it

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I was actually hoping that you would run it though…? Because I think it’s important for us to broaden the base of people who are an active part of running the clubs. Currently we’re only a really small handful, and if any one of us drops out, that’s gonna hurt quite a bit…

But if you absolutely really would prefer @Phryne to run the poll then that’s of course fine with me as well :upside_down_face:

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I don’t mind running the poll but since I said “If no one else wants to do it” and someone else actually came forward I did not want to assume anything.

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No worries on my part, please go ahead :grin:

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I will start the vote on Tuesday 19th October so that we’ll have a new winner until the end of the weekend! Until then please keep voting the difficulty!

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Another con I would have about 約束のネバーランド is that it has text-heavy parts that may be challenging for beginners. I do not remember if that happens in the first volume though.

One thing that I’m not quite sure about are the rules for “short manga”, I understand that a manga that takes less then 8 weeks, but how many pages do we usually aim for 30?

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Good question! It’s a bit difficult to determine ahead of having a schedule :thinking:

I think a pattern that many manga book clubs follow is to read the first chapter over 2 weeks (often the first chapter is longer, also it needs time to adjust to the setting and the author’s language) and then one chapter a week. Many manga have around 25-30 pages per (normal) chapter so that would fit well, and the general rule would be that a manga is short when it has ~6 chapters. But I think the difficulty should also be considered: If it is a text-heavy manga or e.g. a 4koma, then maybe that needs to be adjusted.

In the previous polls, Radish pointed out which manga could be considered “short”, and to simplify the lookup I’ve added that information to the proposals list. Maybe you could have a look at the newer nominations and try to judge them accordingly?

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Thanks for the elaborate explanation. One thing that tripped me up was that “A tropical fish yearns for snow” was not classified as a short manga even though it only has 4 chapters (first and last are a bit long so probably 6 weeks), but maybe he forgot about that one. I will classify the new ones today.

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Maybe it was not yet nominated then? Or it was overlooked, like you suspected. Anyways, thanks for taking care of it!

I think the page count can be even less than that. I remember reading a lot of stuff that had <20 pages per weekly magazine issue. Can’t remember anymore how much it was for the Househusband, but it’s also not very text heavy, right? :slight_smile:

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Househusband has 9 chapters of around 15 pages each, plus three bonus chapters of <10 pages. But since it’s not very text heavy I think two chapters per week could be a reasonable schedule, so it might qualify as a short pick :thinking:

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Vote for the next book - now!

Can I vote?

If you are interested in joining the next book club we run, you can - and should - vote!

Please look under “Current Proposals” in the first post for more details on each option, including links to sample pages which will help you gauge the difficulty.

Please take difficulty into account

Some people do find that reading a work they love or know already is inherently motivating, but please be realistic. Look at the samples and compare to others. Remember that both language and density contribute to difficulty.

Difficulty Scores

The number in front of each option is a difficulty score based on club members voting, where 1 indicates “no effort at all” and 5 indicates “so much effort my head might explode!”. These scores aren’t objective by any means , so please look at the sample pages for yourself as well.

When will we start and how many will we pick?

We will likely begin reading on the 4th of December , one week after we finish reading 小川未明童話集. If a short manga (expected less than 8 weeks) wins we will also read the second place option following that without holding another vote.

List of "short" manga

At a guess, the following manga will take less than 8 weeks.

  • Whisper Me a Love Song
  • A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow
  • Rainbow-Coloured Photograph
  • This Art Club has a Problem!

How does the vote work?

The poll will be closed on Sunday 24th at the latest.

You can vote for up to 4 options.

You can change your vote at any time by clicking ‘Show vote’ at the bottom.

  • [2.46] The Way of the Househusband [Manga]
  • [2.57] The Promised Neverland [Manga]
  • [2.25] Whisper Me a Love Song [Manga]
  • [2.71] A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow [Manga]
  • [2.68] Rainbow-Coloured Photograph [Manga]
  • [2.89] Koizumi-san Loves Ramen [Manga]
  • [2.71] This Art Club has a Problem! [Manga]
  • [3.07] Ao’s Island and a Cat [Manga]
  • [2.82] Magi [Manga]
  • [2.91] My Hero Academia [Manga]
  • [2.79] Death Note [Manga]
  • [3.08] Scary Lessons [Book]

0 voters

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If one of the Regulars could change the title of the thread that would be much appreciated!

Last time we voted we had a vote manipulation scare and there was a suggestion of limiting the poll to trust level 1 and higher, since the situation got cleared up I decided not to limit this poll.

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I changed the title.

Small remark: One thing I always tend to forget myself would be to put a link to the poll at the top of the OP as long as the poll is open, so it is easier to find.

Also, looks like the two of us pretty much have the same taste

or not :-)

:joy_cat:

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Thanks!

Oh yeah that is a good point. It is added now!

Almost 100% the same :smiley:

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The participation seems a lot lower than previous polls. I have posted advertised the poll in more offshot bookclubs again. I hope we can get a few more voters during the weekend.

With the current vote being in favor of “The Way of the Househusband” it might be a good idea to pick up the discussion from before and decide if that one qualifies as a short manga

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Though it got cleared up it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Anyone who actually participates in the forum will reach that level within days, so excluding those who just joined this week isn’t wrong, if they actuall wish to join they still can, just can’t affect the voting this time around (They can vote next time if they do use the forum)
I feel there has always been a number of “no avatar just joined” members, who just happened to find the vote, but they rarely become real members. So there could be real instances of it, or just random people who never actually stayed (which again, should they then vote?)

But as long as the majority of votes are the active members, it probably doesn’t matter much…

My books are the ONLY books on the list? Maybe they finally got a chance! :rofl:
They look very fun! And was one of the first book recommendations I got when I joined WK!
This the season :crazy_face: (though reading will start later)
They are supposedly somewhat similar to the RL Stine Goosebumps books =)
If they never win, or get bumped off for not having enough votes, I’ll just read them on my own. But I prefer reading along with others so have kept pushing it off since it could win one day :rofl: