Orange 🍊 Book Club // Finished

I do believe the manga is the original version, the LN seem to have been published a few years later. (This is purely from looking at publishing dates, not reading about it somewhere.) I don’t know if this makes a difference to you, but I thought I’d mention it.

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Oh, that actually does make a difference! For some reason I thought the LN was the source material but I never looked into it much :sweat_smile: Well, knowing that now, I’d prefer to read the manga so I will try to join the club once it starts

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I only learned of the existence of an LN today while setting up the club. I prefer source material too, so I was like “oh no, do I own the wrong version?”, but the publishing dates told me that the manga seems to be the source. :relieved:

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Have you yet read any manga you felt was more difficult than Yotsuba?

Back when I started reading manga around the difficulty that I expect Orange to be, I had read probably about five to nine volumes of Yotsuba and was getting fairly decent at it. But manga closer to Orange’s level were still difficult, and I was pouring a lot of time looking up grammar and vocabulary.

Even though I was starting to feel like I was reading Yotsuba, I found I was still deciphering my way through these slightly higher-level manga.

Are you planning on trying out Shadows House with the BBC? You may find it difficult to keep up with that and Orange at the same time. (Or you might not.)

There’s no harm in reading at a slower pace if needed, as any book club threads remain followed and usable for a long, long time!

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I was reading along with Death Note for some chapters, but gave up on that - though I don’t think the difficulty was the main reason (I also gave up on Mitsuboshi Colors), more so the digital versions
I hate books in digital form in general, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it’s the same for manga, I guess :see_no_evil:
But yeah of course they’re more available in that format and a lot cheaper so that’s why I tried anyways… after those 2 attempts though I don’t think I’ll ever full-heartedly try that again (at least not with a book club ^^')

I don’t mean to say that I read Death Note as easily as Happiness, mind you! ^^’
It was surely more of a challenge, but I feel I would’ve stuck to it, had I had it in paperback (?) format
It didn’t feel that difficult (or… unmanageable) - maybe also because I watched the anime long ago and I was recognising stuff and mostly just felt really great about actually reading native material :see_no_evil:
It took quite some effort and time, I’m not trying to negate that, but it felt enjoyable … do you know, what I’m trying to say…? It didn’t feel bad or negative in any sense (?)
… sorry if I’m talking rubbish, maybe I should go to bed :see_no_evil: :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile:
I did watch the anime version of Orange too, even worked on a fansub for it (as a timer, not translator, if I remember correctly) so that might help with reading it too… though I remember the plot less vividly than Death Note (which is kinda strange because that would’ve been more recent - even though still at least 3y ago ^^')

(Why am I always so tempted to buy books this is horrible :weary: :persevere: :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile: I have about 12 mangas lying around here that I haven’t even started reading yet :weary: :woman_facepalming: :sweat_smile: :see_no_evil:)

That’s actually a good point… I didn’t even think about that before you mentioned it :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile:
Shadows House is already being shipped to me at the time being so yes of course I will (try to) read it along with the book club - very much looking forward to that still :slight_smile:
I really can’t judge, how hard it would be for me to keep up with both :thinking:
though I should have some more free time in the next two months

hrm… :thinking: :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile:
hard decision… :see_no_evil:
very much fighting the mindless shopaholic inside of me right now :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile: :see_no_evil:

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I feel you on all that. I am very much a book shopaholic. :orange_book: (I’m gonna use all the orange emojis so much in this club :joy: )

To me, it sounds like Orange wouldn’t be too hard (to be fair, I haven’t read it myself yet, but from what I understand of the difficulty). However, if you decide to read it later, with the help of the threads, there is no shame in that. I’m always reading past book club reads. (Just started Zenitendou.)

Considering current votes, it looks like we will start soon (but will delay if we have some people who want to get the physical copy), and have weekly threads. My guess would be the speed will probably be a chapter a week (or more). At least that is my hope for minimum speed, except the first couple of weeks or so to get us adjusted.

Whatever you choose, maybe you should sleep on it. :joy: Sometimes in the light of day, I find sanity and realize I can buy something later because I have enough entertainment to consume already. But alas, sometimes the new thing is worth it. ^^ Whatever you choose, we’ll support you! :dancer: :dancer: :dancer: (imagine these dancers as cheerleaders since we be missing cheerleader emojis)

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awww :hugs:
your post really warmed my heart :hugs: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :hugs:
thanks for your kind words <3

and I’m gonna do just that :see_no_evil:
just wanted to drop a quick thank you and wish everybody a good night :slight_smile:
… although probably people aren’t necessarily sharing the time zone :see_no_evil: :sweat_smile:

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There’s definitely the potential trap of thinking you understand more than you do.

Once one’s grammar is far enough, I actually recommend picking a series you’re familiar with from your native language (whether a translation of the manga, or a subtitled faithful anime adaptation). It can really help build up your reading speed if you’re not getting lost every few pages.

I’m not familiar with the anime and how much material it covers, but I expect you’d go into the first volume feeling like you have a superpower. Even if you’ve forgotten parts of the anime, returning to the scene in manga may cause you to remember it.

If some are above your level right now, I wouldn’t worry about it.

If any are are easy or just a little difficult, it might be time to start reading :wink:

I started to read this as “imagine these dancers as wearing orange”…

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That is what I should have said. :woman_facepalming: So obvious.

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The anime covers the entirety of the main story (volumes 1-5 - volume 6 is more of a side story. An alternate re-telling). So does the live-action movie.

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Fun fact: When they announced the anime I was like “this looks cool, I’m gonna go read the manga instead”, but since I knew very little Japanese at the time I read it in English. This puts Orange in the very distinctive position of being one of only two manga I have ever read in English (the other being Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which I’m kind of still scared to read in Japanese :joy:).

I did enjoy Orange by the way, though I’m not sure I want to commit to reading it again in Japanese. :thinking:

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Well do it with a club, then. Pretty sure my nomination is still floating around the ABC. Unless it got bumped off…

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Still sounds relatively unfun… Really have to be in a certain mood to read stuff like that. Anyway, off topic…

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I’ve actually had the first volume of this sitting on my shelf forever! Great excuse to actually read it now! :tangerine:

My volume is a little different though. I wonder if the insides are completely the same or not?

image

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Oooh, you have the original edition that only came out in two volumes (9 chapters). Let me go look up things I read about it again. *goes looking online*

Right, so after 9 chapters, the manga changed publishers. And the first 9 chapters were republished with the new publisher, and a new volume 1 and 2 came out, and then the new publisher continued with the rest of the story/series.

So you can compare contents, volume 1 of the complete edition is:


春色アストロノート is an extra story not related to Orange.

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I think you would probably be fine reading Orange. It is fairly simple and not too dense. If I remember correctly there are a few pages at the beginning where it’s a bit more difficult/dense but that’s just because things and characters are being introduced. If you push through that everything else should be easy.

Apart from that I’d say that some hand-written bits that don’t have furigana could be a bit harder, but that’s what the club is for, right?!

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Thank you for all of the info!

Okay so it looks like mine has the first 4 chapters, but not the extra story. If I’m going to buy the whole series I might just rebuy this first volume too in the completed edition. My copy was used and only cost about $1 anyways :joy:

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Hmmm… Are you sure? :thinking: You’d be wasting a whole dollar. 残念だね。しょうがない :sob:

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Okay, so we already have quite a few interested in joining the club. More than I expected. ありがとうございます!And since most people seem interested in starting the reading sooner rather than later, I thought I’d go through how things look now.

The majority want to start as soon as possible, we also have a few paper readers. So I’ll be checking in with a couple of people to see how early might be possible for them.

So we might start July 1-2 (I do believe most book clubs starts on Fridays/Saturdays right? I see no reason to change that, let me know if you think differently :slight_smile: ) or a couple of weeks after that.

Everyone wants to have weekly threads, and I’m game for that. Next on the list would be to decide how much to read each week. I’ll post the page count for the first 8 chapters below (going by page numbers from table of content so each chapter is probably a couple of pages shorter) to give us an idea of what the chapter lengths are in first two volumes: :orange_book:

1: 52
2: 44
3: 46
4: 44
5: 48
6: 34
7: 44
8: 44

They were more consistent than I expected. :joy: Later volumes most be the place with all the shorter chapters (I did peek through several ToCs when I did my initial assessment of chapter page counts).

*goes looking into manga page count numbers in BBC and IBC to see how Orange’s chapter length compares…*

So I was thinking a speed of one chapter a week, with the first 1-2 chapters over two weeks each to get used to the style and such. 1 chapter per week would be IBC speed. And I don’t know everyone’s current reading ability, so I have no idea if that is feasible for the majority.

MORE POLLS

Reading schedule :tangerine:
  • Half a chapter / week, aka 1 chapter every two weeks (potentially with first chapter over 3 weeks)
  • 1 chapter / week (with the first 1-2 chapters over two weeks each)
  • 2 chapters / week (with the first 1-2 chapters over one week each)

0 voters

Please vote for the one(s) you prefer :exclamation: This poll is more about the first volume to start us off, we’ll assess and adjust between volumes and/or when needed.

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This is a ping post to check in with a few people.

@sakuchu

Question for sakuchu

I noticed in the “when to start” poll you voted for later options. It seems to be leaning towards starting at the beginning of July, would that be a problem for you? If so, would mid-July work for you? :orange_book:

@MaraVos, let me know later if you had trouble picking up Orange this weekend. Also more :orange_heart:s.

@hiukan, how did you decide? Did sleeping on it improve your will power / redirect your reading desire to other objects? If you’ve decided to buy them and join now, do you have an idea of when they will arrive (no worries if you haven’t ordered yet, it has only been 24 hours!)? :orange_book:

@cheruko, are you okay with starting the club with your current old edition? Hopefully volume 2 will arrive for you before we start that. :tangerine: :tangerine: :tangerine:

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