Ah I’m on page 8 and my brain is already slowly starting to die. 
I was able to follow along with the Komi Can’t Communicate book club recently pretty easily. I’d say I’ve finally stepped above my difficulty threshold again on this one. Alright, more reading, less complaining. Better get back at it.
Made it about nine tenths of a page before getting overwhelmed today. 
(Sort of Non-)Question 1: page 14
I feel like I’m missing something in Hikaru’s story about Kaoru. Kaoru stayed up all night working on data, which he then sleepily ???formatted??? after which he woke up Hikaru crying. Maybe in this case 初期化 basically means scrambled? I can probably find out if I google, but I don’t have time for that right now. I’ll probably just let this one go, actually.
(Actual) Question 2: page 15
The handwritten text that looks like ク割 (far right center of the page, when Haruhi is looking at Tamaki’s request rate). Could that be 90%? Jisho says 9割 is pronounced きゅうわり, but kyuu sometimes turns into ku, right?
Gah, what a nit-picky question, but I feel like it’s maybe important to understand if numbers are flexible in that way …
Also, can anyone tell me what the handwritten text at the bottom of that mini-panel is? I can probably puzzle it out eventually, but if it’s easy for someone else I would appreciate not having to spend the time on that one.
Thanks for both the assistance and the commiseration everyone! 
page 9 replies
That’s how I read it!
Thank you!
When i was checking my understanding against an english translation, I saw someone had both cleaned and and translated this whole section and my only thought was “why would you do this to yourself?”
tbf, I don’t think it’s as difficult as it looks in this particular instance, especially if you transcribe the bg text too. It’s a matter of clearing it by the hair and nose and then replicating the dot texture, which there’s probably a pre-existing stamp or fill for. Unlike fitting English to a bubble too, you could easily cut off words without it being too unnatural or unfaithful to the original.
oh yeah, definitely not as bad as it looks when you break it down into parts (and if you had different people cleaning/translating/typesetting and all that), but still quite a bit of dedication for a single panel.
Maybe i’m just lazy but I would’ve probably gone with just a translator note: vaguely coherent prettyboy rambling 
i also had this question! i came across something similar today in a different manga with 時 instead of 割 which could also have been a 9 but i’m not sure…
Cheat Mode for Page 16's handwritten text
Rather than ク, it’s 7. Likewise for the text at the bottom of the same panel.
Cheat Mode
That should make it easy to work out the Japanese.
Could someone please explain just this entire sentence? The 男色家 is REALLY confusing me, based on the definition given on the google sheet.
噂がガリ勉君が男色家だったのは意外だが
page 9
噂のガリ勉君が = The rumored hard-studier
男色家だったのは = being a homosexual
意外だが = is surprising (though) …
Probably my greatest weakness in reading is that I don’t learn the kanji for characters’ names and then proceed to get really confused any time that they come up without furigana. 
For some reason the comment still comes a little out of left field for me. Tamaki is talking about Haruhi here correct? Why did he think that he (though actually she) was gay?
Because Haruhi (“boy”) just went to Ouran’s host club.
OOOH duh that makes sense sorry lol
It’s quite a different experience when reading something like this in Japanese, where you piece things together one panel at a time, and it can be a long time between two separate panels that a native reader gets through in 15 seconds.
Managed 1.9 pages today … Good ones though! Appreciated your cheat mode for page 16 @ChristopherFritz! (Also thanks for cluing me in to my ku/7 mix-up.) And lol at the twins’ faces when Haruhi shushes Tamaki.
I kind of doubt I will finish this week’s reading on time, but I don’t think I’ll be too far behind …
Wanted to join you guys but wow, that was way too hard for me. I’ll read it at a later time, have fun all 
Btw beautiful work on the Vocab sheet 
Same for me! Perhaps we’ll have to do a repeat club together in a few months. 
I hope the rest of you have fun! I look forward to using your vocab lists in the future 
I just finished this weeks section. And yeah, it’s really difficult for me. I haven’t read the manga before nor have I seen the anime. So everything is new for me 
Additionally I think the “flow” (I don’t know a better expression) is somewhat confusing to me. For example, is something still on the same day? Or did days pass? Who is currently talking? At the beginning it looked like the host clubs members where alone when the main character arrived…and suddenly there were women there, too. So I wasn’t sure whether they were there all along, or whether there was a time jump?
I guess this is because I do not completely understand everything. But I get the gist of it (I guess). Therefore I want to try to continue reading with the book club. Not sure if I can stay until the end, but I’m going to try 
If you have netflix the anime available. Highly recommend watching a few episodes if you can. That should make it (marginally) easier.