Thanks folks. I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement. 
Sometimes you just need a gentle reminder. Language learning truly is a war of attrition!
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Definitely. I’m a native English speaker and just had to remind myself what “attrition” meant.
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Updated the home post. If someone could change the title, that would be great.
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Hey everyone, I’m trying to make an offshoot club of Shirokuma cafe to reread the first one then finish the series if anyone’s interested!
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And if that wasn’t tempting enough to read a great manga, if you spend 1500 yen or more there is 50% coin back on all four volumes on Book Walker at present!
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I’m interested! I bought it on Bookwalker earlier this year.
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Nominations open!
(could a kind regular change the title? thanks!)
I have removed Crystal Hunters from the nomination list due to low interest in the polls. We now have two slots open for nominations. I was originally planning on opening the next book poll tomorrow, but if people want more time for nominating, we can do next week.
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Edit - nomination withdrawn due to furigana ruling. Find this entry in the BBC!
This is on the higher end of the difficulty scale, I think, but after some consideration I think it fits here - largely because it’s short and Horimiya was one level higher. If it meets some pushback I will send it up to the BBC though.
/edit damnit, i forgot about the furigana guidelines down here. Maybe it’ll have to bump up to the BBC because of it.
Look Back / ルックバック
Natively: Level 21
Summary
The overly confident Fujino and the shut-in Kyomoto couldn’t be more different, but a love of drawing manga brings these two small-town girls together. A poignant story of growing up and moving forward that only Tatsuki Fujimoto, the creator of Chainsaw Man, could have crafted.
Availability
Free online at Shonen Jump+ | Amazon | CD Japan
Kindle | Rakuten | BookWalker
Personal Opinion
An incredible, powerful read that is nonetheless I think very parseable at lower levels. With the club, I think it will be within reach even for absolute beginners, as long as their expectations are a bit tempered. (Though I am open to moving it to the BBC instead potentially).
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Entire thing is officially free on Shonen Jump Plus
- Yes, even beginners can read award-winning manga!
- Majority of dialogue is at the elementary and middle-school grade level
- Gorgeous art
- Significant portions of storytelling only through art (textless) meaning I would say the manga has a lower wordcount than most
- Short at I think 144 pages or so
Cons
- No furigana!
- Noticable slang use in early segments (elementary/middle schooler level) and some handwritten text.
- Multiple in-universe news articles in the latter half that while not necessary to read thoroughly you do need to get the gist of it
- Heavy themes after the halfway point
Pictures
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Looks great and made it to my wishlist! Bonus points for being a one shot, I have enough series queued up to read for a lifetime already 
Unfortunately last time we discussed it there was no “maybe” about it. The argument was that absolute beginners already have enough to worry about even with furigana.
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Oh well, I’ll have to promote it
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Hey everyone! Quick question: where do you get your digital manga from?
I’m not able to buy digital manga on the Japanese Amazon website, for some reason they don’t appear as available to me, even if I put a Japanese address…
I quickly realized buying physical manga for everything I want to read is not going to be viable, I simply don’t have the space 
I’ll reserve this for my favourite series only.
I still want to buy the manga cause I think the artists deserve compensation for their work.
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Bookwalker 
The book clubs and natively usually have direct links to where to purchase Bookwalker
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Do you use a separate email address? I have a Gmail account which I made only for Amazon JP, and that works OK. I don’t think you can use the same email address for two different Amazon stores.
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Thanks! I don’t use natively that often, I’ll check it out ^^
It’s the same email, yes. I was able to register and buy physical copies of manga, but not the digital ones. I’ll test to see if a different email works!
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I had to use a VPN for my first purchase as well, not sure if you tried that
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I made a new account with a different email and it worked. I had tried the VPN before but it wasn’t enough. I’m using both just in case. Thanks, everyone!
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EDIT - Nomination withdrawn due to difficulty level. Find this entry in the BBC !
月曜日の友達 / Friends on Mondays
by 阿部共実 / Abe Tomomi
Summary
How far can we fly before we have to come down? Little by little, everyone in their first year of junior high school has begun their transition into adulthood. However, Akane Mizutani finds it difficult acting mature. On an off chance, she meets Tooru Tsukino, a boy in her class with mysterious rumors surrounding him—rumors that make even Mizutani think of him as strange.
With their encounter, Mizutani finds out the truth of Tsukino and the similarly odd girl Hiki. With Mizutani and Tsukino forming a promise at the schoolyard regarding each Monday night, the story depicts the relationship and encounters with each other, the alienating idea of growing up, and the truth of one’s character.
Availability
Physical
Amazon JP
Kinokuniya JP
CD Japan
Digital
Bookwalker
eBook Japan
Honto
Amazon JP (Kindle)
Personal Opinion
I’ve wanted to read this manga ever since I watched the music video for the song that Amazarashi wrote based on it. When I was having another look at it again today, I realized that it has full furigana, which gave me the idea to nominate it for the ABBC. The manga is only 2 volumes long, so I think that would create a good opportunity for this club to be able to complete a whole series together (or in an offshoot club that wouldn’t take too long). I’d recommend watching the music video to see why this manga caught my interest! 
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Full furigana
- Slice-of-life, middle school setting, so vocabulary will probably be familiar
- Series is only 2 volumes, so finishing the whole story would be a possibility and wouldn’t take too long
- A song was inspired by it! It’s not every manga that gets that sort of treatment!
Cons
- Level 27 on Natively which seems to be on the higher end for this club
(Although looking at the previous club picks, it seems that higher leveled books have been picked in the past.) - Page count is 187 on Bookwalker and 192 on Amazon, so it is on the longer side for this club
(Wordless panels and pages do occur, though, so it’s not non-stop talking.)
Pictures
Additional Pages
(Not sequential pages)
Around the whole first chapter is available for preview on Bookwalker, so you can check that out here if you want.
It seems like including polls isn’t part of the template now, but I am interested in what others think of the difficulty level, so here it is:
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this book?
- No effort at all
- Minimal effort
- Moderate effort
- Substantial effort
- So much effort my head might explode
- I don’t know
0
voters
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I think that’s way too high for the ABBC 
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It is higher than the current nominations, but I thought I’d suggest it since past ABBC picks include Hunter x Hunter (L29) and Cells at Work (L28). The Natively level is only based on one reader’s gradings, so it might not be entirely accurate too. Did you have a look at the sample pages? What level would you put it at based on them? I don’t use Natively, so I have no idea.
yes and those two picks weren’t successful, they are now used as an example of what not to do 
The nomination is still interesting, it can just be moved to the Beginner Book Club or the Intermediate Book Club. Based on your sample, the level 27 seems to fit, that’s a lot of text. I would say maybe the IMC.
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