Finished 1st Vol of Moto!!! Really just needed to sit down with it for a bit and wrap it up… easy but sometimes got hung up on the little kid speech (like yotsuba)… reading it wrong sometimes …
then tomorrow to try to finish vol 3 of a different series … that kind of been picking up and putting down… just being lazy … this will be the weekend to complete stuff!!!
So I’ve been trying to buy the ebook version of volume 1, but I keep running in to problems. I tried it both in Rakuten (Kobo) and Amazon Japan (Kindle) but it doesn’t actually give the option to buy it… Then I had a stroke of inspiration last night… I VPNed in to Japan, then went into private browsing mode… And it worked! Apparently, Amazon Japan geo-locks Kindle purchases so you can’t buy it when you’re outside of Japan (I didn’t try Rakuten but I assume it’s the same situation, if you’re a Kobo reader). But I made another discovery! Until July 13, Volumes 1-4 are FREE to read online!
I’m probably going to eventually buy the physical book. But for now, I can finally join this book club and read along! Just wanted to pass the tip along. VPNs are easy to get, I personally use ExpressVPN. I pay for mine, but there’s plenty of free ones out there.
Welcome to the book club! Which app/ program do you use to change VPN?
I suggest you to buy the physical volumes as I did, a month ago I ordered volumes 1-6 from the Japan Amazon store (price is actually very low and shipping to Europe was 10$)
Have fun 
I think the Europe part might be important when it comes to the shipping price.
But still, that’s a lot cheaper than anything I’ve seen.
For real? Is it so much more expansive to ship from Jap to USA? I thought that the distance was the more determining factor
From where I live Tokyo is 10k kilometers in a straight line
In this case it might be the size, too. Mine was the full set, I think.
Still, checked that one and the volume sells for 6 dollars, while the shipping is 18-20.
Oh ok the weight of the parcel makes part of the price but still I’m surprised that it costs almost the double than for Italy… must be USA import policy (I’m assuming you’re from USA)
actually importing from Japan to the US isn’t a big deal…we get a large allowance so there generally are not duties…it’s just shipping from Japan is expensive… so what I usually do is make sure I have 5 books min and then pull the trigger… 5 books at 6 a book and then 30 to ship makes each book 10 with the exchange rate (buying new of course)… vs 6+20 for one book…
CDJapan recently changed their system (it annoys me so because now it’s easier to spend)…but if you find say a new flying witch volume you want to buy you can add it to an existing order (even if you used points or coupons)…so it makes it easy when you have placed pre orders that are going to be a month out or whatever… then oh here’s another one and not get hit with a huge shipping bill for a single item. CDJapan is usually more on shipping the Amazon (to the US usually)…but their packaging and service is bullet proof…Amazon… doesn’t always pack things well and have had books damaged (the refunded but it was still annoying). I also do like to support CDJapan when I can…Amazon has plenty of money already haha
Anyway yeah welcome to book shopping…guard your wallet… and with people like @ChristopherFritz around sharing a few snips from this author I’ve been having fun spending more than I should but eh…life is short 
Thanks! I use ExpressVPN… I pay probably $75 USD a year for it (well, I share it with my dad and brother cause you can use multiple devices, so it’s really only $25 a year)… but honestly just get whatever’s free that allows you to select your own location.
I do plan to get the physical volumes… But not until I’m farther along. Maybe a reward for reaching Level 30 on WK. Or whenver I visit Japan next, which the way things are shaping up, probably won’t be until the end of 2023 or early 2024.
I used to buy from CD Japan too! I always found their prices and shipping reasonable. I would bundle a bunch of purchases together though… Then I’d drop maybe $300 on one order. Of course, hard to do for in demand stuff. And they ran out of certain products I wanted before I could get it.
this is definitely one of the downsides…they can get anything with proxy but that is super expensive when you add all the fees and everything together. Used it once for something that I really wanted that was limited edition but generally avoid using the proxy. Moral of the story preorder and buy stuff early 
haha
When I lived in Osaka, one of my friends regularly ordered clothes from me to send back to her in Toronto… Cheap conversion of some of my salary from yen to Canadian dollars. haha.
Around volume 4-5 I’ll probably buy from the 7th to the 17th volume then 
how is the intention to go on with it for the people remaining in the volume 6 book club?
Me too with amazon, genki 1 box (among others) was fucked up but luckily the book hadn’t particular damages
don’t know how everyone feels but so far even though our group is small we are still enjoying it …it’s a nice fun weekly read so it will probably go on for a while 
at the rate you are reading you’ll catch up to us in about a month I’d guess so better start shopping
Ok I just started chapter 1. I’m sorry if this has been asked before but what the significance of using Katakana for certain words?
As for personal pronouns like おれ/オレ or ぼく/ボク, I read somewhere that it’s to add emphasis or a “cool” factor (like a cool protagonist will use ボク while a weak character might even use like わたし). So like this makes sense for a scene like this…
“いつもいつもオレをからかいやがって。”
But then why for スイマセン here…?
Is it just for emphasis and I should just not overthink it? Or is there some thing more?
Much obliged.
So far, we intend to continue until we finish the series, unless interest totally dies off before then (which I hope doesn’t happen!). If you want to stay up-to-date with what’s going on, you can always set the Off-Shoot Home Thread to watching, and you’ll get notifications whenever I post in there. Currently, we finish up Volume 6 this week, and will start Volume 7 next week. I’ll have the discussion thread for it up this weekend, though.
We have maintained the pace of one chapter per week because a lot of us are doing a lot of extra reading besides Takagi-san, and having the relaxed pace just works for the best that way.
For example, I’m personally reading:
When the BBC begins it’s next pick, I will read along with that as well, and depending on how the next ABBC vote goes (whenever it starts), I may end up reading along with that pick (especially if my nomination ends up getting picked, in which case I’ll run that book club).
So, yeah, having a nice, easy pace for Takagi-san is very nice.
Oftentimes, it’s just emphasis. Sometimes it is the “cool factor,” sometimes a word is just commonly written this way (animal names especially often get the katakana treatment; you’ll see キツネ and ネズミ far more often than their kanji variants of 狐 and 鼠), and other times there is no real reason for it besides the author just felt like using it, and what are you gonna do about it? the Sailor Moon mangaka is notorious for this, especially. I believe @ChristopherFritz posted some examples somewhere in the thread.
Side-note, try and cover any posted panels and translations behind a spoiler tag. If you aren’t sure how to do this:
(Spoiler)
Posted stuff goes here
(/spoiler)
But use the […] brackets instead, where the … is replaced by spoiler.
Happy to hear this, it sounds like an awesome comfortable read. At the moment I’m reading one chapter a day but it’s not really comfortable and also it depends on how quickly I can find answers for my doubts here on the forum, otherwise I tend to stall on what I don’t understand… but if I improve from my actual condition and I keep up with this rhythm I might be able to reach volume 7 in less than 40 days.
Another question, as I already mentioned, I’d eventually like to read other more difficult mangas along with Takagi-san. In your experience, when were you guys able to move to a next step without it being traumatic? And what would you suggest me read next? My most favorites are Death Note, Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan, any suggestion?
Edit: also My dress up darling, but I’d consider going next to reads as Nagatoro if it’s not too long, I loved the anime
Could you link it? I will, but I’ll remember everyone about keeping an eye on spoiler
