The BookWalker Freebies Thread

Sometime this weekend I will probably also expand this script to scrape BW’s novels / light novels section. But does anyone know where I can find a whitelist to use? Otherwise there’ll just be too much to post up here.

18 September 2020

The House of Nightmares - Ghost Hunt (2012) - 8.3 - Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Shoujo, Supernatural

Area no Kishi (2006) - 7.99 - Comedy, Drama, School Life, Shounen, Sports

AKB49: The Rules Against Love (2010) - 7.53 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Gender Bender, Shounen

Chameleon (1990) - 6.93 - Action, Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Gamaran (2009) - 8.04 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Historical, Martial Arts, Shounen

Parasyte (1988) - 8.56 - Action, Drama, Horror, Mature, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Sci-fi, Seinen, Tragedy

Kindaichi Case Files (1992) - 8.25 - Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Shounen

A Silent Voice (2013) - 8.76 - Comedy, Drama, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

The Quintessential Quintuplets (full colour edition) (2017) - 7.8 - Comedy, Drama, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Psychometrist Eiji (1996) - 7.63 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Mystery, Shounen, Supernatural

Sankarea: Undying Love (2009) - 8.16 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Girl’s Fight (2005) - 7.86 - Drama, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Sports

Ascendance of a Bookworm (2015) - 7.67 - Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Slice of Life

Shouta no Sushi (1992) - 6.96 - Action, Comedy, Shounen

New Iron Fist Chinmi (1997) - 7.91 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Shounen

Iron Fist Chinmi Legends (2007) - 8.21 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Shounen

Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan (2017) - 7.76 - Drama, Historical, Shounen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

Mysterious Girlfriend X (2006) - 8.06 - Comedy, Ecchi, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Supernatural

The Seven Deadly Sins (2012) - 7.75 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Supernatural

Cells at Work! (spinoff) (2015) - 7.71 - Action, Comedy, Sci-fi, Shounen

Bakemonogatari (2018) - 7.73 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Supernatural

Pumpkin Scissors (2002) - 8.29 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Shounen

Historie (2003) - 8.82 - Adventure, Drama, Historical, Mature, Psychological, Seinen

Hozuki’s Coolheadedness (2011) - 7.75 - Comedy, Fantasy, Seinen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

My Home Hero (2017) - 7.85 - Action, Drama, Mature, Seinen

Mister Ajikko (sequel) (1986) - 7.47 - Action, Comedy, Shounen

Bug Master (1999) - 8.91 - Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Historical, Mystery, Seinen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

Yamada and the Seven Witches (2012) - 8.25 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Gender Bender, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

Yokohama Shopping Trip (1994) - 8.8 - Mystery, Sci-fi, Seinen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

Ryuurouden (1993) - 8.15 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Ryuurouden: Chuugen Ryouranhen (2009) - 8.13 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Shounen, Supernatural

Red Eyes (1999) - 8.09 - Action, Drama, Mecha, Sci-fi, Shounen

My Wife is Wagatsuma-san (2011) - 7.7 - Comedy, Drama, Harem, Romance, School Life, Sci-fi, Shounen, Supernatural

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Also, I somehow overlooked this because it wasn’t in the usual place, but you can get 41 volumes of wrestling manga Kinnikuman for free here, but it expires today (18/9/2020)!

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This is not exactly ranked, but it is based on sales numbers, this lists 1278 light novels (sadly not per series, but per volume) based on number of copies sold, so you might be able to do something with this? I’ll look and see if I can find something better, but I use this thread when I’m looking for new titles to read :

Also found this, it’s a yearly publication rating the 10 best light novels. Again, quite incomplete, but it at least gives you something to work with :

このライトノベルがすごい! - Wikipedia!

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I took a look at this over the weekend, and maybe I won’t need a whitelist afterall - there were very few full light novels with 期間限定価格 zero yen pricing compared to 期間限定無料お試し版 / truncated 無料試し読み版. I do wonder if I’m just looking in the wrong place.

One thing I did notice was that what I did find was split up into ラノベ and 新文芸. I wasn’t quite clear on the distinction between the two - and maybe I’m not the only one - but perhaps in this context 新文芸 are best understood as born digital works?

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I guess you’re right. As the article you linked mentions, it’s quite ふわっと. The one thing that might also separate the two is in the following paragraph.

ただ、新文芸系のレーベルから発売されるタイトルの多くは基本的に、1冊の本にストーリーをギュッとまとめていく一般的な作品とは違い、最初から超長編を前提としてゆったりと書かれていることが多いです。

so if I’m reading it right the 新文芸 often don’t have a clear end in sight, they’re not restricted to a manuscript and can run as long as the author would want, being written more loosely with no clear end in sight. So I guess the ライトノベル are more restricted / confined in that they have an end in mind for the specific volume?

But I don’t see much use in trying to make a true distinction, seeing as even the author of that article has trouble really making it :stuck_out_tongue: But the article in itself is interesting, so thanks for sharing! Will definetly read through it properly instead of skimming when I have the time!

I don’t see any settings in Discourse to turn it off — either globally or on a per thread basis. :cry:

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Not much new this week. Visitors to this thread who were interested in my program to generate kanji tracing sheets may be interested to know it has been updated and a new PDF covering all the jouyou kanji has been generated.

25 September 2020

The House of Nightmares - Ghost Hunt (2012) - 8.3 - Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Shoujo, Supernatural

Sweetness and Lightning (2013) - 8.31 - Comedy, Seinen, Slice of Life

The Knight in the Area (2006) - 7.99 - Comedy, Drama, School Life, Shounen, Sports

The Shining Wind (1997) - 8.28 - Drama, Gender Bender, Historical, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life Thank you @kimera for pointing out I had the wrong Shining Wind! Link should go here instead - it’s a baseball manga.

Chameleon (1990) - 6.93 - Action, Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Gamaran (2009) - 8.04 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Historical, Martial Arts, Shounen

Kindaichi Case Files (1992) - 8.25 - Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Shounen

A Silent Voice (2013) - 8.76 - Comedy, Drama, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

The Quintessential Quintuplets (colour version) (2017) - 7.8 - Comedy, Drama, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Shoujo Fight (2005) - 7.86 - Drama, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Sports

Shouta no Sushi (1992) - 6.96 - Action, Comedy, Shounen

New Ironfist Chinmi (1997) - 7.91 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Shounen

Ironfist Chinmi: Legends (2007) - 8.21 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Shounen

Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan (2017) - 7.76 - Drama, Historical, Shounen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

The Seven Deadly Sins (2012) - 7.75 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Supernatural

Ichi (2008) - 7.83 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Seinen

Bakemonogatari (2018) - 7.73 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Supernatural

Pumpkin Scissors (2002) - 8.29 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Shounen

Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness (2011) - 7.75 - Comedy, Fantasy, Seinen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

Mister Ajikko (sequel) (1986) - 7.47 - Action, Comedy, Shounen

Ryuurouden (1993) - 8.15 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Ryuurouden: Chuugen Ryouranhen (2009) - 8.13 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Shounen, Supernatural

Red Eyes (1999) - 8.09 - Action, Drama, Mecha, Sci-fi, Shounen

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Thank you again for doing this!

FYI for anyone else looking through the list, there seem to be (at least) two different series called Shining Wind (風光る). The freebie is the baseball one, not the historical one – I think this is the baka page for it?

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Manga news: a thread here introduced me to Mandarake. Hello twenty year missing volumes of 夏子の酒, goodbye bank balance.

03 October 2020

Fortress of the Apocalypse (2011) - 7.82 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Sci-fi, Shounen

Sweetness and Lightning (2013) - 8.31 - Comedy, Seinen, Slice of Life

Seraph of the End (2012) - 7.59 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Shounen, Supernatural

Princess Resurrection (2005) - 8.11 - Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Harem, Horror, School Life, Shounen, Supernatural

Parasyte (1988) - 8.56 - Action, Drama, Horror, Mature, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Sci-fi, Seinen, Tragedy

Night Fish (2014) - 7.27 - Drama, Romance, Shoujo, Slice of Life (Note: this was actually dragged in by a matching error, but I am exercising editor’s prerogative and leaving it in because it’s an office romance comic.)

Kindaichi Case Files (1992) - 8.26 - Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Shounen

Jellyfish Princess (2008) - 8.62 - Comedy, Drama, Gender Bender, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life

This guy is the biggest mistake in my life (2017) - 6.72 - Comedy, Josei, Romance

Gorillaman (1989) - Unrated - Comedy, Seinen

The Fable (2014) - 7.59 - Action, Drama, Mature, Romance, Seinen

Ascension of a Bookworm (2015) - 7.67 - Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Slice of Life

Attack on Titan (2009) - 8.57 - Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mature, Mystery, Psychological, Shounen, Supernatural, Tragedy

Diana and Artemis (2019) - Unrated - Action, Sci-Fi, Seinen

Tokyo Tarareba Girls (2014) - 7.42 - Comedy, Drama, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life

A Rain of Teardrops and Serenade (2015) - 7.7 - Comedy, Drama, Historical, Josei, Romance

Cells at Work (spinoff) (2015) - 7.71 - Action, Comedy, Sci-fi, Shounen

Basilisk (2003) - 7.55 - Action, Adventure, Historical, Mature, Romance, Seinen, Supernatural, Tragedy

Pumpkin Scissors (2002) - 8.29 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Shounen

Your Immortal Self (2016) - 8.36 - Adventure, Drama, Shounen, Supernatural

Old Knight on the Frontier (2016) - 7.84 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Seinen

Looking up to Magical Girls (2019) - 7.52 - Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Fantasy, Seinen, Yuri

Blade of the Immortal (1993) - 8.53 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Mature, Seinen, Supernatural, Tragedy

The Delinquent and the Girl in Glasses (2006) - 8.26 - Comedy, Drama, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

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I spotted that Ascendance of a Bookworm which is free on this list is being read by the Advanced Book Club at the moment (link). The novel version, not the manga.

This one also caught my eye on the list of free manga on Book Walker:

犬夜叉 Inuyasha

From Wikipedia: Inuyasha (犬夜叉), also known as Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale (Japanese: 戦国御伽草子 犬夜叉, Hepburn: Sengoku Otogizōshi Inuyasha ), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. The series begins with Kagome Higurashi, a 15-year-old school girl from modern-day Tokyo who is parallelly transported to the Japanese era of Sengoku period after falling into a well in her family shrine, where she meets the half-demon, Inuyasha. When a demon from the era tries to take the magical Shikon Jewel embodied in Kagome, she inadvertently shatters the Jewel into many pieces that are scattered across Japan. Inuyasha and Kagome set to recover the Jewel’s fragments, and through their quest they are joined by the monk Miroku, the demon slayer Sango, and the kitsune Shippo. Together, they journey to restore the Shikon Jewel before its full power falls into the hands of the evil Naraku.

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Thank you for picking this up, and I wonder why this didn’t get noted by my script - the same thing happened with the big Kinnikuman giveaway the other week, which was also a big multi-volume thing. I’m beginning to think my script must have brain problems.

Doesn’t your script only check the “permanently” free ones(i.e. those that can be kept)? That would explain why it would have missed inuyasha(since it’s just readable for free for about a month, presumably due to the new movie)

(or maybe it checks everything but you just don’t post about the temporary stuff, and in that case I guess I have no idea either)

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Ah, sorry I hadn’t spotted it was only free to keep for one month until I downloaded it.

Interesting, I was wondering why there’s never any josei or shoujo on this list (and whether mangaupdates reviewers are just not reading that sort of thing?) And here they are!

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I continue to use this thread as a dumping ground for my own personal projects as I don’t have anywhere else to put them, volume six: searching jisho.org by always-on voice control using the Japanese radiotelephony alphabet.

和文通話表

When I’m reading something like シロクマカフェ, the heavy use of puns means it is jam packed with words I don’t know. I’d rather not put the book down, and while jisho.org supports voice search, I have always found it very hard to use - not only do I hit a lot of homophones (especially as I’m looking up puns or near puns) but I have a hard time even getting it to understand commands.

I’ve posted a few times about how things would be at least a bit easier if I could just spell the word out by voice, but nothing seems to support this - phoneme identification from audio is actually quite hard to do reliably, so speech recognition models use the additional context of words to improve their accuracy. Things like the NATO Phonetic Alphabet exist for the same underlying reason. Does Japanese have a phonetic alphabet? Yes, it turns out it does - the Japanese Radiotelephony Alphabet, or 和文通話表わぶんつうわひょう.

I have now written a thing that lets you spell out words using a slightly modified version of the radiotelephony alphabet (I can’t pronounce 留守居 properly, it seems), and then send them to Jisho. This is a very unpolished test, is probably buggy as hell and only works where the annyang! speech recognition wrapper works (only in Google Chrome at the moment, and only on the desktop). It does seems to work well enough for my purposes though, and even works in the background when I’m reading e.g. BookWalker in another window.

Usage guide:

  • The progsoc ssl certificate is broken at the moment, so please don’t submit anything secret to Jisho in this way. I have to host this via https as otherwise Chrome constantly re-prompts you for microphone permissions.
  • The large chart shows you what words correspond to which basic kana. Furigana is provided for everything.
  • Dipthongs are made by adding the normal kana first, then saying “捨て仮名”. Same goes for adding 濁点 (i.e. か➝が) or 半濁点 (i.e. ほ➝ぽ).
  • As you say the words, the kana will be added to a line below the table. Anything you said that it didn’t understand gets added to a grey, disabled line below that. When you’re ready, say 検索 to reload the iframe on the right without your search term.
  • 促音 is provided as a shortcut to っ and 長音 is also available for ー.
  • Jisho understands hiragana/katakana conversion, so no katakana support is provided.
  • Backspace is 戻る, clear is クリア.

Is this slower than typing? Yes. Does it mean I don’t have to get out of my beanbag to look things up? Also yes.

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09 October 2020

Fortress of the Apocalypse (2011) - 7.82 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Sci-fi, Shounen

Witch Craft Works (2010) - 7.93 - Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Supernatural

Seraph of the End (2012) - 7.59 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Shounen, Supernatural

Princess Resurrection (2005) - 8.11 - Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Harem, Horror, School Life, Shounen, Supernatural

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie (2018) - 7.5 - Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Boarding School Juliet (2015) - 7.88 - Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Harem, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Parasyte (1988) - 8.56 - Action, Drama, Horror, Mature, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Sci-fi, Seinen, Tragedy

Jellyfish Princess (2008) - 8.62 - Comedy, Drama, Gender Bender, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life

This Guy Is the Biggest Mistake in My Life (2017) - 6.72 - Comedy, Josei, Romance

Gorillaman (1989) - 0.0 - Comedy, Seinen

The Fable (2014) - 7.59 - Action, Drama, Mature, Romance, Seinen

Ascension of a Bookworm (2015) - 7.67 - Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Slice of Life

Attack on Titan (2009) - 8.57 - Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mature, Mystery, Psychological, Shounen, Supernatural, Tragedy

Tokyo Tarareba Girls (2014) - 7.42 - Comedy, Drama, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life

Why Are You Here Sensei!? (2016) - 7.77 - Adult, Comedy, Ecchi, Romance, School Life, Seinen

Cells at Work (spinoff) (2015) - 7.71 - Action, Comedy, Sci-fi, Shounen

Basilisk (2003) - 7.55 - Action, Adventure, Historical, Mature, Romance, Seinen, Supernatural, Tragedy

Pumpkin Scissors (2002) - 8.29 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Shounen

Your Immortal Self (2016) - 8.36 - Adventure, Drama, Shounen, Supernatural

Prison School (2011) - 7.67 - Adult, Comedy, Ecchi, Harem, Romance, School Life, Seinen

Blade of the Immortal (1993) - 8.53 - Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Mature, Seinen, Supernatural, Tragedy

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (2012) - 8.25 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Gender Bender, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

The Delinquent and the Girl in Glasses (2006) - 8.26 - Comedy, Drama, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

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omg witchcraft works!!! and the bookworm book hell yeah!!!

thank you so much :heartpulse:

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I’ve been reading this on the train today. Thank you so much for this thread :slight_smile:
Also happy 4th cake :cake: day @curiousjp !!!

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A day slow because I sat up too late playing Destiny 2.

17 October 2020

Flowers of Evil (2009) - 7.85 - Drama, Mature, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

Witch Craft Works (2010) - 7.93 - Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Supernatural

The Memorandum of Kyouko Okitegami (2015) - 7.61 - Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Shounen

Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie (2018) - 7.5 - Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Boarding School Juliet (2015) - 7.88 - Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Harem, Romance, School Life, Shounen

I Love You (2006) - 7.81 - Drama, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Slice of Life

In/Spectre (2015) - 8.51 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

A Perfect Day for Love Letters (2001) - 7.66 - Drama, Romance, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Lovesick Ellie (2015) - 7.57 - Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shoujo

A Silent Voice (2013) - 8.76 - Comedy, Drama, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

The Quintessential Quintuplets (2017) - 7.8 - Comedy, Drama, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen

Your Lie in April (2011) - 8.59 - Comedy, Drama, Psychological, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life, Tragedy

Shaman King (1998) - 7.76 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Supernatural

He’s My Vampire (2010) - 7.69 - Action, Comedy, Drama, Harem, Horror, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Supernatural

Queen Bee! (2013) - 7.65 - Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shoujo

Attention Students! (various spinoffs) (1978) - 6.81 - Comedy, School Life, Shoujo

Ace of the Diamond (2006) - 8.24 - Comedy, School Life, Shounen, Sports

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (2013) - 8.1 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Ecchi, Fantasy, Harem, Romance, Seinen

Chihayafuru (2007) - 8.58 - Drama, Josei, Romance, School Life, Slice of Life, Sports

What are you doing here, Sensei!? (2016) - 7.77 - Adult, Comedy, Ecchi, Romance, School Life, Seinen

Noragami: Stray God (2010) - 8.6 - Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Prison School (2011) - 7.67 - Adult, Comedy, Ecchi, Harem, Romance, School Life, Seinen

Hell's Kitchen (2010) - 7.9 - Comedy, Shounen, Supernatural

Pure Sound (2010) - 7.44 - Comedy, Drama, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (2012) - 8.25 - Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Gender Bender, Harem, Mystery, Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life, Supernatural

A Sign of Affection (2019) - 7.74 - Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Smile down the Runway (2017) - 7.74 - Romance, School Life, Shounen, Slice of Life

Living Room Matsunaga-san (2016) - 7.6 - Comedy, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Slice of Life

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