I had Kaguya-sama nominated in the intermediate book club previously, but it got removed due to lack of interest, so I guess I’ll try to just nominate it here?
かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～ (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
Author: Aka Akasaka
Page count: 214
Natively: L31
Summary
Copied from amazon, the English one isn’t a translation of the Japanese one sadly.
Japanese
「恋愛は告白した方が負けなのである！」 家柄も人柄も良し!! 将来を期待された秀才が集う秀知院学園!! その生徒会で出会った、副会長・四宮かぐやと会長・白銀御行は互いに惹かれているはずだが…何もないまま半年が経過!! プライドが高く素直になれない2人は、面倒臭いことに、“如何に相手に告白させるか”ばかりを考えるようになってしまった!? 恋愛は成就するまでが楽しい!! 新感覚“頭脳戦”ラブコメ、開戦!!
English
Two geniuses. Two brains. Two hearts. One battle. Who will confess their love first…?!
As leaders of their prestigious academy’s student council, Kaguya and Miyuki are the elite of the elite! But it’s lonely at the top… Luckily for them, they’ve fallen in love! There’s just one problem—they both have too much pride to admit it. And so begins the daily scheming to get the object of their affection to confess their romantic feelings first…
Availability
Currently some of these are free to read until early may
Ebook B-W: Amazon, Bookwalker
Ebook Color: Amazon, Bookwalker
Paperback: Amazon, CD Japan
Personal Opinion
I’m a sucker for romance and Kaguya-sama is one of the best, if not the best romantic show airing right now as an anime. The manga mostly follows the same exact plot with some additional stories that weren’t animated. It’s fun, sometimes a bit over the top, but that’s part of the enjoyment. It’s also quite funny.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Heavy use of (even uncommon) kanji, so you can challenge your reading ability
- Mostly disjointed stories, so you can pick up and put down the manga quite easily
- As of November of 2022, the series is finished, so you get an actual ending if you continue reading
- Decent (though not at all perfect) ebook quality
Cons
- Heavy use of kanji without any furigana, making lookups a bit of a chore sometimes
- Mostly dijointed stories in the first volume, you don’t get a very strong overarching plot
- The series is finishes, so besides the offshoots, you won’t get any more content ever if you finish it
- Has quite a bit of handwritten (or at least handwritten-like) text outside of bubbles
Pictures
Screenshotted from the amazon web reader, because I’m lazy, so quality isn’t representative
