Week 10 俺物語! ・ My Love Story! 🍰 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

Welcome to Week 10 of 俺物語!! ・ My Love Story!! :shortcake:

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Week 10 November 8 2025
Start page 96
End page 104
End phrase という理由だけじゃあなかったんだな
Last week Week 9
Next week Week 11
Home Thread 俺物語!!

Page numbers may differ between digital and physical copies.

Last panel

Vocabulary

Vocabulary list (Google sheets)

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.

  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).

  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Image Notes
剛田 猛男 ごうだ たけお Main character
大和 凛子 やまと りんこ Main character’s love interest
砂川 誠 すなかわ まこと Main character’s best friend

Discussion Questions

What surprised you about the reading this week?

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?
  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer reading the book
0 voters
7 Likes
Screenshots

HAHA, they are so cute and perfect for each otherrrrr

8 Likes
96

砂川ぁー、おまえはほんとに青鬼みてーなやつだな!!

Suna, you really are like the blue demon!!

なんだそれ

What does that mean?

幼稚園の劇だ!!

It’s the play from kindergarten!!

おまえが青鬼で、オレが赤鬼で、おまえの友情の演技に母ちゃん全員号泣しただろ!!

You were the blue demon, I was the red demon, and it seemed like

all of the moms were crying their eyes out over your friendly performance!!

覚えてねぇよ

I don’t remember

なになに?どんな話?

What??? What kind of story was it?

うん

Yeah

97

ある山の中に心の優しい赤鬼がたった1人で住んでいたんだ

In the mountains, there lived a kindhearted red demon by himself.

赤鬼は人間たちと仲良くなりたかったんだけど、人間たちは怖がって近寄らないんだよ

The red demon wanted to become friends with the humans, but the humans were scared and wouldn’t get near him.

落ちこんでる赤鬼に友達の青鬼が言うんだ

His friend, the blue demon, could see he was feeling down and went to talk to him.

自分が村で暴れるから退治しろって

He said “I’ll disturb the peace of the village so you can defeat me by yourself”

そうすれば、人間たちは赤鬼のことを見直して仲良くなってくれるんじゃないかって

“Then maybe the humans will reconsider their perspective on you and become friends with you”

そして、青鬼は村へ行って、人間たちを傷つけないように暴れた

Then, the blue demon went to the village and made a scene, careful not to hurt the villagers.

赤鬼はそんな青鬼をやっつけるフリをした

The red demon pretended to defeat the blue demon

青鬼はやっつけられたフリをして逃げてった

And the blue demon pretended to be defeated and ran away

98

村人たちはすっかり赤鬼を信用して遊びに来るようになり人間の友達ができて毎日たのしく暮らした

The villagers grew to trust the red demon and visited him to play. He made human friends and was happy every day.

でも、ある日あれ以来見かけない青鬼のことが気になって会いに行くことにしたんだ

But one day, he was concerned about the blue demon since he had not seen him for a while, so he decided to go see him.

山を越え谷を越えようやく青鬼の家にたどりついたがもうそこに青鬼はいなかった

He traveled across mountains and valleys to reach the blue demon’s house, but the blue demon was not there.

青鬼は赤鬼への手紙を残して旅に出てしまっていたんだ

The blue demon had left a letter for the red demon, and set out on a journey.

手紙?

A letter?

せっかく人間と仲良くなれたのに、また自分と仲良くしていては人間たちに疑われるからって

It said “even though you had become friends with the humans, if I stay close to the humans they will begin to become suspicious”

黙って赤鬼の前から姿を消したのさ

So he quietly disappeared from the red demon’s sight

99

泣ける

I could cry!

な!!すげえだろ、青鬼いい奴だろ!!

Yeah!! Isn’t it great?? The blue demon is a great guy!!

うん、いくら友達のためでもそこまでできないと思う

Yeah, I don’t know if I could go to that extent for the sake of the friend

だろ!!

Right!?

青鬼優しすぎる!!

The blue demon is way too nice!!

器でかすぎ!!

He has too big a heart!!

砂川すげぇ!!

Suna is amazing!!

しらねーけど、べつにフツーじゃね?

I don’t know, but isn’t that just normal?

だって友達だったんだろ、その鬼ふたり

Because they were friends, those two demons?

100

誰でも友達が幸せになるのがうれしーだろ

Anyone would be happy to see their friends happy, right?

そんなのフツーだろ、スゴくねーだろ

That kind of thing is normal, not amazing

砂川は

Suna..

101

あたたかい目でオレを見ていたんじゃないだろうか

Doesn’t he look at me with warm eyes?

ずっと

Always?

102

ずっと

Always..

誠の友情だね!

He’s your friend!

友情か…昔から

Friends, for a long time

103

そうだな…

Well, you see…

なぜ友達なのかとよく聞かれたが

It’s often asked why we are friends

家が隣だからという理由だけじゃあなかったんだな

It wasn’t just because we were next door neighbors

If I have time to tackle the wall of handwriting on page 104, I’ll post my attempt lol

6 Likes

Just when I start to get into the reading flow the “chapter” for the week is already done :sweat_smile: Maybe I should just finish the manga but still hang around a bit ^^

Question about the tale told

Isn’t the oni tale a common folktale like momotaro (and others)? Why do we need to retell the story? I get that it’s about how it relates to the characters and the point he tries to make than suna has always been way too nice and caring, but why retell the story to someone who should have heard the tale already a billion times?

Since we’re already well into the second half of the book, I’m curious how the first time readers are doing?

7 Likes

First timer here!

In short, doing great! It’s been so monumentally helpful to have you all around to answer questions and help round out the reading a bit. :folded_hands:

I didn’t really know what to expect at first aside from massive confusion but it’s actually gone much smoother than I thought and I can feel myself improving which is a really exciting and strange feeling haha :sweat_smile: I remember reading someone’s post about how the in first few weeks, the reading will only be a few pages and that later on, the weekly readings will be longer because we’ll have caught on a bit by then and thinking to myself, “no way is that gonna happen to me, I need more than a couple of weeks before being able to basically double the number of pages that I read!” but it happened! Some weeks, it takes me less time to read more pages which feels almost like a superpower.

One thing that I’m doing is prioritizing grammar comprehension over story comprehension so sometimes, reading can get kind of arduous as I try to hunt down answers to things like, “what’s the ‘conjugation flow’ here?” or “what’s the purpose of this と?” or “what’s んだ doing here?”. It slows me down tremendously but it feels really good to be able to fully parse a sentence and know the purpose of each kana.

All of that being said, I’m really loving reading with you all and am already excited for ギャルと恐竜! :smiley:

11 Likes

That’s great to hear! Reading my first manga with the ABBC was a game changer for me, never looked back and now I read novels in Japanese :slightly_smiling_face:

7 Likes

Interesting, I mostly gave up on this because there was too much nuance and small details for me to grasp.

Not sure if I strictly count as first-time but it’s been long enough since my last attempt to follow a book club that I wrote an answer anyway.

I’m quite happy with the club, I’ve been mostly lurking but keeping up with the reading, barely.

I started out translating sentences for myself and now I’ve switched to thinking “understood the gist of it” is OK.

Might be a factor of time/energy I can dedicate to the book club, but I’m still happy to have joined, and lately there’s some pages that are a nice surprise of how much easier they seem.

On the other hand, I’ve mostly read through Takeo’s story telling and it took a while - there’s a lot of room for me to improve my reading skills and speed :laughing:

8 Likes

I think that’s quite a natural transition :slight_smile: at first, basically every word, every sentence structure, etc is new. So of course one would have to look up everything and translate word by word, cause you wouldn’t even know where to start. But after a while you figure out basic sentence structures and which parts are actually important and which ones are just fillers. So after a while, one can switch to “just the gist” :slight_smile: Not everybody likes the “gist” approach (I love it ^^), but in the end, whatever gets you reading more is best :slight_smile:

6 Likes

I’ve participated in a couple of book clubs and find that I go back and forth - some weeks I feel like really digging in and analyzing, and other weeks I’m good with “just the gist.” One thing I’d recommend if you’re reading “just the gist” is to pick a sentence or two that are really baffling to you, and try to diagram it properly. I find that helps with identifying grammar points (i.e. this coming week when I completely blanked on なさい (JLPT N4) | Bunpro).

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This is generally what I do too. I think a balance between both methods of reading is good- too much “just the gist” and you might find yourself lacking true comprehension without noticing. Too much analyzing and you might find yourself losing enjoyment in your reading.

7 Likes