Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

Intermediate Japanese Book Club

Welcome to our Japanese book club! In this club we choose a Japanese book, read it together, and discuss what we’ve read. It could be meaningful discussion on the content, questions about vocabulary and grammar that confuse us, or just motivating each other to keep moving.

We’d love it if you joined the club! All you have to do is buy the next book lined up, read along with the schedule and join in the discussion!

Expected reading pace: We aim to read books at ~15 pages per week (that number might vary a bit throughout, depending on the book’s breaks and chapters). For manga, depending on difficulty and chapter length, we will probably read one to several chapters per week. The pick’s exact reading schedule will be negotiated before the book club kicks off.

If you’re looking for something a bit more easygoing, maybe the Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった is for you!
And if you’re looking for a challenge, the Advanced Japanese Book Club // Now reading: 傲慢と善良 // Next: 虐殺器官 - Genocidal Organ should be right up your sleeve!


Now reading: セーラー服と機関銃

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Start Date: Feb 17th


Book Proposals

How to Propose Books

Proposal Guidelines

Courtesy of fl0rm and the beginner book club (adapted for this club).

  • Nominate something you are ready to read

    • This is a big cooperative group, but there’s always a minority keeping things active. If your pick wins, there’ll be some expectation that you contribute throughout.
    • If you can’t read your own sample pages (at least mostly) you may not be able to judge the difficulty effectively, and won’t be able to help others much.
    • Furigana does not imply something is easy (or vice versa); it’s just one factor contributing to difficulty.
  • Books nominated must not be longer than 350 pages

    • Our reading pace means this is the longest we could tackle within a reasonable timeframe.
    • A book of short stories can be longer: we will only pick select stories.
  • Do not nominate anything clearly NSFW

    • This can be hard to judge without reading the book, but if you’d associate the work with fanservice or gore, even if just by reputation, please don’t suggest it for this group.
  • Try to pick something reasonably well-known

    • This will increase the reader pool as more people will be interested / already have a copy.
    • People will be more able to re-sell or pass along their copy after reading.
    • Popular works often have more accessible language.
    • Some participants may have already read it, and themes are probably broadly understood, making it easier for members to help each other and for readers to draw inferences from context.
  • Books that fail to score at least 20% on the last three round of voting will get automatically removed.

    • This approach ensures that the list remains reasonably small and dynamic.
    • You may nominate a removed book again, but please think about it before hand. Do you think there’s reasonable interest for that nomination?
Proposal Template

Taken directly from the beginner book club.

Copy this template into a new post when proposing a book/manga.

For page samples, you can either take photos of your own copy (try to make the three additional pages ‘representative’ if possible), grab photos from the internet, or use previews from e.g. Amazon, BookWalker, EBookJapan. Make sure the text is legible!

# Insert Title Here

Author:
Page count:
Natively link:

## Summary
[details=“Japanese”]
Add Japanese summary here.
[/details]
[details=“English”]
Add English summary here.
[/details]

## Availability
Insert link to book on amazon.co.jp here.
Insert link(s) to eBook here, or mention if an eBook is not available.

## Personal Opinion
Insert why you think this book would be good to read, personally and for the book club here.

### Pros and Cons for the Book Club
#### Pros
* Insert pros here.
#### Cons
* Insert cons here.

## Pictures

[details=“First Three Pages of Chapter One”]
Insert images here (can be photos from you or the internet, or from ebook previews).
[/details]

[details=“Additional Pages”]
Insert a few more images here - try to make them representative.
[/details]

Current Proposals

The nomination posts linked under each entry will give you further information, including sample pages.

1. きらきらひかる

Nomination Post
Page count: 213 pages

2. 天気の子

Nomination Post
Page count: 320 pages

3. 穴

Nomination Post
Page count: 208

Asa’s husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family’s home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips to the supermarket, halfheartedly looks for work, and tries to find interesting ways of killing time.
One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she comes across a strange creature, follows it to the embankment of a river, and ends up falling into a hole–a hole that seems to have been made specifically for her. This is the first in a series of bizarre experiences that drive Asa deeper into the mysteries of this rural landscape filled with eccentric characters and unidentifiable creatures, leading her to question her role in this world, and eventually, her sanity.

4. 人質の朗読会

Nomination Post
Page count: 247

人質の朗読会 (‘the recitals of the hostages’) is another work by Ogawa, like Revenge, that is only very loosely a novel and is composed of a series of essentially distinct stories – nine of them. The set-up, or framing device, is quite striking – bizarre even - and naturally colors the reading of the pieces themselves: a short prefatory section explains that a minibus with seven tourists, their guide, and the driver, travelling somewhere on the other side of the globe, was attacked by a group of local anti-government guerillas while on its way to visit some local ruins. The tourists and their guide were taken hostage; negotiations went nowhere, and after more than three months the government launched an attack against the rebels; the hostages were all killed in the rescue attempt. Two years later recordings from their time in captivity were made public, recording of each of the eight hostages recounting a story or memory they had written – a task they had been able to focus on in their otherwise so difficult situation.
The rest of the book then consists of these eight recitals by the hostages, one for each evening.

5. 嵐のピクニック

Nomination Post
Page count: 208 pages

A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique–which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking businessmen struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon–until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A woman working in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won’t come out of the fitting room–and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her husband’s features are beginning to slide around his face–to match her own.

In these eleven* stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien–and, through it, find a way to liberation. The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most fearlessly inventive young writers.

6. 西の魔女が死んだ

Nomination Post

Author: 梨木なしき香歩かほ
Page count: 226

7. パレード

Nomination Post

Author: 吉田 修一
Page count: 282

8. 掏摸

Nomination Post

Author:中村文則
Page count:192

9. とんがり帽子のアトリエ (Manga)

Nomination Post

10. 旅猫リポート

Nomination Post

11. 森崎書店の日々

Nomination Post

12. ぼっち・ざ・ろっく!(Manga)

Nomination Post

13. 夜警

Nomination Post

14. すずめの戸締まり

Nomination Post

15. NANA―ナナ― (Manga)

Nomination Post

Over at Natively, there is also a list of the WK Intermediate Japanese Book Club Nominations | Japanese list by nikoru | Natively, where you can directly check out the books’ levels and reviews.



Purchasing Books

Please see the Discussion Thread of the current book for direct purchasing links.

Physical Books

Two good options for purchasing physical books are:

The former has economy shipping options which are likely to be cheaper but slower. You can also check out the Amazon site for your home country, or might be able to find the book on Amazon US.

If you can’t find an online store that will ship to you, you can use a forwarding service like Tenso or White Rabbit Express to forward the package to you for a fee. Alternatively, you may be able to find the book at a local Japanese book store such as Kinokuniya; just google your area.

Book types:

eBooks

There are several places you may be able to purchase eBooks:


Voice Chat

The club has a Discord server, which is sometimes used for voice chats / read-along sessions. See specific book threads for current activity.


Previous Books

Links to Discussion Threads

Book 1 | No. 6
Book 2 | Autumn Prison
Book 3 | An Unexpected Conclusion in 5 Minutes: Red Nightmares
Book 4 | The Devil is a Part-Timer!
Book 5 | Kino’s Journey
Book 6 | Convenience Store Woman
Book 7 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Book 8 | キッチン (Kitchen)
Book 9 | 氷菓 (Hyouka)
Book 10 | 夜市 (Night Market)
Book 11 | 聖☆おにいさん (Saint Young Men)
Book 12 | 博士の愛した数式
Book 13 | 君の名は (Your Name)
Book 14 | コーヒーが冷めないうちに
Book 15 | ヨコハマ買い出し紀行
Book 16 | 地球星人
Book 17 | 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん
Book 18 | Spy x Family
Book 19 | TUGUMI
Book 20 | おばちゃんたちのいるところ
Book 21 | 僕が愛したすべての君へ
Book 22 | あん
Book 23 | あなたも殺人犯になれる!
Book 24 | (forthcoming) セーラー服と機関銃

Over at Natively, there is also a list of the Books read by the WK Intermediate Japanese Book Club | Japanese list by nikoru | Natively so far.


Historic Votes

Book Selection Polls
Poll # Date #Voters Winner
Poll 1 2017-07-12 23 No. 6 (conducted in the old thread)
Poll 2 2017-08-08 48 Autumn Prison
Poll 3 2017-10-31 26 Red Nightmares (An Unexpected Conclusion in 5 Minutes)
Poll 4 2018-02-27 18 The Devil is a Part-Timer
Poll 5 2019-01-25 60 Kino’s Journey (nomination)
Poll 6 2019-04-24 39 The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (nomination)
Convenience Store Woman (nomination)
Poll 7 2019-08-15
Tie-break poll
41 キッチン (nomination)
Poll 8 2019-11-22 27 氷菓 (nomination)
Poll 9 2020-04-01 24 Night Market (nomination)
Poll 10 2020-07-10 29 聖☆おにいさん (nomination)
博士の愛した数式 (nomination)
Poll 11 2021-01-09 26 君の名は (nomination)
Poll 12 2021-05-07 34 コーヒーが冷めないうちに (nomination)
Poll 13 2021-09-08 34 ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 (nomination)
地球星人 (nomination)
Poll 14 2022-02-16 40 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん (nomination)
Poll 15 2022-05-03 39 Spy x Family (nomination)
TUGUMI (nomination)
Poll 16 2022-09-13 21 おばちゃんたちのいるところ (nomination)
Poll 17 2023-01-02 24 僕が愛したすべての君へ (nomination)
Poll 18 2023-05-19 31 あん (nomination)
Poll 19 2023-09-06 26 あなたも殺人犯になれる! (nomination)
Poll 20 2024-01-02 43 セーラー服と機関銃 (nomination)
Favorite pick poll
Other Polls

Poll regarding the beginner-level book club - Result: Beginners’ Book Club formed

Poll regarding how many votes each person should get - Result: 5 votes

Poll regarding whether to read two books in parallel - Result: no!

Poll to decide how to break the tie on round 7 - Result: extra poll



Archive

Proposals that got turned into their own book clubs
Name + Book Club link
君の膵臓を食べたい
I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
Nomination Post
魔法少女育成計画
Magical Girl Raising Project
Nomination Post
青春ブタ野郎はバニーガール先輩の夢を見ない
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny-Girl Senpai
Nomination Post
世界から猫が消えたなら
If cats disappeared from the world
Nomination Post
マンガ✖くり返しでスイスイ覚えられる百人一首
Smoothly Memorise with Manga and Repetition: The Hyakunin Isshu
Nomination Post
Proposals that were removed due to lack of interest

In order to keep the list of nominations fresh and interesting, we might think about removing those that frequently get only few votes in the polls.
Therefore we set a threshold of 20%. A book will be removed from the list of nominations if it reached this percentage or less in three polls in a row. (The polls overview seems to always round down, so we need to manually recalculate if it is a close call.)
This table is used to keep track of the books that were removed or are in danger of being removed:

Book 1st time 2nd time 3rd time Removed
(Manga) Made in Abyss 08/2019
(Manga) Land of the Lustrous 08/2019
The Familiar of Zero 08/2019
紅霞後宮物語 08/2019
The Closet of Nightmares 08/2019
Door D 08/2019
Wolf Children Ame & Yuki 11/2019
A lollipop or a bullet 11/2019
Tokyo Cat Stroll 11/2019
最先端の日本酒ペアリング
ー SAKE PAIRING
07/2020
空挺ドラゴンズ 07/2020
1リットルの涙 難病と
闘い続ける少女亜也の日記
Poll 9 (12%) Poll 10 (10%) Poll 11 (11%) 01/2021
灰と幻想のグリムガル Poll 11 (11%) 01/2021
(by nominator)
City Poll 11 (7%) 01/2021
(by nominator)
変愛サイケデリック Poll 10 (13%) Poll 11 (3%) Poll 12 (0%) 05/2021
All You Need Is Kill Poll 11 (15%) Poll 12 (11%) Poll 13 (14%) 09/2021
もやしもん - Tales of Agriculture Poll 11 (15%) Poll 12 (17%) Poll 13 (11%) 09/2021
ブギーポップは笑わない Poll 11 (11%) Poll 12 (17%) Poll 13 (5%) 09/2021
ポーション頼みで生き延びます! Poll 11 (3%) Poll 12 (8%) Poll 13 (14%) 09/2021
ifの悲劇 Poll 12 (17%) Poll 13 (14%) Poll 14 (12%) 02/2022
くま クマ 熊 ベアー Poll 13 (14%) Poll 14 (20%) Poll 15 (17%) 05/2022
City Poll 13 (14%) Poll 14 (12%) Poll 15 (15%) 05/2022
山と食欲と私 Poll 13 (17%) Poll 14 (10%) Poll 15 (15%) 05/2022
笑顔のたえない職場です。 Poll 14 (17%) Poll 15 (20%) Poll 16 (9%) 09/2022
Just Because! Poll 14 (10%) Poll 15 (5%) Poll 16 (4%) 09/2022
リング Poll 15 (17%) Poll 16 (9%) Poll 17 (16%) 01/2023
推しの子 Poll 16 (19%) Poll 17 (16%) Poll 18 (19%) 05/2023
日本人の知らない日本語 Poll 16 (14%) Poll 17 (16%) Poll 18 (19%) 05/2023
死にたいけどトッポッキは食べたい Poll 16 (9%) Poll 17 (12%) Poll 18 (6%) 05/2023
禎子の千羽鶴 Poll 17 (4%) Poll 18 (12%) Poll 19 (7%) 09/2023
少年と犬 Poll 17 (12%) Poll 18 (6%) Poll 19 (7%) 09/2023
はたらく細胞 Poll 17 (4%) Poll 18 (3%) Poll 19 (7%) 09/2023
ガイコツ書店員本田さん Poll 17 (12%) Poll 18 (16%) Poll 19 (19%) 09/2023
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) Poll 18 (19%) Poll 19 (3%) Poll 20 (6%) 01/2024
天気の子 Poll 19 (15%) Poll 20 (13%)
Poll 20 (9%)
森崎書店の日々 Poll 20 (9%)
嵐のピクニック Poll 20 (11%)
パレード Poll 20 (11%)
きらきらひかる Poll 20 (11%)
NANA―ナナ― Poll 20 (16%)
旅猫リポート Poll 20 (18%)
夜警 Poll 20 (18%)
人質の朗読会 Poll 20 (18%)
ぼっち・ざ・ろっく! Poll 20 (18%)

Other

Title___________ Synopsis Pitch Store Link
ナナブンノイチ
One in Seven
Seems to be a tale about a band of fraudsters / con artists planning an operation - with some double crossing intrigue going on between the members. Don’t know for sure about this book, but in general the author is known for having a comic style to his writing. Post Amazon
ネガティブハッピー・チェーンソーエッヂ
Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge
This is by the same author as Welcome to the NHK and seems to contain some similar themes. However, it has a Kindle edition and is aimed at a youth audience so ought not to feature some of the more questionable content some people were worried about.

Story is about a high school boy who is riding home on his bike one day and comes across a girl fighting a man wielding a chainsaw. From what I can understand this is not really explained and is more a representation of the boy’s desire to find someone to ‘save’. The two team up and form a bond while the girl continues her nightly fights.

Post Amazon
アフターダーク
After Dark
Murakami’s shortest and probably easiest to read work. Set over the course of a single night and the first (I believe) of his novels not to be written from a first-person 僕 perspective, this centres on two sisters - one asleep in a mysterious room and viewed through a camera, the other out and about in Tokyo where she encounters various unusual characters including a jazz musician and a love hotel manager. Post Amazon
Classics Club Oreki Houtarou is a self-proclaimed “energy-saver”—that is, he refuses to actively waste energy doing things that aren’t necessary. Though he had no interest whatsoever in participating in any clubs upon entering Kamiyama High School, he was commanded by his older sister, Tomoe, to join the club she was once a part of, the Classics Club, as it was in danger of being abolished due to its nonexistent member count. Together with his old friends Fukube Satoshi and Ibara Mayaka, as well as with the elegantly ladylike and curiously inquisitive Chitanda Eru, the newly reformed Classics Club ends up finding themselves involved in all sorts of mystery-solving escapades. Houtarou quickly learns that life in the Classics Club, just as Tomoe had promised, would be an interesting one indeed. And so begins the “Classics Club Series”. Post -
ほしのこえ In this timeless, interstellar love story, the power of love must conquer the distance of outer space. Rated for teens. Post Amazon
怒り A grisly unsolved murder links three seemingly unrelated people in three different Japanese cities. Post Amazon
クリムゾンの迷宮 From a rising new star of horror comes a killer read that will make you lose track of time and reality. The Crimson Labyrinth is a wicked satire on extremist reality TV in the tradition of The Running Man-if that indeed is what it is. Welcome to THE MARS LABYRINTH where things aren’t what they seem. Welcome to the world of Kishi, where the plot is as gnarly as the humor is twisted. When an unemployed former math major wakes up one day, he wonders if he’s somehow ended up on the red planet. The good-looking young woman with aid-she says her name is Ai and that she draws erotic comics for a living-seems to have no clue either as to their whereabouts. Their only leads are cryptic instructions beamed to a portable device. Has the game begun? There is no reset button, no saving and no continue-make the wrong move and it’s really GAME OVER. In the cruel world of THE MARS LABYRINTH, mercy and compassion are only for the weak or the very, very strong. The stakes are nothing less than your life-and apparently a lot of money. If you’re a fan of Lost or Battle Royale, don’t miss this one Post Amazon
やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている Hachiman Hikigaya is a cynic. “Youth” is a crock, he believes–a sucker’s game, an illusion woven from failure and hypocrisy. But when he turns in an essay for a school assignment espousing this view, he’s sentenced to work in the Service Club, an organization dedicated to helping students with problems in their lives! How will Hachiman the Cynic cope with a job that requires–gasp!–optimism? Post Amazon

Proposals that were removed for other reasons

言の葉の庭 (too long)

Discussion Instructions

Discussions about the story start at the end of each reading period, but other discussions (for example on the language or on the book club itself) can of course be performed at any time. Just make sure to use [spoiler] tags for sentences that contain spoilers!

Early Book Club Members
はたらく魔王さま Member List
  • :open_book: Snowflying
  • :open_book: fl0rm
  • :closed_book: scaso
  • :open_book: LucasDesu
  • :open_book: Naphthalene
  • :closed_book: NickNickovich
  • :closed_book: Momoiro
  • :open_book: AngelTenshi
Red Nightmares Member List
  • :open_book: LucasDesu
  • :open_book: Naphthalene
  • :open_book: NickNickovich
  • :open_book: Steffy47
  • :open_book: Ell
  • :open_book: Snowflying
  • :open_book: Toyger
  • :open_book: Rain32
  • :open_book: Angel
  • :open_book: charlesfm
  • :closed_book: Dorotheian
Autumn Prison Member List
  • :open_book: Angel
  • :open_book: Caracal
  • :open_book: chrispthompson
  • :open_book: DuncanDean
  • :open_book: Hgbearawesome
  • :open_book: katiesaccount
  • :open_book: Kumirei
  • :open_book: LucasDesu
  • :open_book: mitsuki777
  • :open_book: Nath
  • :open_book: NickNickovich
  • :open_book: polv
  • :open_book:: saiakuma
  • :open_book: Scaso
  • :open_book: Snowflying
  • :open_book: Toyger
  • :open_book: Mechturk
  • :open_book: StellaTerra
  • :closed_book: Alineiwane
  • :closed_book: AnimeCanuck
  • :closed_book: Answa
  • :closed_book: Atrejub
  • :closed_book: Ddleighc
  • :closed_book: downtimes
  • :closed_book: EiriMatsu
  • :closed_book: ish93
  • :closed_book: krokorock
  • :closed_book: mechmouse
  • :closed_book: Mohkargan
  • :closed_book: Nehaahmed
  • :closed_book: Netru
  • :closed_book: Oryantge
  • :closed_book: pgoonghang
  • :closed_book: Riccyjay
  • :truck: chofas
  • Ell (lurking, will participate with next book and read the discussion of 秋の牢獄)
No. 6 Member List
  • :open_book: Addietaylor
  • :open_book: Answa
  • :open_book: Arnagos
  • :open_book: Caracal (slowly)
  • :open_book: Carlap
  • :open_book: Chrispthompson
  • :open_book: Downtimes
  • :open_book: GaijinInu641 (reading, but really slowly)
  • :open_book: Hgbearawesome
  • :open_book: Icefang97
  • :open_book: Ichou
  • :open_book: katiesaccount
  • :open_book: KuzunohaXIV
  • :open_book: LTMumfordIII
  • :open_book: LucasDesu
  • :open_book: Plumenator
  • :open_book: Scaso
  • :open_book: SilverRose009
  • :open_book: Snowflying
  • :open_book: Softlyraining
  • :open_book: Toc
  • :closed_book: Aemaeth
  • :closed_book: AmethystPersona0
  • :closed_book: AngelTenshi
  • :closed_book: Dimono (have the book but planning to just read at my own pace and read the discussion afterwards)
  • :closed_book: Dnmj95
  • :closed_book: Dokuchan
  • :closed_book: Egd001
  • :closed_book: Eucibous
  • :closed_book: Hanalee
  • :closed_book: Jhamonnet
  • :closed_book: Jintanuki
  • :closed_book: JKO
  • :closed_book: Kumirei
  • :closed_book: LankyAusMan
  • :closed_book: MissMisc
  • :closed_book: Obskyr
  • :closed_book: Polv
  • :closed_book: riccyjay
  • :closed_book: Toyger
  • :closed_book: Trishcakes
  • :closed_book: Tru
  • :truck: Anchang
  • :truck: Annshin
  • :truck: Bakugou
  • :truck: Ersikan
  • :truck: Humla
  • :truck: Maxkao
  • :truck: Tapatun
  • AnimeCanuck (still working on grammar)
  • DuncanDean (lurking, has ordered 秋の牢獄 for the next round)
  • Kyayna (lurking, will participate with next book)
  • Megbc (lurking, will participate with next book)
  • NathaliRe (lurking, will participate with next book)
  • Pydron (lurking, will participate with next book)

Key
:open_book:: Has book and is currently reading along.
:closed_book:: Has book but is not yet reading.
:truck:: Has ordered or will order / buy book.



87 Likes

Here’s a summary of the first book vote, conducted in the old thread (where you can also see the actual poll)!


Book vote #1 (2017-07-12)

The very first vote! It went by in a flash, whoa.

Options

No.6

A PERFECT LIFE, IN A PERFECT CITY For Shion, an elite student in the technologically sophisticated city No. 6, life is carefully choreographed. School, study, and the occasional visit with his friend and classmate Safu. One fateful day, however, he takes a misstep, sheltering an injured boy his age from a typhoon. Known only as Rat, this boy is a VC - a fugitive living outside the computerized tapestry of city control - and helping him will throw Shion’s life into chaos and start him down a path to discovering the appalling secrets behind the superficial perfection of No. 6. [/details] [details=キノの旅] Kino wanders around the world on the back of Hermes, her unusual, anthropomorphic motorcycle, and discovers that the world’s imperfections hold its true beauty. [/details] [details=はたらく魔王さま] Do you want fries with your hellfire? Being soundly thrashed by the hero Emilia, the Devil King and his general beat a hasty retreat to a parallel universe…only to land smack in the middle of bustling, modern-day Tokyo! Lacking the magic necessary to return home, the two are forced to assume human identities and live average human lives until they can find a better solution. And to make ends meet, Satan finds gainful employment at a nearby fast food joint! With his devilish mind set on working his way up the management food chain, what will become of his thirst for conquest?! [/details] [details=ほしのこえ] In this timeless, interstellar love story, the power of love must conquer the distance of outer space. Rated for teens. [/details] [details=魔女の宅急便] Kiki is a resourceful, spunky girl who follows her maternal tradition to be a witch. She possesses only one gift of witchcraft – the power to fly. Like all young witches, she sets out at age 12 to find a town of her own. With her ever-present companion Jiji – a cynical and faithful black cat – Kiki departs on her broomstick and arrives at a big town near the ocean. Though nervous at first, she soon sets up a business delivering packages. Kiki meets all kinds of people and has many adventures. She befriends the thief who stole her broomstick and saves the town’s traditional New Year’s marathon with some courageous and timely flying. Throughout, Kiki’s confidence and self-awareness grows as she learns to value her unique talents. And with Kiki’s help, the townspeople realize that everyone has some magic that gives them their own special character and vitality. This is a charming and delightful tale that is reminiscent of children’s favorites The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy and Astrid Lindgren’s Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. Black and white line drawings sprinkled throughout reveal the humor and warmth in everything Kiki does. [/details] [details=君の名は] Mitsuha, a high school girl living in a small town in the mountains, has a dream that she’s a boy living in Tokyo. Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo, dreams he’s a girl living in a quaint little mountain town. Sharing bodies, relationships, and lives, the two become inextricably interwoven–but are any connections truly inseverable in the grand tapestry of fate? Written by director MAKOTO SHINKAI during the production of the film by the same title, your name. is in turns funny, heartwarming, and heart-wrenching as it follows the struggles of two young people determined to hold on to one another. [/details] [details=怒り] A grisly unsolved murder links three seemingly unrelated people in three different Japanese cities. [/details] [details=クリムゾンの迷宮] From a rising new star of horror comes a killer read that will make you lose track of time and reality. The Crimson Labyrinth is a wicked satire on extremist reality TV in the tradition of The Running Man-if that indeed is what it is. Welcome to THE MARS LABYRINTH where things aren’t what they seem. Welcome to the world of Kishi, where the plot is as gnarly as the humor is twisted. When an unemployed former math major wakes up one day, he wonders if he’s somehow ended up on the red planet. The good-looking young woman with aid-she says her name is Ai and that she draws erotic comics for a living-seems to have no clue either as to their whereabouts. Their only leads are cryptic instructions beamed to a portable device. Has the game begun? There is no reset button, no saving and no continue-make the wrong move and it’s really GAME OVER. In the cruel world of THE MARS LABYRINTH, mercy and compassion are only for the weak or the very, very strong. The stakes are nothing less than your life-and apparently a lot of money. If you’re a fan of Lost or Battle Royale, don’t miss this one [/details] [details=やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている] Hachiman Hikigaya is a cynic. “Youth” is a crock, he believes–a sucker’s game, an illusion woven from failure and hypocrisy. But when he turns in an essay for a school assignment espousing this view, he’s sentenced to work in the Service Club, an organization dedicated to helping students with problems in their lives! How will Hachiman the Cynic cope with a job that requires–gasp!–optimism? [/details] [details=時をかける少女] One of Tsutsui’s best-known and most popular works in his native Japan, The Girl Who Leapt through Time is the story of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Kazuko, who accidentally discovers that she can leap back and forth in time. In her quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious figure that she believes to be responsible for her paranormal abilities, she’ll have to push the boundaries of space and time, and challenge the notions of dream and reality. [/details] [details=人類は衰退しました] For years, declining birth rates have forced what’s left of the human race to cede more and more territory to other beings who have appeared to take advantage of the emptying ecological niche. Now, only a handful of humans remain among the remnants of civilization and Earth is dominated by faeries —tiny, ten-inch tall creatures of surprising intelligence. But humanity’s importance isn’t over quite yet, as young Watashi learns as she makes the decision to return to her hometown and assume her grandfather’s position as an arbitrator between the races. Unfortunately, the job isn’t going to be anywhere near as simple as she expected, and it’s going to take a wisdom far beyond her years to achieve her most important mission.

Vote (completed 2017-07-14)

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Thank you for all your help, I really appreciate it.

And thank you everyone else who has contributed to organization, and for joining the club.

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I’m so excited for this to begin! :tada::laughing::tada:

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Woot! I made it to the new thread! I can’t wait to start too! :star_struck:

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I’ve already read No.6 but book clubs are always dope so :clap:

Little comment tough, I don’t think that’s the compete set? Unless It’s just a different version of the serializations I’m aware of. The two I know have the regular 9 books and there’s also No.6 Beyond making it a 10 book series :stuck_out_tongue:

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Whoops, you’re right. I was looking at another posting that said “完全生産限定版”. Editing to fix.

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Komaeda is like the most popular character for some reason. I really don’t get it. He’s just terrible. Not a good guy at all. I think what people who like him don’t consider is that he’s actually the worst!

Same with Byakuya. He’s gross and I think he should be illegal.

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haha…are we supposed to reply to the new thread?

le whoooops copy pastes

I’ve usually gone with Tenso in the past but this was my first time hearing about blackship and maybe it’s one you could try out? I do find it hilarious that they literally have a “compare with tenso.com” section. if it’s by White Rabbit it can’t be too sketch and it does sound slightly cheaper. If you want to forward, it might be something to consider if you don’t want to go digital. Let me know how it goes if you do!

Tsutsui’s works are fabulous. Paprika is just as much a trip to read in Japanese as it is to watch it. But the Tsutsui work people tend to hold up as his “this is it!” is 「旅のラゴス」. Which I definitely recommend someday checking out if you like Tsutsui’s feels. It’s a damn good book in my opinion.

I’m kinda surprised that out of all of Kishi’s works クリムゾンの迷宮 got recommended haha…because of the other books in the vote I would’ve expected 「新世界より」 to come up or even 「青の火」. Though 新世界より’s difficulty is probably up there in the realms of weird stuff going on language wise as it progresses.

Not gonna lie, I’m kinda surprised that with sci-fi-y ones like No.6 and キノの旅 up there 「All You Need Is Kill」 isn’t up there. Particularly because it’s just one book not a series. It’s another one of those even-though-it’s-a-sci-fi-it’s-not-overly-difficult kinda fun deals.

I wish I’d noticed this thread sooner because 「虐殺器官」is the sci-fi book I want to push. Am I bringing it up because its movie recently got screened in America and reminded me? …yes :stuck_out_tongue: I haven’t seen the movie but it’s still one of my favorite sci-fi JP books. I may be biased, but haha

do it. Dude you have to. It sucks that it’s not sold digitally but it’s worth picking up the physical book for.

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Yo, let’s include your recommendation in the next vote! Make sure to pitch it properly when the time comes, too. :grin:

Among the Japanese books I’d like to read are All You Need is Kill, which you mentioned, and Battle Royale. The latter is kind of important, though, so I’d like to either read it in English or wait until I can read fluently.

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Oh hey, I think I might’ve found copies on Amazon US and UK. I’ll do some more research when I get home - gotta make sure they’re not the manga or anything weird like that. If they’re available there, that’d be a huge boon to us all!

hey yo! i’d like to join but i’m apparently not good enough to edit the post. ): would someone be so kind and add me to the member list? i don’t have the book but i’ll order it!

The only reason is that no one recommended any thing else. I picked a few books that I’ve been wanting to read and heard were beginner friendly, and asked people to add more suggestions. Few did, and then I made the pole a day later. But we will definitely include your recommendations next time.

Yes I definitely will. :joy: They were actually the final push that made begin learning Japanese. Before I was like I don’t really like subtitles so I think I’ll learn Japanese. But then these came out and at the time I couldn’t find translations, so I began my Japanese studies!

I really want to read battle royal too! When read it when I was 13 and it was like my favorite book ever, and everyone said that it ripped off battle royal. And I was just like, well then were is this battle royal :smirk:

Um, I guess I can’t really argue with you, they are terrible people. But that’s why I love them I suppose.:joy: I always like the bad guys, some mean characters, and the crazy ones. I also love Junko, and I don’t even know why, but I also liked Hiyoko.

@humla Of course! I’m not sure what the requirement is, but I think you just have to be here a while

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Just picked up the ebook from amazon and am looking forward to discuss this with you guys!

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ayy i’m with you on hiyoko she’s got charm…!!.. but all the others KINDA suck

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New Yorkers – 3 copies left at Book Off in Midtown Manhattan for the low low price of $4.50!

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Problem: I want to take part, but I can’t figure out the ordering from amazon jp… I have prime for amazon uk (and amazon canada for my mum :smiley:) but I can’t order it through either account… any tips? D:

Ebook or paper book?

uhhhh… this’un linked above since it’s the cheapest option for me, I think. D:

@Aemaeth Oops, never mind–looks like it does indeed ship outside Japan–I just bought it.

Now I guess I have to cancel that order since my original order (of Volume 1 only) arrives today. Or maybe I should return Volume 1 right away and keep the new order?

Now why didnt I find this item the first time around??

EDIT: Nope, I was mistaken. What am I doing…?

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