Beginner Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった // Next 葬送のフリーレン, then ウスズミの果て

Hm, yeah, that’s going to fall right in the middle of the intermediate book club.

Yeah, we should be starting the next Beginner book on the 10th of August.

And no, we haven’t nominated that one yet :stuck_out_tongue: I also have it on the back-burner but was going to save it for the next round :grin:

3 Likes

I’m currently reading a Manga that I really like, and that I think would be a good fit for the Beginner Book Club. So here goes :slight_smile:

青の島とねこ1匹

Summary

The freshly graduated teacher Souta escapes the capital’s buzz and moves to a small island in the inland sea where he wants to start his first job. He is planning to live at his senpai’s place whom he knew from long ago, but when he gets to the place, he discovers that the senpai is not there, only his daughter and a cat. So he moves in to live with the two…

都会の喧騒から離れて草太が訪れたのは瀬戸内海の小さな島。大学時代の先輩をたより下宿生活をしようと考えるが、そこには、先輩はおらず、少女とねこと生活することに…。『ぱすてる』の小林俊彦が放つ、瀬戸内島女子高生×同居コミック!! 読み切り作品『セーラー服と監禁中。』を併録。

Availability

Amazon.jp
Bookwalker

Personal Opinion

I’m halfway through the manga, and I really like it so far. It tells the story of life on the small island, as the teacher gradually discovers it, with the girl as his guide. This gives a nice feeling of summer chill-out :slight_smile:

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Easy read, vocabulary- and kanji-wise (I found it easier to read than Girls’ Last Tour)
  • Nice and easygoing story, quite funny sometimes
  • Beautiful drawings, very realistic

Cons

  • The islanders speak dialect (seems to be a mixture of Kansai and Hiroshima ben?) which is mainly expressed in different verb endings, not so much in different vocabulary. (Please have a look at the additional pages, where I captured some of it.)

EDIT: I just discovered that the manga itself only has 190 pages (there is a (totally unrelated) bonus manga added at the end).

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One



Additional Pages

The first appearance of dialect, where the teacher meets the girl (who uses dialect):



Beautiful drawings:

Heavy use of dialect (meeting the neighbours at a party):

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

9 Likes

You had me at cat. :relaxed:

9 Likes

Oh, I forgot to mention (can I still edit my post or will this kill the poll? :sweat_smile:)

This is a brand-new manga, it was released in April 2019. This means that probably the availability of used books is a bit limited? (No idea how popular this manga is.)

Also, for people who want to keep reading the series, we can only read as quickly as the author releases new volumes. (Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing though, given my current reading backlog :rofl: )

3 Likes

So, I also feel like suggesting a manga. Not the first one I read, but still one of the earlier one. I was still (officially) under N4 when I read it. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already on the forum and somehow felt like reading it again :stuck_out_tongue:

ご近所物語

Summary

幸田実果子 は、矢澤芸術学院(通称ヤザガク)の服飾デザイン科に通う高校1年生。夢はデザイナーになって自分のブランドの店を持つことで、夢の実現のために頑張っている。同じマンションのお隣さん 山口ツトム との恋愛や、彼女を取り巻く友人・知人たちの人間模様・恋模様を描く。

(The English summary on wikipedia makes no sense, have a bad translation instead:)
Koda Mikako is a first year student in the Clothing Design department of the Yazawa Art Academy (Yazagaku for short) [Nb: that’s a specialized high school, not a university]. She is working hard to accomplish her dream of becoming a designer and creating her own brand. This story depicts the relations of the friends and acquaintances who surround her, as well as her romance with Yamaguchi Tsutomu, who leaves in the same building as her.

Availability

The one I read is this one: (standard edition)
Amazon.jp
Bookwalker

However, there’s also a complete edition available, with each volume being two volumes of the standard edition… I don’t know which one would be best for the club.

Personal Opinion

As I mentioned, this is one of the first manga I could read in Japanese and I really loved it. The story is fairly straightforward and the language (and situation) very close to everyday life, which makes it a good pick for the beginner book club as well.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Language isn’t too complicated
  • Furigana on everything (… wait, is that a cons?)
  • Story grounded in real life and easy to relate too, which makes it easier to understand what’s happening even without full comprehension.

Cons

  • I dunno? Maybe the fact it’s yet another manga?

Pictures

First Three Pages of Chapter One



Additional Pages


Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

4 Likes

Those sample pages look quite a bit like Toshihiko Kobayashi’s art style. In which case, is the humour 90% derived from him accidentally walking in on her in the bath and getting slapped for his troubles?

1 Like

Heh, not quite, but along the lines :slight_smile:

Spoilers galore

Actually, she is taking quite an active role in making him embarrassed, and initially I was quite worried whether this would go down the slippery slope (which I don’t need at all), but so far, everything is fine!
The funniest embarrassment so far: The teacher is expecting to move in with his senpai, but the senpai is on an extended business trip, and the girl (his daughter) wants the new teacher to move into her place (which he tries to refuse because omg and what will the neighbours think), so she already told the neighbours up-front that he is a relative and invites them to a welcome party for him. All neighbours are really happy to see him there “so that finally somebody can take care of the girl” and of course he is very embarrassed because of this lie and the constellation and everything.

3 Likes

I guess we’d need to decide before voting…? Or maybe it would be better to wait and see whether it wins, and then those who plan to read it can decide…

1 Like

Yeah. I guess we can vote on that later if it wins. I sure hope it does!
Random rambling: since I have read the original version, I feel it might be nice to read the complete edition… but I did so before I knew you should check under the dust jacket for bonus stuff, so the original version still has things to offer :thinking:

2 Likes

Ai Yazawa still has my heart because of Nana, so I’d be keen to give this a read.

3 Likes

When are you guys voting on the next book?

1 Like

I was just wondering that too since we’re half way done with this one.

I was going to open it this weekend but I went on a last-minute holiday :grin:

Let’s say we’ll open voting on Wednesday (26th), with the intention to close it on Sunday or sooner if voting has dried up.

Can somebody edit the title for me?

Beginner Japanese Book Club - Now Rating Samples! (Currently Reading: 銭天堂)

I’m still working on regaining my regular status :unamused: but I’ll add the new nominations to the OP this evening.

1 Like

It’s a little odd that you can’t change the title since it’s a wiki…

I thought it was weird too. Seemingly I can change everything about the content, but not the title? Maybe I’ll try again…

1 Like

昨日は本を貰いました。一緒に読みましょう!

Yes yes I know I’m super late :joy:


5 Likes

I’ve added the new nominations we’ve had to the OP and will open the voting in a few hours :blush: last chance to read the samples and vote on difficulty!

@NicoleIsEnough - just wanted to check that the English title I gave yours makes sense?!

3 Likes

Turns out that Ao is the name of the girl that‘s depicted on the cover, so I would probably go with „Ao‘s Island and a Cat“ or „…and One Cat“ - whatever you prefer :slight_smile:

Right, from looking at the cover I kind of suspected that might be the case :grin:

:+1:

1 Like