@Belthazar’s poem research club for the betterment of everyone’s education: reading マンガ✖くり返しでスイスイ覚えられる百人一首

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Goal: This thread aims to read マンガ✖くり返しでスイスイ覚えられる百人一首 and provide historical background for the poems of the 百人一首.

Official starting date: July 18th
From that point on, we will discuss 5 poems a week, but feel free to read or discuss before the official start.

Organization:

  • Each week, the OP is updated with a link jumping to the start of the current conversation
  • The thread is used to ask questions about the content of the book (like a regular book club) as well as the history, background of the poems, etc.
  • The result of the discussion is collected into the OP (which I plan to turn into a wiki), under a separate detail section for each poem (or maybe a single detail per week, so that we don’t get a crazy number of them), so that people can collaboratively contribute.

Links to discussions start:
July 18th: 1-5
July 25th: 6-10
Aug 1st: 11-15
Aug 8th: 16-20
Aug 15th: Catch-Up
Aug 22nd: 21-25
Aug 29th: 26-30
Sep 5th: 31-35
Sep 12th: 36-40
Sep 19th: Catch up

Week 1 - １首から５首まで

1 秋の田の かりほの庵の 苫をあらみ わが衣手は 露にぬれつつ (天智天皇)
Translation attempt + subsequent poetry + discussion
About the author

2 春過ぎて 夏来にけらし 白妙の 衣はすてふ 天の香具山（持統天皇）
Research by @ms12345
(discussion posts 93-99)

3 あしびきの山鳥の尾のしだり尾の ながながし夜をひとりかも寝む (柿本人麻呂)
Research by Myria and NicoleRauch

4 田子の浦に うち出でてみれば 白妙の 富士のたかねに 雪は降りつつ （山部赤人）
Research by @zyoeru
(discussion post 113)

5 奥山に 紅葉ふみ分け なく鹿の 聲きく時ぞ 秋は悲しき (猿丸大夫)
Research by @Kyayna
(discussion posts 103, 107-108, 112)

Week 2 - ６首から１０首まで

6 かささぎの 渡せる橋に おく霜の 白きをみれば 夜ぞぶけにける (中納言家持)
Research by ms12345

7 天の原 ふりさけ見れば 春日なる みかさの山に 出でし月かも (安倍仲麻呂)
Research by Kyayna

8 わが庵は 都のたつみ しかぞすむ 世をうぢ山と 人はいふなり（喜撰法師)
Research by NicoleRauch

9 花の色は 移りにけりな いたづらに 我身世にふる ながめせしまに (小野小町)
Research by zyoeru

10 これやこの 行くも帰るも 別れては 知るも知らぬも 逢坂の関 （蝉丸）
Research by ms12345

Week 3 - １１首から１５首まで

11 わたの原 八十島かけて 漕ぎ出でぬと 人には告げよ 海人の釣舟 （参議篁）
Research by NicoleRauch

12 天つ風 雲の通ひ路 吹き閉ぢよ をとめの姿 しばしとどめむ （僧正遍照）
Research by NicoleRauch

13 筑波嶺の 峰より落つる みなの川 恋ぞつもりて 淵となりぬる (陽成院 )
Research by Kyayna

14 陸奥の しのぶもぢずり 誰故に みだれ初めにし 我ならなくに (河原左大臣)
Research by Kyayna

15 君がため 春の野にいでて 若菜摘む わが衣手に 雪は降りつつ（光孝天皇）
Research by ms12345

Week 4 - １６首から２０首まで

17 ちはやぶる 神代も聞かず 竜田川 からくれなゐに 水くくるとは （在原業平朝臣）
Research by Belthazar

18 住の江の 岸による浪 よるさへや 夢の通ひ路 人目よくらむ (藤原敏行朝臣)
Research by Kyayna

19 難波潟 みじかき芦の ふしの間も 逢はでこの世を 過ぐしてよとや （伊勢）
Research by NicoleRauch

20 わびぬれば 今はた同じ 難波なる 身をつくしても 逢はむとぞ思ふ（元良親王）
Research by ms12345

Week 6 - ２１首から２５首まで

22 吹くからに 秋の草木の しをるれば むべ山風を あらしといふらむ (文屋康秀)
Research by Kyayna

24 このたびは ぬさもとりあへず 手向山 紅葉の錦 神のまにまに (菅家)
Research by ms12345

Week 7 - ２６首から３０首まで

28 山里は 冬ぞさびしさ まさりける 人目も草も かれぬと思へば（源宗于朝臣）
Research by ms12345

30 有明の つれなく見えし 別れより 暁ばかり 憂きものはなし (壬生忠岑)
Research by Kyayna

Week 8 - ３１首から３５首まで

34 誰をかも 知る人にせむ 高砂の 松も昔の 友ならなくに（藤原興風）
Research by ms12345

35 人はいさ 心もしらず ふるさとは 花ぞ昔の 香ににほひける (紀貫之)
Research by Kyayna

Week 9 - ３６首から４０首まで

Extra context:

Original nomination post
Playlist of all poems read aloud, karuta-style

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJLrH9pJIncHQithuMcZ3V6CJrNE60Rod

Note: title was coined by @Belerith
Hopefully everyone will get notified from the quotes.

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Is the title of this thread a Haruhi reference?

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You’ll have to ask @Belerith
It does sound like it, now that you mention it, but the acronym doesn’t seem to mean anything :thinking:

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Yes! More haiku! I’ll order the book as soon as I can remember to!

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Does this exist electronically? If so I am totally in. Sounds fun. :slightly_smiling_face: :turtle:

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I don’t think it does, which made it kinda borderline for the book club anyway :confused:

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I could not find an electronic version of it (which does not mean too much, but it is a data point), so even I reverted to a paperback book :woman_shrugging:

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Hm…sad. Well I will have to consider if I am willing to try to find a way to get a physical copy then. Sounds strenuous… :sweat_smile: :turtle:

@NicoleIsEnough I am pretty sure two data points make an incontrovertible scientific fact. Thanks for letting me know! :turtle: :upside_down_face:

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Argh, this looks really fun and interesting, and I’d be happy to join in with the research parts, but unfortunately, ordering anything physical from Japan is really expensive where I live. I don’t think I can afford it. Heck, I can barely afford WK every month… :sob:

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Ughhh just put in a cdjapan order a few days ago. I really like the concept, but I guess it’ll have to wait until I’ve got enough books lined up to place another order. Watching this thread to see if someone finds an ebook after all.

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yay, excited! Just to clarify on the poll choices: I would love to do the reading (obviously) and the research, and I’ll probably be really good about it the first few weeks, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep it up every week.

I also voted for quite a late date, which is mostly because with how things are, COVID has kept me home for the last few months and it’s going to slowly start going back now, so not having such a big time commitment on top of that right off the bat would be ideal. BUT I’ll try to participate as best as I can regardless :slight_smile:

I’m actually super excited to start it though :grin:

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I believe it was, but you’re right I didn’t put a lot of effort into making it acronymically sound. To be honest I didn’t remember making up a title either until @Naphthalene credited me with it :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you for taking it upon yourself to put this into motion, @Naphthalene - I am still plenty excited about this book and the concept. :slight_smile:

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Ohhh I voted in the polls without realizing there’s no ebook version T_T importing is too expensive for me right now, so I’ll be watching the thread in case an ebook version pops out somewhere.

If the club ends up doing option b (read + history lesson), I wonder if it’s plausible to join even if it’s just the history lesson/research part? Haha

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I’m really glad to see that we got a reasonably-sized group already :slight_smile:

Well, the poems themselves are freely available on the Internet (they are in the public domain obviously). So looking up things related to them should be fine too. You won’t get the manga/mnemonics but that’s not so bad I guess?
I wonder how legally grey it would be to post 1 double page per week (so 20% of the week’s content) and remove it at the beginning of the next week? Then people without a physical book can just work on that one (and get hints from the explanations), and we split the rest among the people who have the book.

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I think fair use for educational purposes generally has a 10% cap. Obviously this isn’t like a teacher handing out copies in class, but figured it might be a useful benchmark to let you know how legally dubious you’re being :stuck_out_tongue:

The fact that you’ll be making it available on the (indexable) internet to anybody makes it much more dubious than a usual educational setting though, I’d have thought - if you did do this you’d probably want to put it in a separate post that can be fully deleted, rather than the OP.

INAL :wink:

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What if it was hosted somewhere else? Like on a google drive or something? Then I could have a single link that always point to the latest one. That way, only a fraction of the whole thing (~1%) would be available at a given time. I can’t really prevent people from making copies, but I feel it’s not going to be much of a problem. It’s unlikely to attract attention from the Internet, at least.

I guess there’s no other way to know than ask a moderator.
I’m going to try @RachelG, our resident customer support specialist.
TL;DR: the book we want to read does not have an e-book version. All double pages are independent, so I’d like to share a photo of one double page per week (out of the five we will read) for those who cannot get a physical version of the book. The photo will be hosted somewhere else than the forum and will be deleted at the end of the week. Would that be acceptable? If not, is there a way to make it work (reducing to 1 out of 10? Something else?)

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Thanks for tagging me! Unfortunately, unless the book is offered for free online or the publisher explicitly gives permission, we can’t allow pages/sections of a book to be shared. That’s a bummer that there isn’t an e-book version. :confused:

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Yes!
I bought a book with all the poems, literal english translations and some history pointers this christmas (so a bit like cheating, but I don’t care)

I sometimes play karuta by myself in my livingroom… got bit by the bug after watching Chihayafuru.
Kakoite

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What book is that? Maybe it’d allow us to take part in the book club to some extent.

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It’s main goal is the translations, so it is not heavy on the history elements. It will not be sufficient as the only history source as the notes are not extensive enough for a deep dive, and not all poems get an history/translation note.

Small note. I have a master’s in history (my focus was witch trials and Norwegian demographic) but during my time at my university I have had some classes on Japanese history, so I might be able to give some good pointers.

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