Have you read Yotsuba already? Have you always meant to? Now is your chance to read this amazing manga live with the WK Yotsuba reading club every week!
Every Saturday the Yotsuba Reading Club meets to read a couple of chapters from this amazing manga, with each session lasting about one hour. We meet on a dedicated discord voice channel, and there is also a chat channel too.
Anyone can join, regardless of your Japanese reading level. It is better if you have read the manga in advance, but it is not necessary. Both beginners and advanced learners are welcome, both fans and those new to Yotsuba are welcome! Just listening is fine too, you don’t have to read aloud if you don’t want to!
If you wish to read in advance, don’t forget that the best resource around is the WK Yotsuba Reading Club! The Yotsuba Reading Club is the place to go to find answers to all your grammar and vocabulary questions, great discussions about the manga, and stacks of really useful resources.
That’s brilliant! Yes, it’s a wonderful manga! For a vocab list and a huge discussion covering pretty much every line of text in the entire volume, do check out the Reading Club for volume one!
Yes, that would be ideal I guess. I didn’t add that to the OP, I will now. Thank you very much!
Yes.
Long version:
There are 3 ways to do this as far as I can see:
Each person gets a character. In vol1, ch1 there are 6 characters (actually seven if you include the little unnamed kid on page 19 that says じゃーねー). So if we have 6 people. that’s a character each. More than six people, and some people won’t get the chance to read, which I think would be a pity, though some people might not want to read. So, we could do it like that. That’s how other clubs have done readings. And the advantage with this method is that it encourages a nice smooth read-through with a sense of performance.
Or, we could approach each page as a separate entity, and get different people to read each page. The advantage of this method is that everyone gets a chance to read, and stopping to ask questions is built in to the structure of the reading. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to organise and clunky.
The third is the best method in my opinion… As with the first method, if there are six people willing to read, each gets a character, and they stick with that character… but we pause after each page for questions and discussions. This combines both smooth reading, and time to stop and study, to ask if people have questions or anything they don’t understand.
Short version: There are six characters in vol1. ch.1 (and one extra line), so we need six readers. If we have fewer, then someone can take more than one character. But it won’t be a straight read-through; after each page we’ll pause and have time time to answer questions and clear up any problems as we go along.
Well, to be fair, there’s only been one manga with a live reading so far, and we’re only two readings in, so we’re still working out a bit how to apportion roles.
Likewise!
If there are more than 6 willing readers, then there’s always going to be an opportunity to read the following week! By the time we get to chapter 86 I don’t think having too many readers will be a problem! LOL!
I suspect there will be loads of people on June 6th (I hope so!) and so not everyone will get a chance to read on that day. But as the weeks go by, everyone who wants to read (and I hope that is everyone who comes along!) will have plenty of opportunities to do do!
Except that, believe me, it will be a nightmare to organise, will slow things down, and will only be a problem in the first couple of weeks. Look at the threads, thousands of posts in the first chapter, a dozen or so in later volumes. Honestly, as the ball gets rolling, everyone who would like to read will be able to do so! Yes, for the first few weeks there will be more readers than parts, but after just a few weeks we’ll be wishing we had more people!
Edit: However, having said that, there are just 4 (and a bit) parts in chapter 2, so - depending on the numbers that turn up - you may well be right. But I would strongly suggest allocating the six roles for the first chapter and sticking to them as it will make for a much smoother, more coherent, and more enjoyable experience for everyone for this first session.
Hey, sorry but I won’t be able to make it, it’ll be at sunrise(6:00 am) here and I already feel really sleepy so I think I shouldn’t return to my messy sleep schedule when I said I could come. Sorry again, just wanted to let you now
I was hoping to show up, but Discord won’t let me in unless I receive a text message, which would cost me $3. (On the up side, that frees up extra time for me to read manga.)
Edit: I contacted Discord, and they said a phone is required =(
Sorry to hear that @boromeron and @ChristopherFritz, but yes, I wouldn’t get up for a 6am event either! I don’t think I’ve ever been up at 6am in my life! And that is rotten of Discord to demand a phone. I don’t think they asked the same of me, but it must differ from region to region I guess.
In the future, depending on how it goes, it might be possible to record the readings. I’ve no idea how that would work and it’s most definitely not something to start out doing, but perhaps, who knows, one day?
It was really great, wasn’t it! I’m so glad we did it, so glad so many people turned up, and was amazed at how brilliant everyone was! Thank you to you Kazzeon and to everyone who came!
And… Foxumon came along too! Her Yotsuba was amazing! Really, amazing! What a great first week indeed!
