(DeepL) What is the true intention of the flying dragon that attacks the village but does not kill people? What is the course of the trial of the fairy cat that the old man is involved in? What is the true nature of the beast that devours the daughters in the village with its sharp bark? Phantom beasts, creatures with unique ecology and supernatural powers. Because of the increasing number of conflicts between these mysterious beings and people, the state has appointed specialists to investigate and sometimes exterminate them. One of these experts, researcher Feri, is on a journey to complete the world’s only book on phantoms, with “the coexistence of humans and phantoms” in mind. This is a cruel and tender fantasy tale of the relationship between man and phantom beasts.
Looks like we’re leaning pretty solidly towards starting on Feb 3! I’ll see if I can’t get a schedule poll up today or tomorrow as well. (If anyone has a physical copy, let me know!)
The book seems to be less popular than Kadokawa expected, as the edition I bought end of 2023 is still the first edition from 2016. That‘s probably also the reason why there is just one follow up volume. Oops wrong recollection: I bought it second hand, though it looks like I might be the first who even opened it.
Nonetheless, from reading the blurb I expect the book to be just what I like. There is an image where the girl on the front page sits in a chair holding a skull in her lap, and another were she communicates with a group of cats..
Hey guys, really sorry for the reading pace poll delay. I’ve been unusually busy at work, so it’s just now I’m checking back in on things. Hoping to have the poll up today. We will be reading Feb 3! Please vote in the participation poll if you haven’t already!
I only have time for this book/club until the last week of March, when I will start a book of one of my reference book series one year after the previous book of the series. I will need to read it w/o reading other books at the same time to be actually comparable with previous reads in the series. So I will probably stay with the club just in February and then finish the book on myself.
I’m not sure yet; I’ll post if I see them! When does the first one show up in the physical book?
Also, I’ll go ahead and call the pacing poll: we’ll be reading ~25 pgs/week! This leaves our schedule looking something like this:
Week
Chapters (inclusive)
# of Pages
Ending sentence
Week 1
闇の王様のお話 1 - Ch. 1 (pt. 1)
36
そのままひとりぼっちの飛竜に、彼女は長く寄り添い続けた。
Week 2
Chapter 1
15
(end of ch 1)
Week 3
闇の王様のお話 2 - 闇の王様のお話 3
18
(end of 闇の王様のお話 3)
Week 4
Chapter 3
31
(end of ch. 3)
Week 5
闇の王様のお話 4 - Ch.4
14
(end of ch. 4)
Week 6
闇の王様のお話 5 - Ch. 5
27
(end of ch. 5)
Week 7
闇の王様のお話 6 - 闇の王様のお話 7
20
(end of 闇の王様のお話 7)
Week 8
Ch. 7 (part 1)
32
バン・シイの泣き声だけが長く響き続けた。
Week 9
Ch. 7 (part 2)
35
(end of ch. 7)
Week 10
闇の王様のお話 8 - 闇の王様のお話 9
24
(end of 闇の王様のお話 9)
Week 11
夏の夜の夢
18
(end of 夏の夜の夢)
If it ends up being weird reading-wise to end some weeks on the 闇の王様のお話 interludes, they’ll be pretty easy to shift forward a week.
This schedule is…a bit weird with the page counts. @.@ My apologies, everyone; I need to come up with a better way to poll for a schedule for books with uneven chapter breaks. The first week is unfortunately long; @mic, are there any other good page breaks you can see that more evenly split the chapter in half? If we just end up using this, week two will at least be a good deal shorter to allow folks to catch up. Pretty much the same deal with weeks 4 & 5, then 8 and 9 are both longer. @mic if I can bother you once again, would it be possible for you to glance through chapter 7 and see if there’s any obvious way to split it into three, instead of the two it currently is? It may end up being fine as-is, but I wanted to check.
I’ve gone ahead and posted the first week’s chapter as well!
First chapter has a better break at page 27, それまでに、彼女には確かめなければならないことがあった。When I proposed page 36 I had in mind to combine the rest with chapter 2, but this is too much with the chosen schedule.
First image, apart from the color images at the start, is on page 6 i.e. the start of chapter 1, then the start of chapters 3 and 5, there seems to be a pattern
I’ve never heard of an electronic version not doing that. Although, it’s possible for the electronic version to be based on an edition that has no image while another edition (e.g. the children edition) will have some.
The images and the text might have different copyright conditions, as e.g. you didn’t talk about the colour images at the start, before the actual start of the book.
I’m not a publication expert, but as long as they are the same edition, everything will be in.
The only difference is that ebooks are more flexible, so some editors will tack some ads/announcements at the end.
Well, you were explicitly excluding them, so I did not see the need to mention them (also those are typically spoilers)
The ebook from Booklive does, but now that I am checking, the description specifically mentions
※口絵・イラスト収録あり
so I guess that it used to not be the case (or that it depends on provider? Edit: no, I just checked and all the providers listed on Natively mentioned the illustrations)
We will be reading Feb 3! Please vote in the participation poll if you haven’t already!
This emoji is far too cute for the cool rabbit monster in this club’s book 
