This is a self-thread. I read slowly and juggle books, so I don’t want to commit to reading with a group / opening a book thread. While this is mostly for myself and I don’t expect anyone else to be interested in it, I’ll periodically post reflections and if I found anything particularly difficult about a book.
I’ve passed the N1, but I haven’t read in or interacted with Japanese in a few years. I used to read mostly 純粋文学 and got kinda burned out. Now that my focus is on CN/KR, I’d like to take JP less seriously—I plan to read mostly easier books, and primarily fantasy books.
I initally picked up the webnovel a couple years ago, but the perviness of the main character (and first chapter) really put me off. I decided to commit to reading the first few chapters, and am happy to say that the book gets much better from the second chapter. (Why do all fantasy prologues suck?)
I enjoy the magic system of the book and MC’s progression, but I find his comments about the female characters off putting. Some of the character interactions (especially when shifting to the father’s POV) feel quite nuanced, though, so I’m reeeeeeally hoping that the perviness is an intended plot device and that we’re going to see character development on MC’s part—especially since his best and only friend has turned out to actually be a girl.
I’m a bit surprised by my reading pace—each subchapter has taken me ~40–60min so far, which means that this book is going to be a ~200+ hour investment…
Anyway!
If you can stick through the first chapter, and like fantasy, I think it’s worth reading
This isn’t the sort of thing that I would normally read, but I have really been quite happy with it.
The main character—a man with a troubled past who for some reason finds himself compelled to work in a shop selling sweet beanpaste cakes—realizes that he’s bitten off a bit more than he can chew. He looks for a helper and finds one: an old lady who he rejects… but then she keeps offering lower prices, basically offers to work for free, and shows up in spite of him not offering to hire her.
She also makes the most incredible sweetbean paste he’s ever had.
The business progressively picks up, MC learns some sweetbean secrets from the old lady, and things progress well… until the shop owner nixes the entire operation, as the old lady has leprosy, and she thinks that her unsavory physical appearance and unshaky hands will be bad for business.
Nearly 1/3 of the way through the book and we haven’t really gotten any backstory on either MC or the helper yet, and I’m quite looking forward to seeing what skeletons are in their closet and how this will affect the development of their relationship.
Just going by the anime, I would suggest you don’t get your hopes up for it getting less off-putting. I think the problem is the author’s view of the world, more than the character’s.
Thus far the comments have been few and far between and not really related to the plot, so they haven’t really gotten in the way of my enjoyment of the book… but we’ll see
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