[JP] Suikacider's reading log

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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.

Recommendations welcome :muscle:

Finished reading

Currently reading

Plan to read:

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無職転生 1–34/262

I have very mixed feelings about this book.

Ch1, eps 0–11

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 :muscle:

Ch2, eps 10–19 😭

So far, I have continued mostly enjoying the book for its progression and magic systems. I love how proactive MC is in his planning, his interaction with people, and the way he convinces Eris of the importance of things like math and writing. He’s smart, in a cool way.

The ecchi bits have, so far, been kind of like corn on pizza. I don’t really appreciate them, but the corn:pizza ratio is small enough that I can mostly ignore them.

:sob: Then it happened

TW: Perviness / SA

Ch20/262, where MC gropes Eris, is the first time I’ve been genuinely disappointed by MC. I mean, I’ve been annoyed/rolled my eyes plenty of times, but here I had to take a few minutes after finishing the chapter to work through how I felt.

Here’s what gets me: MC is smart and apparently has a pretty high EQ. For example, on the night of The Incident, here are things he himself states that he has observed:

  • MC’s biggest interest is magic, but he has a wand, not a staff
  • MC is probably missing his parents, because she can’t stand being away from hers for even one day, whereas he hasn’t seen his in three years
  • MC doesn’t ever really play, because he’s always busy studying or planning lessons
  • It’s not appropriate to throw a birthday party for MC because his existence is kind of being suppressed (thanks, dad!)—but she took it upon herself to plan and throw an entire surprise party for him, so he can also experience what it is to turn ten years old
  • She bought into his act of being said that his parents were not there, acknowledged how lonely he must be feeling, and (innocently, as a child does) decided that she could sleep in his room tonight, so he doesn’t feel so alone
  • He knows that she does not like being groped, and talks about how she often dodges him or simply beats the shit out of him

And then when he returns to his room and sees her there, and hear’s her explanation of why she’s there (because she thinks he is lonely), he says: Especially because I’m so lonely tonight, I might do some super ecchi things

And I initially thought that this was just a kinda indirect/in-character way to get her to leave his room without, well, fighting her or telling her to gtfo

… but then Eris blushes, looks very uncomfortable, and says OK…

…AND THEN MC CHOOSES TO GROPE HER.

Like what the hell, I don’t even know what to say.

I don’t even necessarily have a problem with his general perviness. That feels understandable and in-character to me—if you haven’t gotten off in 10 years, it’s going to get to you. He’s kind a douchey, but the wandering eyes and head-in-gutternes are understandable.

But to consciously process all of that about Eris, and that she wasn’t going to like it, and then choose to continue? Just feels really upsetting, especially given how intelligent MC seems to be.

Ch3, eps 20–33

Mixed feelings. I was initially skeptical of MC (and Eris) being Deux Ex Machina’d / yeeted to the far end of the other continent, and also of a new character being introduced.

In hindsight, I’m happy with that decision. We’ve already seen ~12 episodes of life at Eris’ house, establshed that Rudeus is a dedicated teacher, and yada yada. I don’t think there’d be a ton more room for development there.

I’d say that this has been my favorite chapter so far. having to get along with a new companion (who could kill him and Eris by sneezing), having to deal with that character’s reputation, and having to cross a treacherous continent by foot led to the creation of lots of problems. I enjoy the way the author depicts Rudeus as solving these problems. I think this is his strongest point, actually, and it’s good when the story leans into that.

Negatives:

  • I did again find myself annoyed that despite Rudeus’ ability to create cunning plans, quite objectively evaluate potential courses of actions, and generally just be very intelligent, he doesn’t seem to able to apply those things to the way he interacts with Eris.
  • I also went :bangbang: and became very anxious when it was established many of these creatures from the magic continent age differently than humans… despite appearing basically humanlike… meaning that they look 12 but are actually like 45.

I’m still looking forward to Chapter 4—I consider myself fairly invested in the book at this point—but also am increasingly worried that at some point MC will run out of plot ideas and lean harder into the Loli elements. I’ve got a feeling that I may end up DNF’ing this at some point and being very disappointed about it.

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あん — e-book — 6.5/10

A pleasant read that has some nice vibes but ultimately kinda fizzled for me.

Book summary

An ex-convict is working at a streetside stall making sweet bean paste to pay off debts. It’s soulless work and he doesn’t care about it. Suddenly, an old woman shows up and offers to work for basically free. It turns out that she loves making sweets.

Their friendship / working relationship forces both of them to confront painful aspects of their life, come to terms with how they feel about being alive, and to take a stand for what kind of future they desire.

Do I recommend it for learners?

Sure! It’s a slowburn of a book that doesn’t involve waxy descriptions or technical vocabulary. There is a handful of low-frequency terms related to cooking utensils, but they’re just a handful and get frequently used. A lot of the book is dialogue. Here and there I got slightly confused because I wasn’ t sure who said a particular lline of dialogue, but other than that, it was easy going.

If you like contemporary fiction and more character-motivated stories, あん is a good read!

→→→→→→→→→→→→

Comments

Ch1–13

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.

Ch14–29

Didn’t end up making any progress updates. Woops. In future books I’ll have to be better at doing that periodically.

The book felt… quite Japanese to me. I appreciated that it had a narrative. It didn’t really keep my attention, but I didn’t feel like quitting.

I would have liked to see more of Sentarou’s progress at making red bean paste, and I unfortunately found Tokue’s ending letter/conclusion to be overly didactic. It’s fine for her to have come to the conclusion that all life was valuable—that’s a wonderful conclusion to arrive at—but why? She was walking through the forest and finalyl heard a voice?

I feel like there is so much that was left unexplored here:

  • Tokue and Sentarou’s relationship
  • Her mentoring him with making azuki
  • Her helping Sentarou come to terms with this time in prison and how it doesn’t need to reflect on his life or future
  • Her sense of isolation after losing her family and her husband’s death

There’s just so much potential for growth as a person in all that that I feel like the author could have given us something to latch onto and make sense of this sudden deathbed revelation.

A lot of what was motivating me to get through the book was seeing (a) how Sentarou would resolve the “muh azuki isn’t good enough” problem and (b) how that would tie into him kindling a sense of self worth. The book seems to have wrapped that up with “Tokue told me in a dream just to serve pickled sakura leaves with the azuki!” and… I mean, sure, maybe that’s a brilliant idea, but it kinda robs Sentarou of the ability to make that growth himself.

I guess I would describe my feelings by saying that it was a pleasant read, but these kinda cheap-seeming solutions mean that it won’t be something I see myself thinking about or revisiting long-term.

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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.

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I was suspecting this, too, but a guy can hope :smiling_face_with_tear:

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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くまクマ熊ベアー 1 — light novel — ch2/26

[At a glance] Entering the VR game he’s she’s sunk a year’s worth of real time into, MC (15 y/o boy) receives a super OP 5-piece outfit as a gift. The problem is that it’s a panda suit that looks kinda weird, he she can’t take it off, and he she also can’t log out or exit the game.

[Will update with a reflection and book summary upon finishing]

→→→→→→→→→→’

( Will update with my impressions after the first chapter, then every ~5 chapters moving forward )

Ch1

I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. The prose/tone/voice is much weaker than 無職転生, but 異世界 prologues always kind of suck, so that isn’t bothering me yet.

I rolled my eyes at the “getting stuck inside a long-awaited VR game!” thing, but shortly after I thought that the MC literally voiced the same complaint, so it seems like the author is aware and along for the ride. That’s a good sign.

MC is apparently a genius and very self sufficient. So far this seems to be not to the benefit of his personality / he’s kind of bland. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

It’s a veeeeery easy read, which is what I want right now, and the different options on his 5-set piece of gear suggest some complexity to the magic/combt system, so I’m interested to see how he’ll make use of them.

Looking forward to reading, anyway!

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Isn’t the MC a girl? You can see her on the cover of any book of the light novel.

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It seems like it; I was a bit confused in the 2nd chapter where MC is referred to as お姉さん

Something in the first chapter made me feel that MC was a boy, but choosing to play a girl character in the game; it seems like she’s just a girl after all ;;^^

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She can take it off, but looses all of her super powers if she does, therefore she decides not to do it, even if she herself finds this pyjama suit weird.

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