Ah, so that’s probably why my credit card was declined 
. At least my debit one worked…
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Books arrived! CD Japan is fast. I only ordered 6 days ago?
Some BL & fantasy books
天官賜福 manga, as seen in eefara’s post previously
And the first volume of a new series by the author of 背中を預けるには. This one is much less dense than 背中を〜, although physically they’re the same size. The font is larger and it’s printed all across the page, instead of in 2 rows.
My eyes are clearly bigger than my ability to read, because 背中を〜 is slightly on hold right now after I read a few pages and realized (1) that it’s probably going to end up landing in the level 36~38 range due to the vocabulary spread, and (2) that I’ve already got two other books in/near that difficulty range which I’m currently working on and don’t have capacity for another one at the same time. Why did I get a volume of the new series? Good exchange rate? 
I need some less-ambitious stuff for change of pace, so I tossed a set of 美しい彼 into the shopping cart. A popular BL with good reviews and an easy to read style. I’ve already read a book by 凪良ゆう, but it was one with a cover that’s extremely NSFW so I haven’t added it to any of my publicly viewable reading accounts.
The other one is volume 15 of 彩雲国物語, a light novel series about a young woman working as the first female official in a fictional country similar to ancient China. I’m slowly working through volume 3. Very slowly.
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This has been my excuse for months now, but at some point so many books that I will never read them all starts to lose money, dummy 
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Are Japanese books a lot cheaper (or maybe just shipping) than Korean ones? How is this possible?
Because where I’m at, for Korean, I’m paying around 20-30€ per physical book in Korean when taking into account shipping.
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I don’t want to encourage any addition here but the マグメル深海水族館 volume 1 cover is striking and stands out to me as my favorite manga cover with the color and font used. Maybe I just like blue.
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Oooh, awesome! I’m glad it came in so quick!
Feel free to post any of your thoughts from at least the first book over in the book club thread; I think there’s some interest there in reading book two as well.
Aaah, this series has been on my TBR for a while. Are you enjoying it?
How much are you paying for just the books themselves?
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It depends on the type of book, where I’m ordering it from… Generally it’s around 12-15€ for graded readers, novels are usually more expensive though, usually 15-25€. Then there’s the websites where I can get them for 5-10€, but shipping is over 20€ per book, so it’s not cheaper in the end. Some bundles can be slightly better on shipping, but it’s not like I can afford to pay hundreds of dollars at a time either.
Webtoons in physical form I straight up gave up on buying, because that’s 25€ per volume without shipping, and if I buy one I’m gonna want to buy the rest of the series, which is clearly not happening at that price.
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Hmmm. Those prices feel really high to me; I feel like physical JP books are typically cheaper? And if that’s so that’s a big chunk of the final bill cut off.
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Are you buying in bulk or one at a time? I just ordered 10 manga and it comes out to about $7.25 per volume. But there’s a huge shipping cost up front, so if I ordered just one book it would be more like $23 for the one volume. For that reason I try to order at least 6 volumes (preferably 8-12) at a time.
Also, the yen is really weak right now. So if you’re paying in USD or Euros or some other strong currency, Japanese books are cheap compared to a few years ago.
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Ah, I forgot about that, but that’s another huge boon for certain JP book buyers. The yen has been really weak the last ~year or so.
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Yeah, the “divide by 100” rule from yen to USD really doesn’t hold true anymore.
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At least two at a time, oftentimes a little more. But the problem is, even when I want to really buy in bulk, at 20€ per book, it adds up very quickly. For example, I was just looking at 마녀 배달부 키키 시리즈 | L25?? for the upcoming bookclub, and buying all 6 books would end up costing me over 130€ with shipping.
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*Cries in JPY salary* 
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The good ending! Used paypal instead, arrived in a week! Thank you surugaya for supplying my book addiction, I will be stocked for months. All of this (and some other things not pictured) for abt ~105 CAD with free shipping is insane. Book list below for those interested!
Book List
Mob Psycho Fanbook (No Natively Page)
Fire Punch 1-3
Goodbye Eri
If Cats Disappeared from the World
One Punch Man 10 (Special Edition, comes with DVD for OVA), 16-21
ホームレス中学生
The Devotion of Suspect X
名のないシシャ
Penguin Highway
むかし僕が死んだ家
Battle Royale
コンビニ人間
斉木楠雄のΨ難 (But the non-children’s version)
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What the heck; this is a children’s version of an LN adaption or something?
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Shipping from Japan to anywhere seems pretty cheap for what it is. When I moved from Japan back to the US and needed to mail something to a friend in Europe, I was shocked when the American postal rates were double (or more) what it would have been from Japan. In the US, we don’t have to pay customs for this sort of thing either.
The cost for my box of 7 books to be shipped by FedEx (arriving 6 days later) was 4,552 JPY, which Google says is 27.18 euros. Most of the books in my order were about 4 euros each for a base price. (The manga was 3,500 yen, or 21 euros, but it’s full color like an art book) So yeah, I guess it’s a lot cheaper to buy Japanese books.
Thanks for reminding me about the club! I’ll take a look when I start.
I’d enjoy 彩雲国物語 a lot more if the difficulty level and my Japanese ability were more evenly matched. These books have been hammering me with new vocabulary. The author is constantly using new words and expressions I’ve never seen before, and many of them don’t get repeated. She’s always coming up with more and more of them. I think the writing is probably full of dry humor, but unfortunately at my level I feel like I’m often just forcing myself through with a dictionary. But I don’t see any way to learn how to read this style of writing other than to just do it. Also, her sentences are just kinda hard for me, somehow. Something about the structure. For me, 彩雲国物語 has been feeling harder than 魔道祖師, even though the latter had a lot more weird fantasy words and names.
Aside from that, I do enjoy the story. Shuurei is one of my favorite female protagonists, and now that I’m getting near the end of volume 3 it’s showing a lot of growth in her character.
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But that’s just cheap crap. Also that logic doesn’t apply when I get out of the country.
It’s a children’s version of a novel adaption of a movie adaption from a manga series lol. There are a few of them, I believe Nichijou has a Tsubasa bunko novelization.
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New manga haul!
Top:
- 君は放課後インソムニア | L23 volumes 1 and 2 (new series to try)
- とんがり帽子のアトリエ 13
- 神さまがまちガえる 4 | L23 (final volume)
Middle:
- ご注文はうさぎですか? 12巻 | L24
- 紡ぐ乙女と大正の月 4巻 | L29 (final volume)
- 性別不明な殺し屋さんがカワイすぎる。 1 | L24?? (new series)
Bottom:
- スキップとローファー volumes 2-4
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