I really want to join but the books are hard to source…
I get why they don’t have digital versions but it does make getting the books a lot harder 
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Yaaaay!!! 
Yeah 
After the ocean one I think we’re planning on deciding whether to do more from the same series or a different (secret) idea from @mitrac , hopefully the secret idea will have books that are a little easier to source?
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yay, that would be so fun if you decide to join @eefara and @shitsurei .
At this point the copies are only available used from a service like Neokyo (it enables you to buy from local used Japanese markets like Mercari where there are a ton of copies, then they get shipped to Neokyo, and then Neokyo charges you to pack them and ship internationally). I put instructions here in the book club thread and soggy wrote more a few posts down if you’re interested in that route. I probably wouldn’t do it if that was the only book I needed, but I was curious anyway to try it as the faster I read the more expensive this hobby is getting. Ordering via that service means I get my costs (including all fees and hopefully shipping though I haven’t gotten to that step yet as I was waiting for a book club vote to complete) to about 8 euros per book.
am I being ridiculous keeping it secret 
but yes, they will be way easier to source and we won’t have to worry about the whole series suddenly selling out after the first club like what happened with this survival escape series.
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Got all of オレが私になるまで | L20 (new) and こばと。 | L20?? (used, but in very good condition) from an eBay order today.
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- ガールズバンドクライ S1 | L26 Blu-ray 4, OST, band scores
- クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった4 | L27
I’m in the middle of rereading クラにか 2 rn, and vol 7 is coming out in October. For ガルクラ I’m looking forward to the audio commentary most, but it’s great to have the lyrics for the songs so easily accessible, and cool to see them in sheet music!
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- 〆切前には百合が捗る | L28 - surprisingly wholesome age gap yuri featuring a runaway, and an author
- 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 2 | L32 - isekai yuri, double cover - as always I prefer the original cover
- 姉の親友、私の恋人。 | L25 - getting over incest feelings yuri, all adults
- ソードアート・オンライン ガールズ・オプス 1 | L23 - SAO without Kirito. Arguably the best SAO manga (no offense meant to Kirito-san, it’s just unique and well written)
- 百合姫2024年11月号 | L24?? - favorite yuri manga magazine
- TYPE-MOONエース Fate/Grand Order カドカワムック | L30?? - manga, interviews, etc
I’m in the middle of reading 姉の親友 & 百合姫 11 right now - so I’ll enjoy those + マリア様がみてる 1 | L29 over the weekend 
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New books! Most are just to fill out current series I’m collecting or books I’ve wanted for a while.
Top left to right:
どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型辞典
新レインボー学類語辞典 (Thesaurus not on Natively)
レンタルロボット
Middle left to right:
ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 book 2 of the second series
転生した大聖女は、聖女であることをひた隠す ZERO book 4
ルリドラゴン book 2
ドラゴンズロアの魔法使い book 2
Bottom row left to right:
怪盗探偵山猫
竜とそばかすの姫
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New manga haul. All continuing series this time.
- 君は放課後インソムニア | L24 volumes 3-5
- スキップとローファー | L24 volumes 5-7
- クプルムの花嫁 | L28 volumes 2-5
- お兄ちゃんはおしまい!: 9【イラスト特典付】 | L21
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Got some new books in~
- 椎名くんの鳥獣百科 | L26 - so fun fact, this is one of those series with several unique covers, from volume 5 onwards. As far as I can tell there’s the regular version, the limited edition version, and the Animate version. The regular covers are on Natively, while those in my picture are the limited edition covers; the little bits sticking up behind vols. 5-10 are the mini drama CDs they also came with. Unfortunately there’s no double-cover, so I I only have one set of covers here. :S (Volume 10 also came with a mini art book~)
- 光が死んだ夏 1 | L26 -bought for spooky month! I’m really excited!
- たったひとりのサバイバル・ゲーム! 太平洋を泳ぎぬけ! | L20 - my copy came in @mitrac and @soggyboy!
And in the top-right are the doujinshi which were the original reason for the order.
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Hooray!!
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ooh your review of volume 1 is very helpful, I was curious about it and started vol 1 but got confused right away and wasn’t sure it was worth getting into it.
aaaand, I spy an ocean survival boook, yay you’re in on the next adventure 
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Oh, I’m glad it was helpful! Were you anticipating more animal facts in the book? 
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I think I had zero expectations actually! It just looked really cool and I got the first 2 volumes free ages ago during a Bookwalker promotion. I’m not very good at parsing manga, as in, I’m constantly either missing small clues about what happened in between panels, or I see something and make wild assumptions that aren’t intended. I find I need to have some info on the premise and what to expect to avoid that issue. Perhaps I’m getting better now that I’ve read some (but I’ve still only read about 6 volumes of manga in my whole life). Anyway, at the time when I looked at this a while back, I saw some scenes from childhood and at the university, and I wasn’t understanding enough about the dynamics between characters that I decided to revisit it later. Your review definitely provides enough context to make easing into it a lot more fun, and of course, it’s nice to know it has a vote of confidence from someone here.
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Glad to hear it was helpful, then! Hopefully you enjoy the book!
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Just got back from Japan and hit up some book stores!
A few were impulse buys I know nothing about, some were books I was intentionally seeking out, others were books I’ve vaguely wanted and grabbed them on a whim since they were there.
I actually already own and have read the ebook for おいしいごはん but I wanted a physical copy so I can leisurely re-read it sometime. It’s easily one of my top Japanese books and I like having physical copies of those where I can (I saw one for 硝子の塔の殺人 and badly wanted it, but it was a thick hardcover and I wasn’t sure I could justify the space it would take up in my luggage 
)
I’m currently quite jetlagged, so not sure when I’ll crack into these (what was I reading again…?) but I look forward to them!
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Re: proxy stuff, for anyone curious… the thing I was interested in grabbing via proxy (オレが私になるまで) was no longer available at the good price… but there’s a bunch of ガルクラ doujin from melonbooks I wanted… so here’s how it would price out w/ Cdjapan . (Doujins ranged from 165 yen to 1679 yen per book, $ = USD)
| Thing | Subtotal | Shipping | Service Fee | Item Fees | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base order (GBC blu-ray, 4 manga) | 10,780 | 4,392 | 15,172 ($101.68) | ||
| 12 GBC doujins | 10,231 | 1,062 [1] | 1,200 | 3,600 | 16,453 ($109.77) |
| Everything | 21,011 | 5,454 | 1,200 | 3,600 | 31,625 ($209.54) |
doujins + shipping w/o fees: 11,293
Fees: 4,800
- This was added on top of the base order, and it took 2 doujins before the first shipping tier bump of 406 yen. There was a second bump of 656 yen, for the last 2. Idk if/how the figure would have varied without the base items
Anyway, haven’t quite decided to pull the trigger yet. I’m ordering the base stuff regardless, and need something to balance out the bluray cost (8,000 + 3,125 shipping on its own)… so maybe it will be these doujins, maybe it will be something else, and I can buy more things spend less money. I’ll watch LycoReco in the meantime, until I decide…
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What price did you want and what are they going for now?
Oof, Japanese blurays are priced so absurdly…
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2999 yen for 1-4, but it seems there’s a 2,888 for 1-4 now actually… Maybe I should put back a few of the doujin for now, and then grab those instead. There’s a vol 5 for 400… So together + service fees (600), would be 3,888… Of course, I have to see how that would affect shipping…
Thankfully, the proxy items stay in their system. So it’s easy to find later
I didn’t get the impression English ones are much better in this regard? But yeah, it’s pretty insane. The shipping I get, cuz that’s just what DHL charges, but still…
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That’s not too bad, depending on the shipping. I paid way more for my copies, though they were new.
In my experience prices for American shows are much cheaper. For example, the entire Avatar The Last Airbender TV series is around $25. That’s 61 episodes.
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I think this is the difference. Maybe because Japanese DVDs/Blu-ray sell individual discs out of a season, so when you sell the whole season it’s a lot more. But then again Japanese CDs were like $30 back in the day when American ones were $10-20, so maybe they just have a higher reserve price. 
