Anyone have any suggestions on finding a copy of 白い部屋のふたり 山岸凉子作品集3 | L24?? - it’s from the 70s, out of print, and I can’t seem to find a digital copy. Have tried checking Amazon & Suruga-ya, plus the proxy searches on cdjapan & Yahoo auctions, but no luck (either didn’t find or sold out).
Will read in English for now, but wondering if there’s anything I’m overlooking
Hmmm, that’s a tough one. No copies are showing up in my usual searches, though I can see the occasional odd sold listing. Looks like it might have to be one of those you do consistent checks for over a couple of months, maybe.
I don’t see it available in any of my usual places either.
I think some sites (ebay, probably others?) lets you set notifications on searches so you can get an email when someone lists a specific series you want. I’ve read that their native functionality for this isn’t very good (too slow to notify) but that there are third parties for faster notifications 
Nothing I’ve done it for is popular enough for me to need to worry about that, though
@eefara @cat thx! I’ll look into the notifications thing. Not the end of the world if I can’t find. Tho it makes me sad that such a historical work (often considered the first yuri manga) is out of print and so hard to find
I also had a look. I couldn’t find it anywhere else than the National Diet Library.
They have scans of the book, but they are only visible inside the building (!). You have to physically go there to see it. They also have a printing service (of the scans, that is), but I think you need an account, and thus a Japanese address.
There is a registration for so-called simple users, which can live abroad. These users can get copies of the scanned content by physical mail: User Registration: simple registration | National Diet Library
As I feared
Ohhh this will get put to good use, when I’m less tired. The fees seem quiet reasonable too!
Are you sure? The way I remembered it, that only allowed you to make a request, but to actually get the thing, you need an official account.
Edit: it is indeed possible! But, the price is… 27.5 jpy per page (*200 here) + 350 jpy sending. I don’t know if @暁のルナ wants to pay nearly 6000 jpy for that one book 
… it does? I mean, I guess it is still cheap compared to not being able to find the thing at all.
6000 yen is about $40 right now. Dunno where they live but if I’m ordering from Japan I never expect to spend less than $30 with shipping and all
Honestly, by the time you add in proxy + shipping fees - even if I do find it, it won’t be that much cheaper anyway. There’s something odd w/ the page count… cuz the story is only 84 pgs (EN translation) afaik
ehhh I’m tired, so I skimped on the math… but still
I’m in US, and basically yeah… except for Suruga-ya, and its lovely free shipping campaigns
Well, as the title implies, it’s a collection of stories. According to the 目次:
白い部屋のふたり…5
遠い讃美歌…85
水の中の空…165
You could shave off costs by only requesting the first 84 pages.
Edit: I kept looking around for a reason why the digital version is not available online for registered users. The NDL said that it makes books that are still copyrighted but hard to find available online to registered users, but this one is explicitly not. I finally found in the fine prints that they don’t do it if the publisher pinky swears that they will make the book available in less than 3 months. Ah yes, I’m sure a new batch of this book is absolutely imminent.
thx for the info - I wasn’t finding the 目次 anywhere before
fascinating… I’ll be waiting with baited breath 
sarcasm
Huh, I just realized that this author also published ゲッシング・ゲーム | L24??, which is on the BL club’s list of early 70s BL manga. 
A trailblazing author indeed.
Mandarake seem to have one in stock for 1800 yen (Nakano store) though it’s only condition 4 (“fair; worn, has cosmetic flaws, and may have noticeable functional issues that require attention”).
Thank you so much!! I read it in English earlier, and やっぱり I wanna read it in the Japanese. Also found some OOP volumes I’ve been looking for, not to mention more historical manga - mostly by 吉屋信子, plus the original 3 volume version of リボンの騎士 | L26
So much for cutting back on physical books this month
Gotta pick up this hard-to-find stuff when it pops up!
yeah, tho I did restrain myself from certain more expensive hard-to-finds at least. Also tho, did I really need the original version of リボンの騎士 | L26 ? I’m sure I’m gonna sigh when I see what the shipping cost is
I hate when you can’t order from Sahara and it’s like “surprise, ¥9000”
Yeah… I mean I have an idea of how much DHL will turn out to be, given how much I’ve ordered from Cdjapan… But at least Mandarake gives you the option not to proceed, if you decide it’s too much iirc.
It really is annoying that it doesn’t estimate upfront tho
It’s not that bad unless you accidentally get to the next box size up, then the price can jump dramatically with just one more addition.
And yeah I’m pretty sure you can decide to not proceed, but I think they will mark your account if you do that too many times, so it’s a sometimes option.
