永遠の0 | L36 has an audiobook with a full cast and plenty of war vocab, but it was perfectly approachable. Personally I think it wouldn’t be L36 without the war vocab, the grammar was no challenge at all from what I remember.
I also read some of (and hated, but I don’t like war stuff haha) 虐殺器官 | L39 which also has an audiobook. I recall it being pretty gorey, though, which the above book wasn’t as bad about.
Ohh, I had come across 永遠の0 in my search for books with overlapping vocab, but I thought it didn’t have an audiobook because I only checked audible 
The jpdb stats do also make it seem pretty approachable 
Thank you 
Best I got is 魔法少女育成計画 | L36. Might not be that close since it’s got battles but not so much wars with proper ranks and tactics and such. That said, the magic aspect could be a plus since 幼女戦記 has magic as well.
Also, while I haven’t read it, All You Need Is Kill | L36 may be a good choice as well.
Yeah, it’s not like that continuously, but it does have some pretty gruesome scenes through the whole book. My recommendation is to have a look at a free preview of the ebook – the first scene is one of the “graphic detail” ones so you can read it and decide whether it’s something you’re OK with. (Though to some extent my recommendation is “maybe consider a different book”, since I didn’t think it had enough payoff in SF ideas or plot to make the graphic-violence scenes worth working through. YMMV, obviously.)
As it seems, I own multiple manga series were I am about to read volume #3. There are even three more, but for them I’d have to read volume #2 first. Which would you recommend to read first? This is of course for the 2025 Bingo Seeking Recommendation challenge 
Thank you for your votes.
I don’t wanna be too spoiler-y or anything, but… Are you aware of the ending of Usagi Drop? (It’s the sorta ending that makes a lot of ppl do a complete 180 on the series)
Well, sounds like an anti-recommendation. But I’ll continue anyway, at least so far as the anime went, which I liked very much.
I always tell people to stop after the anime and not look up the end 
Somehow they always look it up anyway… 
… and they are not happy about it.
Also love the anime, rewatched it quite a few times.
Just in case, Google Sensei says volumes 8 - 10 are the volumes you want to avoid if you don’t want to risk a bad aftertaste. Probably a bit hard to find that number without accidentally running into spoilers.
not me having absolutely no interest in Usagi Drop but curious about the drama, looking up the ending and being offended on behalf of the fandom. 
wtf was the author thinking… 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Usagi Drop mentioned on the internet without the caveat of not reading the last few manga volumes. To the point where I’ve jokingly wondered if maybe no one even ever read them in decades, and the warnings are all just word of mouth with the actual manga maybe being completely different. Personally, I watched the live action movie, which was good.
If some books were good in seven of ten volumes, for me it‘d still be a good series. And if I don‘t like volume #8 I‘ll have no problem to stop then and there, without reading the last two just to complete the series.
In that post, I am mostly linking to the anime page but all of the franchises also include a book (in the largest sense of book) version as well.
sigh I’m looking at my 積読 pile and do not feel like reading any of it.
Sooo I thought I’d ask the lovely people in her for recs. I’ll take pretty much anything as long as it’s not 18+ (and hopefully not too dark/gore).
How about らせん? Instead of a journalist and his friend in リング, we here have a coroner and his friend hunting to solve the mystery. And as scientists they use scientific methods, most of the time, like autopsy, cryptography, electron microscopy, up to gene sequencing, etc. You will even find a list of which DNA base triplet corresponds to which amino acid inside of this book.
Until page 300 I’d have giving it 5*, then it gets a bit over the top with ideas, so that the book ended up at 4* like リング before.
Expanded this into a review.
Oh, that’s a good idea. Not right now, but I will definitely read it this year.
Read おとなりに銀河 1 | L26 its a seinen romance by the same author as 甘々と稲妻 1 | L24
The author has also done one Yuri anthology 終電にはかえします (ひらり、ス) | L18 (which was okay)
Now, the author has also done some BL works (and one side character in おとなりに銀河 writes BL stories), but those aren’t visible on Bookwalker (outside Japan at least). I want to read one of those, too. Maybe someone can recommend one or nominate it for the University. Then I could complete my entirely useless ambition to read Yuri, BL and heterosexual romance works from one author.
——
Or read 転生若草物語 | L30?? and tell me if it was any good. Its a Little Women reincarnation fanfic. The idea sounds just silly enough to be interesting.
Hmmm. Perhaps ─HOME─ | L24 for manga (short, cute, very BL adjacent) or 遺跡発掘師は笑わない ほうらいの海翡翠 西原無量のレリック・ファイル | L30?? (haven’t read, but it’s got a nice cover, the most legit of reasons) or 妖魔と下僕の契約条件 1 | L30?? (as soon as you get halfway through it’ll be the next book club pick guaranteed).
Not 18+, not particularly dark (some heavier themes though), wasn’t really my cup of tea but might be yours? 猫とメガネ 蔦屋敷の不可解な遺言 | L28
I don’t know the original, and it sounds somewhat important?
Anyway, I’ll check the rest.
Actually, the author has quite a lot of BL stuff (including novels) and a yuri manga in the josei category, which sounds promising…
They do?? What’s the title, I can’t seem to find it
