It’s also #6 highest rated all time and #28 most popular all time on Anilist.
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Re: Monster;
I love how most of you are saying ‘it’s supposed to be good but I personally haven’t read it/didn’t finish it’ 
Hmm! I want to read No.6 vol 2 soon so maybe after that?
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I’m also in that category. I have heard of it, but never tried to read it. (I don’t remember the plot, but I think it was not my thing?)
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I’m also thinking of Fukuoka for similar bingo, and am planning to read this.
Essentially a road trip across Kyushu (which I suspect I’ve done)
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/gp/product/4062758067?smid=AN1VRQENFRJN5&psc=1
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Oh, that does sound fun. Reading the description, it seems like it might deal with some heavier things along the way as well. Spoiler tag in case you’re going in blind. ^^
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Yeah - I figured a bit from the blurb/reviews, possibly along the lines of character with difficult background going through some cartharsis by seeing the country vibe (/trope?).
But it does make it fun when you recognise a few places!
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Probably works for me! 
Just ping me whenever you are getting ready.
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Hi all! o/ I need a book for my “author’s legacy book” square for bingo. This isn’t an “official” square, just one I thought would be fun, so there’s no “official” definition to go off of; I’m imagining either the last book an author published before dying -or- the one book an author is known for among other, less remembered books they’ve written. (I would want this book to be well-known and impactful, either in its genre or society in general, if at all possible. This condition does not apply to the “last book written” option.)
These qualifications are a bit finicky, I admit, so I wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone had a good suggestion given those criteria.
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I have no idea how readable these suggestions would be, I’ve just heard about both:
Osamu Dazai’s last unfinished novella is aptly named グッド・バイ | L32??
and
Mishima’s final part of Sea of Fertility was finished on the day of his coup & suicide 豊饒の海 第四巻 天人五衰 てんにんごすい | L44??
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I’m looking for a story where a character enters a new social system and must learn to navigate its customs, traditions, and both implicit and explicit rules, while negotiating and forming alliances with various members of the groups involved in order to achieve a respectable social status. Almost like an anthropological survey of power dynamics and values of a given group and how best to exploit those observations to get what you want.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a political intrigue with a cast of influential politicians or aristocrats. It could also be about a transfer student trying to make his/her way into the cool kids group or an employee of a big corporation who willingly picks up smoking only to spend more time and get closer to a higher-up and uses that as a springboard for his/her career and professional network.
For example, one book that I loved is Vampyria by Victor Dixen where the daughter of a family of mortal peasants sees her family slaughtered by the government once it is revealed that they’re part of a revolutionary group, and through a wild series of events, she ends up infiltrating the bourgeoisie composed of immortal vampire aristocrats and wannabe-vampire mortal aristocrats. To avoid blowing her cover, she has to learn table manners, their way of speech, learn their references, their culture and what they value in order to build connections, climb up the ranks, and ultimately carry out her revenge.
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Maybe some of these will work?
- Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 1 | L37 - probably fits this to a T (warning: MC is 中二病 and pretty damn annoying for a while)
- 私の百合はお仕事です! 1 | L27 - high school girl gets roped into working at a concept cafe, where they roleplay pseudo-romance (more specifically Class S relationships), which she completely does not understand
- 薬屋のひとりごと 1 | L37 - apothecary used to living near brothel is kidnapped and sold into the inner palace
- マリア様がみてる 1 | L30 - 平凡 Yumi suddenly finds herself in the circle of the elite student council. Also has the Class S aspect, except it’s not pretend in this
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Either crazy hard or 百合, huh
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That just about sums up my reading preferences if you’re looking for a certain level, you should probably specify
Maybe https://learnnatively.com/book/6f17912760/ would work? I forget how early this happens, so possibly spoiler, but commoner apothecary has to adjust to life in the castle
There’s also a storyline that fits in ソードアート・オンライン | L34 that would fit, but it’s not till Book 9 - so that’s probably not useful
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霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | L26 is a children’s book version of such a situation.
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https://learnnatively.com/series/84654751ad/ actually fits this really well, I think. It’s a long series and a bit of a slow burn, but マイン fits a good number of those points to a T.
https://learnnatively.com/series/ab3df02e4e/, perhaps; I haven’t gotten father in than volume 1, but it looked like it was heading in that direction. https://learnnatively.com/book/3d1df92a99/ has the protagonist move from the big city into a super rural area and learn how to be a woodcutter and get along with the people there.
猫猫 doesn’t necessarily need to learn anything Inner Palace to survive, though; she just kind of vibes her way around. (Though maybe this does change in later volumes? I need to read more, granted.)
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It does a bit eventually. But fair point
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I second 本好きの下剋上 | L32. The main character is literally new to the world and must figure out how to interact with people from different classes and backgrounds.
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Meanwhile I read the Japanese version of MONSTER: ヘルDr.☆(ドクター)☆テンマ 1 | L33 and that completely changed my mind about the series, i.e. I immediately wish listed volume #2, and gave volume #1 five stars.
Why this? I assume the most important difference is that when I compared the Japanese version with the German version, the latter had only about half of the text of the speech bubbles, so was way less dense of an experience.
But maybe today I am just in the mood for this type of a story 
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I’m on a Kansai-ben kick lately, and am working through this book: Colloquial Kansai Japanese―まいど! おおきに! 関西弁 | L15 as well as YouTube lessons. Anyway, it occurred that I could maybe find something similar in JP. So anyone have recs for Kansai-ben books written in Japanese?
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Lol. I watched the anime (wasn’t at the time, but it’s now available on streaming services, and even with German dub). I never knew the title was any longer than just “Monster”. And I’d wondering about the ヘル part, thinking “hell” doesn’t make any sense. But it’s “Herr”, German for “Mr.”
So, they just didn’t bother translating or fitting half the text? That’s crazy.
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