🐱 Week 2 | 黒猫ニャンゴの冒険 ✨

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
1
Week 2 May 31
Chapter 第一話 巣立ちの儀 (part 2/3)
End Percentage 8.95%
End Page 32
Read until 「はいよ、楽しみにしてるよ」(shortly after Nyango gets treated to some お焼き)
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Home Thread 黒猫ニャンゴの冒険

We’re reading this book as part of the Beginner’s Light Novel Book Club.

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Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur/hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: text here (that’s [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).
  • If you have a question about grammar, vocab, the story, cultural things or literally anything else related to the book — ask! There is really no need to be hesitant. If it’s something you are wondering about, chances are someone else will be thankful you asked first, lots of people enjoy answering questions, you learn something new, and the thread gets more lively. It’s a win-win on all fronts!
  • Don’t forget to put on your club-supplied cat ears for a more immersive experience while reading. You will find them under your seat.

Participation Poll

  • I’m reading along :cat2:
  • I have fallen behind and I’m planning to catch up later :dog2:
  • I’m reading this at my own pace :paw_prints:
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished :spiral_calendar:
0 voters
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Reactions while reading

まぁ、魔道具が落ちたのはイカサマなんだけどね。

Ha, I was wondering whether he used his magic for it. I guess he did have a bit of time training it earlier while waiting for Horatio.

普通なら捨てられるような部分の肉なのだろうが、料理に詳しくないので分からない。

I mean, even if it’s a bad cut… it seems like it was cheap and extremely tasty, so why would that even matter.

(And for that matter, if it’s usually thrown away, but people who aren’t “knowledgeable about cooking” don’t even realize it… it probably shouldn’t be thrown away usually :laughing:)

「うーん……どこの肉だろう？ まぁ、美味いからいいか。よし、オラシオ次行くぞ」

Exactly!

「カリサ婆ちゃん、薬草摘んで来たぞ」

And I guess that’s also how he learnt where those rare mushrooms grow. Nice.

And it’s nice to see that he’s having such a wholesome relationship with the apparently usually slightly unsocial/weird (?) apothecary granny. Between good company, a pair of helping hands, knowledge and sweets - seems like they’re both getting a lot out of it!

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I'm only about half way through the reading, but past the first image

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Can we talk about how unhinged this image is? ニャンゴ is a full on cat, オラシオ is somewhere between a boy and a cow and the shopkeeper is like some dude with bear ears on :joy:

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It depends on how much the image corresponds to the text, which I have to admit is not always the case. I e.g. have just read a series where the author apologizes to the readers in the afterword that the images show “humans“ with cat ears and tail, but no fur, but the text has upright walking “true“ cats with fur and paws. She explained that the editor thought these images would sell, but she seemed miffed; she doesn’t even thank the editor and illustrator, and not even mentions them in volume #2.

In this book here, there is an image of ニャンゴ‘s grandmother with a human face and hands without fur. So it might be a question of age, or an individual thing, or here as well a decision by the editor.

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The ばあちゃん is a fox and isn’t actually related to ニャンゴ though. Not sure when this is mentioned since I finished the book already (I think it’s in the first chapter though), but ニャンゴ at some point thinks about how the fact that cat people are basically just cats on 2 feet makes them seem less evolved and that that might be part of why other races are so prejudiced against them. So I’d expect other cat people to be similarly furry.

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In this week’s part :slightly_smiling_face:

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Ah, I always mix up cat and fox images in Japanese books.

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This chapter

I wasn’t expecting this to actually be addressed but I guess it already has been in the rest of the reading haha.

I wonder why races who are the most like humans (without hair etc) are seen as superior. Do regular humans exist in this world? :thinking:

I liked in this section’s reading how he’s already shown some ways to use his void magic even if it isn’t traditionally seen as ‘powerful.’ Nice!

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Yeah, I wonder about that too. My current theory is: They don’t exist, but the further away from being an animal = more evolved = “better”.

Now the real question is: Do regular animals exist? Specifically… cows? And if not, where does the milk from the ice cream come from? :no_mouth:

(I guess it might be some kind of monster milk though, considering they do eat orcs.)

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Races

I was also wondering about that, as it seems somehow arbitrary that more humanoid races are seen as superior. I am curious to see more about the monsters - are there sentient monsters, do they also have an hierarchy/society or are they more similar to small fries that the adventurers hunt? We’ll have to see.

By the way… I hope the pattern of some big bully character looking down on Nyango isn’t going to be a recurrent plot device throughout the story. The scene of the guy trying to to steal his guild card was so unnecessary… like, are you a 5th grade bully?

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Reply

Agreed - and none of the adults around him stepped in? I also thought that it was really cliché and unnecessary by itself, but I think the author included it to show Nyango dealing with the situation.

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And we’re off to finish chapter 1 in…