How interesting to see everyone’s thoughts! It seems to be a mix of genuinely different taste at times, but also affected by the language barrier? I wonder about not minding more ‘cheesy’ stuff in Japanese, perhaps because I’m not as familiar with Japanese cliches, but also it’s usually a more comfortable read 
Infodumps and extensive world building in Japanese make my heart sink because it takes me a while to plough through 
and while I love Kawabata I haven’t yet built up the courage to read his work in Japanese because I know it will be so much harder! There is a certain amount of potluck for me when book shopping for Japanese stuff - there are a few authors I have read who firmly went on my ‘never again’ list 
but it’s so hard to predict when you don’t know them!
I mostly read non-fiction in english, but I’m enjoying fiction so much in japanese, that I want to started reading fiction in english again. I listened to Stephen Fry’s version of the Harry Potter audiobook series last year and it was fantastic!
In other news, I finished the first two volumes of スレイヤーズ | L37 and I quite like it. Either I’ve made a lot of improvement or this series isn’t lvl 37, but I also feel like I can’t tell the difference anymore. Books in the 30s and above feel samey. I really do want to contribute to the community but I don’t want my gradings to mislead.
This was the hardest book I read in japanese, the 上巻 only 化物語 | L38 back in april of last year, took me a whole month. I’ll have to try it again sometime and see how it feels now.
I also spent most of my sunday morning and afternoon trying to crack the secret to getting an Audible JP sub, and after many failures and almost giving up, I managed to force amazon into taking my money. Along the way I lost access to the kindle store and regained it .
Anways, I’ll be enjoying vol 3 along with the audiobook 
We’ll see how long I can keep my subscription. 
I noticed you got through those really quickly, your reading speed much be crazy fast
I’ll have to give the first few chapters a try and see if it’s too hard for me, maybe I’ll report back if I do
Still slow going… read one more chapter today and not really sure how the author is going to wrap things up. There are only three chapters left at this point. I guess I don’t actually know if it was a fully planned ending or a rushed ending due to cancelation, so I’ll have to see.
I’m also trudging through the second volume of はなまるスキップ. I did actually enjoy the first volume, but I’m just not in the mood for its parody style at the moment. I’m trying to finish it anyway since it’s been sitting on my end table half-read for 6 months and I really want to move on.
The pages in the book are shorter than what I’m normally used to seeing, so I think that’s why my reading speed was faster.
Please do! I’m curious to know what you think of the difficulty.
Finished 青い花 1 | L27 a lot earlier than I was expecting (I stayed up till 6am cuz I couldn’t put it down). I wasn’t always able to read it quite as fluidly as the series went on (vocab, but also some of the storytelling). Anyway I really loved it and plan to reread it eventually, so I can take things in more slowly. Rereading will wait until I’ve absorbed some more vocab and have the physical volumes. I’ll probably rewatch the anime | L23 soon, b/c I can’t get it out of my head and want to see what I think of it as an adaptation, now that I’ve read the manga.
Otherwise, 5 vols of Inuyasha left and then will probably pick 弱キャラ友崎くん Lv.2 | L28 back up, and maybe 放浪息子 | L27 as well… tho maybe I should finish ボクガール 8-11… it would be weird to leave only vol 8-10 without reviews
I can’t believe you just binged the entire series! That was fast!
Mm, bad habit when I get too into something
I did skim certain parts (I’m starting to get really sick of school plays lol), and also did some amount of just checking the translation and moving on vs doing full lookups.
I do like to binge things in general, but I’ll definitely be taking a slower pace next read-through
Oh - have been meaning to say: glad you enjoyed 君に紡ぐ傍白 | L21 
I’m planning to reread it in the next few months. Btw, I’m pretty sure I first came across 青い花 when you mentioned it a while back, so thx for that
I finished
in time before the book clubs start this and next week .
I was a bit confused by the chapter after the epilogue. Not sure if it’s related to the next volume, or is another work from the author.
Also I’m not sure if the series will continue or not, seems like this book leaves open to being a good stopping point (which would be weird to have a series of just 2 books) but also can continue with the current world roulette mechanic basically forever.
Looking forward to your rating and/or review… and of course to reading it myself soon, possibly on the very long flight to Japan in 2 weeks! I already bought it
I did a quick review-ish as yesterday I was not feeling it yet.
Also I finished this which I purchased with a points back campaign in Amazon:
I was a bit wary of the file size, as I purchased it digitally and being a comic, I though it would be unreadable but it was fine.
The series is ridiculous and I love it. I look forward to seeing the anime is about to air too.
Wound up reading 今日はカノジョがいないから | L22 on a whim. It’s a cheating/NTR yuri series that’s on the easier side, language-wise. Story-wise I enjoyed it enough to binge read it, but also don’t particularly recommend it, unless you’re bored and looking for a fluffy NTR series… (fluffy in the sense that it never really portrays the full emotional depth of what it’s like to be cheated on, and various things seem under-developed).
Tho It’s certainly worlds better than the last NTR yuri story I ran into (the only thing I’ve ever given a 1 star on this site)
Edit: also read 放浪息子 1 and not really into it so far… It may just be that I’ve been feeling kinda off today tho. Will still give vol 2 a chance at least
I just started 俺俺 | L30?? (learnnatively.com), which I had bought at some point on a whim without knowing much about it. In the first few pages, the narrator almost unwittingly steals a phone (it was placed on his fast food tray by mistake), answers a phone call on said phone as a light-hearted prank, and almost accidentally ends up committing phone fraud with nearly a million yen ending up in his account. 
Looks like it’s going to be a wild ride!
The cover illustration is certainly something, and I love that the blurb calls it an 「俺」小説…
@Belerith I saw you’ve read 聖女の救済. Did you figure out what the heck is a スプリング8? I’m at the part where they talk about it and am so confused. Can’t find anything on the internet except for some hadron collider .
Googling for 聖女の救済 スプリング8 brings up some blog posts confirming that yes, the book is referring to the SPring-8 synchrotron in Hyogo prefecture…
I’m half way through vol 4 of スレイヤーズ | L37 but I’ve decided to start from vol 1 again. I enjoyed the audiobook so much for vol 3 that I want to listen to the audiobooks for vol 1 and 2. No reread feature yet, so I’m just recording this using tags for now, and on bookmeter.
I forgot to mention, if anyone wants to know how I got my audible JP sub, I sneakily signed up through the audible mobile app with my VPN set to japan. Caveat is that I’m paying the extra app store tax, but still very worth it for unlimited listening. An option for those that can’t get it through the webpage.
Edit: Sometimes on the app it says that a book isnt available in my region, but If i just go to the amazon book page, i can add it to my library from there. Try at your own risk though
Okay, maybe I just misunderstood something 
Must’ve skimmed too fast and thought it was some kind of spring they were inspecting I guess it’s used for forensics, then. Seems kinda heavy-duty for a small police station.
I’m near positive that is a work by Tetsuya Ishida: Tetsuya Ishida - Wikipedia
I went to an exhibit of his paintings a few years ago and it was quite something, highly recommend to anyone who gets the chance if it’s traveling near you.
