I’ve been traveling for a while, so I didn’t read that much recently.
I did reach page ~250 of ドグラ・マグラ | L50?? which did change a lot of things. I’ve been grading that book for years based on the first 100 pages and didn’t expect that a mere ~20 pages later things would become err very different. (The main character starts reading a bunch of different texts).
I have to say, though, that the content since the switch has been quite boring so far 
I’m going to put the book down for now.
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Good to know 
I’ll probably skip it, then.
Since my last post just a few hours ago I actually finished 2 more manga volumes.
寄生獣 1 | L26 is a horror-action manga I saw the anime adaptation of years ago, and I’m happy to report the manga version is just as engaging.
先輩はおとこのこ 1 | L21 is pretty much what it says in the title, cross-dressing senpai starring in light-hearted school romance. It was originally a digital comic on Twitter (I assume) so there’s hardly any text per page, and I raced through this whole volume in record time. I rated it only 4 stars but I might pick up more volumes digitally to read on my phone whenever I have a bit of free time.
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Part of Line for some reason (I didn’t even know they published manga before seeing this series), and annoyingly they are region locked.
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Gotcha… I was more wondering what narou means.
I did see some comments to the effect that it’s heavily rewritten, like you suggested… But idk anything helpful. Good luck figuring it out!
Oh, it’s 小説家になろう. Shōsetsuka ni Narō - Wikipedia
Where did you see that?
Ohhh didn’t know that was the full name for syosetu.com site
Saw it in the comments here: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-magical-revolution-of-the-reincarnated-princess-and-the-genius-young-lady/
This one for example
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Oh, that makes sense. The あとがき said it was written for a digital scrolling platform so I just assumed Twitter. Line Manga is a big (maybe the biggest?) service for digital comics in Japan, they even merged with Webtoon for the Japanese market a few years ago. Sucks you need a Japanese phone number for it though.
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Since my last update here I made approximately zero progress in any of the books I planned to read and took a detour to listen to the audiobook of ララピポ | L32 instead (a recommendation from the fantastic @omk3). I loved it and gave it 5 stars! I’m not sure why I have such a soft spot for absolutely insane books, but I do. The chaos comforts me. 
I wrote a review if anyone happens to find themselves interested in what is essentially a very long AV in literature (?) form.
The funny thing is that ララピポ has been in audiobook.jp’s 聴き放題 rotation forever, but I never listened to it because the weird title and dated looking cover illustration put me off. That’ll certainly teach me not to judge a book by its cover from now on!
My commute time has drastically increased recently, so I’ll most likely be listening to a lot of audiobooks in addition to my normal reading from now on. Next up I’ll try out 成瀬は天下を取りにいく | L30 which has been seemingly inescapable for all of 2024 so far (every bookstore, book related social media account, YouTuber has somehow covered this book - even random Japanese friends who know I like to read have recommended it to me). I usually don’t end up loving the 本屋大賞 books I’ve tried so far, but let’s see.
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Started
A yuri with an MC who is hearing impaired. Just 1 chapter in, but it’s quite interesting so far! There’s some vocab I’m totally unfamiliar with, related to hearing impairment, and the names are a bit annoying to remember, but I’ll get used to it!
Very close to the anime, great for reinforcing vocab. I hope some of that gets easier over time.
Finished
Really interesting manga with lots of randomly specific subculture rants. The characters feel very original/not trope-y, and have a great dynamic. The aesthetic + subculture stuff kinda reminds me of 気になってる人が男じゃなかった 1 | L23 in a very loose way (it doesn’t use color like that does tho). I definitely can’t understand it without translation though.
After feeling let down by the anime, I wanted to revisit it, and see what it’s like in manga form. It’s a decent adaptation, tho not as amazing as the anime. Having a lot of feelings, and hoping certain things will be handled better, since they’re not constrained to a specific number of episodes or volumes.
This was great. Definitely very challenging with the lookups, and I think I checked the translation more than I’d like. I suspect it will feel easier over the coming volumes. Glad I’m not reading the LN yet.
Dropped SAO 1, bc I’ve gotten burnt out with SAO 28 (just 48 pgs left tho), and too many lookups in L28+ manga. Will probly try to continue わたしの百合も、営業だと思った? when I’m done with SAO 28, but if it doesn’t really grab me soon, I’ll probably drop it too. Would like to read something with audio soon.
Update: I finished SAO 28 finally. It’s officially my least favorite SAO novel
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I finished the main story and epilogue for 本好き volume 30. I’ll read the many bonus chapters over the course of the next week or so. I’m going to pause here for a bit to read something else (and give @Athakaspen a chance to catch up 
).
I haven’t exactly decided what to read next, but I’m leaning towards 博士の愛した数式 | L34 since I haven’t read a real novel (non-LN) in nearly two years and I want something with less action. After that I’ll probably read 魔法少女育成計画 QUEENS | L36 to finish that arc and decide whether or not to continue with that series. After that will just depend on whether or not I’m ready to go back to 本好き or not.
For manga, I finished volumes 3 and 4 of 【推しの子】 | L31 which catches me up with the first season of the anime. Just in time for season two, which is confirmed coming to Netflix again.
Since others have discussed manga vs novel Natively levels recently, I want to mention that I probably find 推しの子 to be harder than 本好き despite them both being level 31. Maybe it’s just because I’m more familiar with fantasy terms than 芸能 lingo, but I feel like I look up more words (density-wise) in the manga. I would never want to read something like this with my current lookup rate in novel form.
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I sort of fell off reading 貝に続く場所にて lately. Hopefully I’ll get back to it soon because I was enjoying it so far.
Instead I tried to finish Nausicaa (ended up dropping before the last vol) and read through OPM vol 9 a.k.a. the last consecutive volume I have. No idea when I’m buying more. I’m back up to 400+ 積読本 so I’m trying to hold back until I’ve put a dent in it (not exactly working)
Today I read the first two short stories that come with the Jeweler Richard anime. I’ll probably read the last two tomorrow. Edit: Oh, yeah, I learned from the first one that an 一万円札 is sometimes called a 福沢諭吉 since they’ve got his face on it. That was confusing at first because they were in a bookstore lol
I also started rereading サマーサイダー. Unfortunately the cicadas aren’t very loud this year, and you often can’t hear them unless you’ve got the window open or are outside, and it’s way too hot for that. Oh well, I read it last year when it was still a couple months too early for them. I hope I’ll be able to read it while listening to them at some point, though, because with how strong the cicada motif is in this book, I really feel like it would enhance it.
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As someone living in a region of the USA that got two overlapping batches of periodical cicadas this year, I couldn’t disagree more… 
Much appreciated, haha. Though you might be waiting awhile… I should be going to Japan in a month or so, so I won’t be picking up volumes 29-33 until I arrive. I figure I’ll read volume 28 right before I go (or on the plane) so I don’t have to wait on that cliffhanger too long.
In other news, yesterday I started reading 「育ちがいい人」だけが知っていること | L32??, a book about proper manners and etiquette in Japan. It also happens to be the first nonfiction book I’ve read in Japanese, ever…
It’s pretty interesting. The author is a teacher at a マナースクール, so she’s giving advice that even many people in Japan might not know about. Some of it seems over the top (e.g. always thanking people on at least 3 separate occasions for one thing they did to help you, or avoiding spreading your fingers) and a lot is aimed at making a good first impression to your boyfriend’s parents, but there’s also a lot of fun etiquette trivia. Things like which way to hang an umbrella on your arm, or which way to face when taking off your shoes in an entryway.
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You’d have to be reading well above your level for lookup density to reach that point in a novel though, imo. There are waaaaaay more words, and you already know at least 80-90% of them (probably more). So density will automatically be lower.
It would be interesting to compare within series that have both novel & manga versions… you’re kind of making me want to try either わたおし or 転生王女 LNs to compare lol (I do not need to start another L30+ LN rn tho)
My only same series examples
- 夜のクラゲは泳げない - both approximately L24, and very few lookups.
- 薬屋のひとりごと - 32 & 38 - many of the same challenges, but latter is definitely much harder (薬屋 L32 is the hardest manga I’ve read tho)
- SAO Unital Ring - 26 & 33 - LN is worlds harder, despite overlapping vocab
- even at my worst with the SAO novels (10-20 words per pg), it’s still less dense than my lookups for 薬屋のひとりごと manga
- Tho SAO has a ton of inner monologue, and description, so it can feel denser sometimes
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I plan to wait at least a couple months anyway. In fact, me reading six volumes in about two months is unusual for me (stupid cliff hangers, grumble grumble). Last year I read some in January and then none again until December. I definitely plan to finish the series this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up happening in the fall. I’m really feeling fatigue on the series and I want to be refreshed so I can enjoy the ending.
I suppose. With narration would naturally come a lot more “normal” words instead of just the narrative specific words.
I’ll let you know when I start it so you can decide whether or not to join along. 
Though in that case you’ll probably finish all the volumes while I’m on volume 2.
I will probably start it anywhere from this fall to next spring depending on if I try to make this my next big series after I finish 本好き. Other options for new multi-volume series include ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 | L32, 裏世界ピクニック | L33, or simply catching up on 魔法少女育成計画 | L36. I guess I should expect a step up in difficulty no matter what.
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You’re surely overestimating both my reading speed and my ability not to be distracted by 8 other things I’m reading
(speeding through manga is one thing, but L33 LNs are a whole other)
The curious part of me hopes for fall… The less masochistic part of me hopes for spring. In any case I appreciate it Tho I can’t 100% promise I won’t impulsively start it once I’m caught up with the manga (that might be fall at this rate anyway )
I was sooooo hoping 裏世界 would win the LN club vote… Tho I’m such an unreliable participant it probably doesn’t matter anyway… 雨でも晴れでも will be the first one I’ll actually finish. 裏世界 didn’t seem that bad from the page or two I read… At the very least, I’ll probably read the manga sometime in the next 2 months.
ビブリア has been on my list for ages. (Not that I remembered that till just now…)
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I’m in Texas, and there definitely seem to be fewer cicadas here in recent years. I’m not sure if we get periodical cicadas (or if we do, the last emergence would’ve been before I’d learned about them) or only dog day cicadas here
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So I’m currently listening to chapter 7 in the second volume of the ゴーストハント series (as in listening to the audiobooks) when they were talking about “exorcising wells before sealing/burying them”.
Since I already frequently looked up “fun facts” brought up by the book and found interesting and sometimes a bit obscure things that aren’t necessarily well known about, at this point I’m under the impression that the author is either someone who does both world building using research very well or they’re the type of person with a lot of random fun facts about a variety of subjects (and possibly both lol).
So I was looking around about the thing I spoilered earlier (lol) when I found the following site that explained it, and was a bit surprised to find what kind of site it is
井戸を埋めるにはお祓いが必要？かかる費用や解体手順も解説！ | 【解体の窓口】
I don’t know enough about this line of business in Japan specifically or about how much exorcisms are actually done these days so I don’t know what exactly to make of it but I do have a couple of possible guesses;
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they’re sus
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in this specific line of work it’s relatively common considering the religion as well as the nature of japanese culture in regards to folk tales and such
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it’s something that relatively exists well enough within this line of work but not necessarily published as much or talked about as much outside it, which would make sense because of the balance between “keeping with traditions and warnings of elders” as well “we live in an era with better understandings of our surrounding and hence don’t necessarily believe these types of rituals”
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it’s not necessarily common but this company works with a lot more traditional/believing customers or have such traditional/believing CEOs/workers/share holders and hence uphold themselves to these types of rituals
Regardless of whether or not any of what I said is correct or completely off mark it was an interesting find and read, if you don’t intend to read this series or don’t mind spoilers I recommend looking at the site, simply for the cultural enjoyment of the thought that this is a thing. 
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リング has, I guess, an example of what can happen if you don‘t do it right.
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I was basing my comment on how quickly you read through Grimgar.
Fair enough and no worries if you do!
Same. And… same. I will probably hold off on reading it to give it 1-2 more chances to win, but I’m also very inconsistent with long running book clubs these days.
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