Just finished この恋を星には願わない 3【電子限定特典付き】 | L21 - and wow - this series really drew me in! It’s been a while since I just picked something up and binged it like that. Definitely will order the physicals, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next!
It’s also really interesting to see all the different things authors can do with codependency… Like this, 私の百合はお仕事です! | L27 , 熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる1 | L24 , and やがて君になる | L22 for example, all do such different things with codependency (熱帯魚 is my favorite of the bunch, in that regard)
That does sound experimental! I’m not sure I want to read it, but thanks for the plot summary and checking it out. I am curious if you would read even more books from the author sometime in the future now that you’ve read two different ones and gotten to know their style?
Speaking of stuff I would not read on my own, I’m half way through the third (and last free) volume of 30歳まで童貞でいたら魔法少女になりました | L28?? because sometimes I just want to inflict brain damages to myself.
I do like the basic concept, but the execution is really bad (well, it is free, so whatever)
Yeah, even free, it’s just not really worth it. At least it was a quick read.
I restored my mental health by reading 女装してめんどくさい事になってるネクラとヤンキーの両片想い 12巻 | L25
I was saving it for a while… Now I have to wait again until the next volume comes out.
I’m still trying to work through 本好き5-7 whenever I get a chance, but I’ve been doing a lot of other things lately. That said, I have been able to read わたしの幸せな結婚 1 | L28 while commuting to work which had been good. I wanted to read the novels for a long time but the manga’s easy to read in short bursts
Just finished reading the beautiful 漫画「天官賜福」日本語翻訳版 第1巻 | L32 ; the art is so pretty. I can’t wait for volume two to release in November. They’re pretty hideously expensive for a manga (~¥3800 per volume), but I don’t care. The quality of the book is really nice, too.
I started だんちがい: 1 | L24?? which I bought on sale recently. It’s got a good family dynamic, though the comedy is just okay. The first volume has 13 chapters, so I was confused how the series only had 126 given it has 11 volumes. Turns out that starting with volume 8 it switches to only 9 chapters per volume and has a single wide 4-koma per page instead of two standard ones, which is pretty disappointing. I was planning to continue the series, but now I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just keep an eye out for a deep sale and move on to something else in the meantime.
By the way @Naphthalene, without spoilers, do you know if the new ハンネローレ LN is a sequel, parallel story, or something else? I can’t risk reading the description in case of spoilers.
By the way, I plan to get back to 本好き end of September or October. Depends on how long I take to finish my current read and whether I try to squeeze in one more book or not. Goal is definitely to finish the series by end of year.
Aftermath of a lot of consideration: Despite the plethora of other nice options available I yet again started reading another manga.
(Thank you all for coming to this emergency press conference regarding this unexpected development. Yes, I’m also surprised by that outcome. No, I’m sure that I’ll read a something that is not a manga any day now.)
I never put anything in this thread because I feel like I never feel like I’m reading anything all that interesting (or quickly) but I’m kind of getting my confidence up this year.
I started playing ムーミン谷おくりもの on the DS and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’ve never really known anything about the ムーミン谷 franchise, but the game had me so curious that I picked up ムーミン谷の彗星 and finished the first chapter yesterday. Sounds a bit ominous so far and I’m interested to see where it’ll go. Sometimes the writing style feels a bit odd to me, but I know the original book that it’s translated from is quite old.
Fell off the wagon the last few weeks and haven’t been doing much of anything besides my daily anki and an episode of something here or there, so I ended up reaching for また、同じ夢を見ていた | L26 since it’s the easiest thing I own.
I’ve found that a lot of books considered “easier” are often boring to me with a few exceptions, but so far I’m really liking the setup and writing. Something about mixing Socratic dialogue about happiness from the perspective of a child and the non-chronological flashbacks has got me hooked.
According to JPDB I know 94% of the vocabulary used, and man what a world of a difference that makes. The amount of look-ups I’ve had to make is negligible, and pretty much everything makes sense to the point that it almost feels like reading in English. I think from now on I’ll be making sure that at least one book I’m reading at a time is above 90% if not more.
I’ve also been trudging through 転生したらスライムだった件 1 | L34 to try and satiate myself during the wait between new episodes, but it takes so long to get through that this season will probably end before I can finish it.
By the way, if you want to talk more about it and read other people’s thoughts - our Natively Book Club for it was a lot of fun for me. And I can really recommend listening to the absolutely fantastic audiobook together while reading.
Finally done with 魔法使いの引っ越し屋 勇者の隠居・龍の旅立ち・魔法図書館の移転、どんな依頼でもお任せください | L30 and I really didn’t have a good time. The writing was incredibly flat and the overall plot (twist?) was way too obvious. In fact, it really breaks my immersion that the “genius” main character doesn’t connect the dots until being basically told the answer. The author could have just implied that she got it while still withholding the info from the reader… not that it would have changed much, but still.
In the あとがき, the author says
我ながらいい世界観だなと思いました
Yeah, no. Not only does the world feel mostly empty, the parts that are there feel like an inconsistent jumble of tropes. Even the premise makes no sense: the main character is a wizard so powerful she got a special title (literally “the wizard of the era”, with a katakana reading of “Lord of wizards”… why put English in there??) and that title means… that she has to remain hidden from public life because she is too powerful? Why? You are shooting yourself in the foot in terms of economics, science, military power (whatever you want to affect her to). If I was the neighboring country, I’d just find her and make her an offer she can’t refuse… It’s also very weird that the people in power, who are explicitly supposed to know who she is, actually do not. They aren’t even putting her under surveillance??? She can single handedly flatten the capital (where she lives) to the ground???
Since she just wants to take care of her magical moving company, she is perfectly fine with that, though.
The book won a competition (“楽しくお仕事in異世界”) and the two other people who read the book in here gave it 5* and I just don’t understand. The one review mentions similarities with https://learnnatively.com/book/17539c4127/ which I bought recently, and now I’m scared
Oh well, to each their own.
I can’t wait for volume two to release in November. They’re pretty hideously expensive for a manga (~¥3800 per volume), but I don’t care. The quality of the book is really nice, too.
