I haven’t read either but have you checked out https://learnnatively.com/series/97faa3871a/ ? That could maybe work?
I saw it on Booklive, but it was in the 男性向け category, so I didn’t really look at it carefully.
That being said, there are some series like 本好き that are categorized as such but feel gender neutral.
I saw an anime recap and it looked very much like adventure and found family and I didn’t notice any fanservice or fetishization.
That looks so cute!!! Ack!
The first three volumes were free not too long ago. checks order history If you consider 8 months not long ago.
I rarely give an update here, but might as well
Things I recently read:
Physically:
きのうの君とみらいの君へ ~思春期の6人の物語~ | L22 which was an exchange gift from @yukitanuki and I would recommend especially to younger folks. Would have loved something like this when I was a teen.
幻想古書店で珈琲を | L32 - because I wanted to know if I want to continue the series. (I’ll soon be in Japan for 3+ weeks, so could have kept my eyes open for the next volumes in the series.) Alas, I liked the premise but did not connect at all to the characters or the story.
Audiobook:
京都寺町三条のホームズ | L32 - for the LN bookclub. I enjoyed it. It’s very shoujo anime like and I enjoyed the narrator of the audiobook. Will eventually continue with the series.
Ebook:
さいはての彼女 | L29 - short story collection. I really liked the first and last stories (which are connected). The rest was fine. Recommended.
I am currently reading 博多豚骨ラーメンズ | L30?? physically, サマーウォーズ | L22?? as ebook and 本好きの下剋上~司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません~第三部「領主の養女3」 | L31 as audiobook.
For 博多豚骨ラーメンズ I need to decide if I want to purchase the rest while in Japan - I am halfway through and while I like it so far, I don’t think I’ll continue the series. I hope it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.
サマーウォーズ has so far not really hooked me, but I am not that far in and it’s a bookclub pick, so imma finish.
and for 本好き I decided to do a 第?部 at a time, since that makes most sense to me story-wise. After this I have 2 more volumes and then I can take a break. (I can get through 1 Japanese audiobook per week approximately)
You do know the 4th and 5th parts are really long, right?
Yes. It’s fine. I find audiobooks not tiring.
Fair warning, I started it with the (audible) audiobook a while back and *hated* the narrator’s voice. It was like a parody of the most obnoxious 陰キャ you’ve ever heard. But the whole story (or at least as far as 4 ish chapters I got through). It put me off of the whole thing for months.
I do intend to go back at some point (partly because I got the same books for free as @seanblue), but not as an audiobook.
So, apparently, I too got them when they were free.
I don’t remember at all.
Question to those who are reading/have read 本好き: Do we know how old Ferdinand is? Or how large the age gap is between him and Rozemyne?
I can’t help but read this as “フラグが立った”:
Part 3, vol 3, right before the epilogue:
「ローゼマイン、十年後くらいになって、領地の魔力に多少の余裕ができたり、君が成長して魔力が増えたりしてから実験してみないか?」
新しい素材だか、魔術に関する新説だか知らないけれど、フェルディナンドはやる気に満ちている。まさかの十年計画だ。
「わたくしの魔力は高いですよ?」
フフンと笑って胸を張ると、フェルディナンドは馬鹿にするようにフンと鼻を鳴らした。
「何が欲しい? 金ならば準備するぞ?」
「神官長、わたくしがお金を欲しがると思いますか?」
わたしがニィッと笑うとフェルディナンドが少しばかり警戒した顔になった。警戒はしても、やっぱり止めた、とは口にしない以上、実験のためにわたしの魔力はどうしても必要らしい。ずいぶんと価値を高く見積もってくれているようなので、できるだけ高くふっかけておくことにする。
「十年後でも結構です。わたくしの魔力と引き換えに、わたくしに図書館をくださいな」
フェルディナンドは眉間に皺を刻み、明確な返答を避けた。
basically what I think will happen is, that in 10 years time, he will present to her a huge library as a proposal.
Don’t tell me if I am correct on that last part, please, just curious about the age.
We do. I can’t double check rn, but he is 20 at the beginning of arc 2 (I think it comes up in the prologue of vol 4?) at which point she is physically 7.
Btw, apparently the years are longer in that world compared to ours, so the characters are technically older than their ages imply. I never cared that much, so I don’t know more about that though
Wow, I did not remember that and figured him for around late 20s at that point.
Not just you. It’s even mentioned at the time his age is introduced (prologue of volume 4)
フェルディナンドはよく二十五歳くらい、下手したら三十歳くらいに間違われるが、二十歳である。
I don’t remember when it happens but the main character is also surprised upon learning that fact.
What I will tell you is that I shipped those two since arc 2.
So I read a 試し読み chapter to a manga called ゲレンデマジック and there was a theme talking about the concept ゲレンデマジック and I was pretty sure I can understand what ゲレンデマジック meant from the name ゲレンデマジック but I wanted to check it out anyways.
So I searched ゲレンデマジック on Google and was expecting some gossip site general trope explanation, not percentage
You can tell I’m amused by how I wrote this message
Good work on whoever wrote the blog entry, great way to peak a casual browsing-potential client interest using unexpected elements😂
Math is always the answer
basically “beer goggles” but snow.
Knocked out some things that have been in my TBR pile for ages, and here’s the ones I thought were interesting
Hilarious beginning and interesting development
a little unrealistic, but overall pretty fun. Slight age gap (both chars are above 18), and very good about consent
corrupted trainee angel, a too-nice trainee devil, and some others… pretty funny, and I might continue
women nerding out over building Gundam models - good balance between story, character development, and nerding out. Large age gap (30 and 16), but genre is not romance
Nice yuri
As an aside, I’ve read a few things with large age gaps recently, and it’s been interesting seeing 18-19 yr olds referred to as 未成年 (The age of majority in Japan was formerly 20, but became 18 in 2022 apparently).
Otherwise:
- ゆるゆり 1 | L20 - meh, good from a language perspective. I don’t get why it’s so popular
- 勉強に集中できない | L17 - decent one shot
- marking 1 | L19 - side story for ロンリーガールに逆らえない 1 | L22
- 結局そんなきみが好き | L20 - also a side story - both are great
- Charlotte 1 | L23 - ok shounen. Wasn’t interested enough to continue
- 羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている 1 | L22 - reread, I really liked it, and plan to continue
- 青い花 1 | L26 - felt much easier than last time (tho still lookups), besides the names - which really are a pain
- I will probably print those out from the wiki, or make a google doc or something
Personally I found the anime funny but have no interest in the manga. Maybe it’s just more enjoyable in that format.
How long are they? I can’t find page counts on Amazon.
I’ve just given up on trying to remember the names.
I also thought that might be the case, and may try watching it
Like 30-60 pgs? I already returned them, so idrc the exact counts
I mean I wanna at least know like the core chars and place names… But I’m sure I will give in on some of them or maybe do an Anki deck just for the names
Well, there was a bit more in the volumes I read since then, but it felt too little, too far apart. The plot got a bit boring too, so I just tapped out somewhere around the beginning of 転生したらスライムだった件 10 | L33 (I literally fell asleep while listening to the audiobook, some scream woke me up 30min or 1h later and I was like okay I’m done).
Then the week-end came in and I just read random stuff. Mostly the BL book club part, followed by a bunch of TL josei manga I bought sometime ago when there was a campaign on Booklive. I can’t add those even if I wanted to (and considering the spice level, I probably wouldn’t) since they are Booklive exclusive, thus not on Amazon. It was kinda fun to see a pattern in the content: it’s 1/3rd hot genius young 社長 forcefully “seducing” the boring everyday normal around 30 main character for some reason, 1/3 sex friend with some hot guy who’s popular with the girls but somehow doesn’t sleep around even though technically they are not a couple I wonder why, and 1/3 single main character going “gaaaaah I am so sexually frustrated” (or some variation) and comedy+hot guys ensue.
It was mostly meh, but I had a couple laughs from the last category. (Also, I got those for dirt cheap, it’s fine if the content is also dirt cheap).
That being said, as I jokingly mentioned above, the content felt much more like TL than what I usually see in “proper” Josei manga.
Speaking of proper Josei manga, I also read 80% of the first volume of 百鬼夜行抄 (but in a new edition with less volumes, so that probably covered the first volume and some change?) I haven’t added it to Natively yet, though.
The drawings are beautiful, although they do feel very much like the '90s. I’m a bit less happy that the main characters/couple? are cousins, but it’s life.
I also read some more of 吉原手引草 | L30?? and boi the 廓詞 (speech pattern from the red-light district) is kicking my ass おざんす. (In fact, I think I spent more time reading about it that reading the actual book).
Then, late on Saturday night, I was browsing the 女性向け LN section of Booklive and randomly bought 継母の心得 | L30?? and then read most of it yesterday. It’s technically not a single day, but since it’s less than 24h, there exists a time zone in which I read it in a single day (actually, AOE works). I may or may not use it for my bingo card instead of the one I have now.
The story itself was alright, but nothing special. Main character who died without kid (and regrets it) got reincarnated as the evil stepmother of the hero of the manga series she loved. She finds him adorable and decides to be the best mother ever™, combined with the typical isekai tropes of reinventing food and stuff (here, kids toys). Having raised children myself, I can’t help but notice that the book has an extremely simplified and idealized version of child rearing.
Then last night, having yet again nothing I feel like reading, I just decided to go through the section for the LN book club (just before the deadline ). Not much happened yet.