I finished 熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる2 | L24 today and decided to buy the rest of the series while it’s on sale. I’m hoping for some kind of romance development, but even if there’s not it’s cute and sweet and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.
I also started 性別不明な殺し屋さんがカワイすぎる。 1 | L24?? for my latest 4-koma. I only physically own six more 4-koma that I haven’t read, so I kind of want to read them all before I buy more just to say I did. 
When I was sick earlier this year I wanted to keep reading in Japanese but had no mental energy for proper literature so I consumed a lot of these samey office romances. I feel like if AI were to ever write anything, it could write TL because if you swap out the names and ages a bit I basically read the same book multiple times 
You know, as long as the book releases the funny chemicals into my brain, I don’t mind reading it multiple times 
Added it for you, assuming I got the right book: Nevermind, it’s not
I’m not typically active in this thread (or anywhere outside of book clubs). But I thought I’d mention the books I recently got on bookwalker.
So, almost all books (not comics) I have read are 本好きの下剋上 | L31 volumes, which I read along while listening to the audio book. I’m at volume 17, so a bit more than half way through. But recently I have been wanting to read some stupid/mindless slice of life isekai kind of stuff. And I got some first volumes of whatever was on sale on bookwalker:
as well as a time limited sample I started reading. I don’t think I understood the in medias res prologue at all. I might have to go back on that. But once they started at the beginning and had proper dialogue and stuff, it wasn’t that bad (given that most of my reading so far was with audio):
And a sample of 没落令嬢、貧乏騎士のメイドになります （上） (apparently not on learnnatively yet).
I don’t know if you are joking, but no, that’s not it 
Edit: I just added the correct series
Wasn’t joking. I just haven’t been feeling 100% today, and didn’t look closely enough. Sry for the confusion
Started クプルムの花嫁 2 | L28 since I just bought a bunch of volumes. It really is such a beautifully printed manga. The cover has little bumps on it, far more pronounced than I’ve ever seen on another manga, perhaps in imitation of the patterns that appear in coppersmithed items. Between that, a unique-looking cardboard inner cover, and good paper quality, it really is a pleasure to read the physical copy.
I have finally gotten through 竜愛づる騎士の誓約 下 | L34. It wasn’t hard or terrible or anything, but I mostly ran out of interest halfway through.
Just having a whinge: It’s quite a choice when the whole thematic content of your story revolves around the relationship between two characters, to just have them stop interacting for most of the book. I see what the author was going for I guess but it really took away the most interesting content. Dragons, politics, tragic backstory blah blah blah - none of that was what was driving the story but that’s where all the time ended up being spent. And why would we want to spend all the time with perfectly functional designated-love-interest rather than the wildly dysfunctional interesting relationship? So much of the stuff set up that should have generated drama didn’t really amount to anything.
I guess I’m not the target audience though - maybe someone else would get more out of the romantic relationship aspect there. I just thought it was boring after everything was revealed and they just … got together, and that was it. What happened to all the discomfort with being adopted into this guy’s family specifically to marry him because of your magical powers, feeling like she doesn’t really have a choice, and feeling like a pawn of the family who keep everything secret. It turns out they’re all just wonderful people and she was worried about nothing. I mean, I guess that’s kinda a twist but it’s not very interesting and a bit thematically weird.
Anyway, it’s not bad - fairly well-written, and I’d read something by this author again. If you like Western-style epic fantasy I think this is a decent choice - it just didn’t really keep the attention to the part I was most interested in.
Moving on to 今はもういないあたしへ... | L30??, which seems like environmental-focused science fiction. The author has a nice, easy writing style, which I quite appreciate.
Well, I assume I won’t read it then, but I guess I can still add it to the “fantasy that’s not isekai” list.
I have one you can add to that list. It’s a translation of Wizard’s first rule by Terry Goodkind. It’s fantasy but definitely not Isekai. He does travel to other countries but it’s all the same world.
Has a dragon, monsters, magic etc, it’s classed as epic fantasy.
I like the cover art:
I was wondering if it was an older book; 1988, but somehow the art style feels to me a bit more 70s.
I don’t know about adding translations. Whether something is isekai or not feels much more obvious than for Japanese stuff. (Plus, I don’t like reading translations when I don’t have to)
No worries, I didn’t realize the list was only for Japanese fantasy that wasn’t Isekai. 
Finished and loved this (tho with some issues). Even though I knew a decent portion from the web novel version, there was a decent amount that I’d forgotten, or that changed, or that simply hasn’t been published there yet. In any case, the book went above my expectations most of the time. It’s great to see the writing grow/improve (particularly getting multiple characters PoV)
Also I was thrilled to read in the あとがき that the anime plans are still underway, even though they haven’t been able to announce the production details yet.
My reading speed has gone from .27 max to .26 min & .45 max, for what I tracked in this book.
In an odd twist, I’ve voluntarily decided to start going through a textbook on my own (I’ve done like 1/4 of it in lessons before). I really like this one, specifically for the fact that it’s all in JP (besides the intro), and for the various examples passages it has. And I think it will fill in various gaps I have around social registers, basic phrases, gendered speech patterns, random grammar I’ve missed, etc
I was inclined to drop the Oshi no Ko manga just for being so long while also being a bit annoying in terms of difficulty and having no end in sight. But apparently the series will be concluding soon at 16 volumes. I’ll probably still just continue via the anime for now, but this does make me more likely to also continue the manga at some point.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2024/10/9/oshi-no-ko-manga-ending-date
Might just be a numbers game? I figure the manga has a bunch more readers than the LN.
Are there any direct grades of the manga vs the LN in the grading? 
I figured as much. Was just amused
Asking the real questions
