I actually finished book 1 in April already. Well, I liked the book. It was in an easy read and the story was interesting enough, I think. At least interesting enough for me to order book 2 and 3. Let’s see how it will go from there.
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this is so encouraging to hear! i have like a pdf/ebook version of it or something? I feel like this is a bit of an uphill battle because I’ve begun to comfortably read everything except novels. My goal is to be able to comfortably pick one up and read it whenever I want. I’m going to follow you on the site, if you don’t mind!
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So through a series of coincidences I noticed you were reading 天冥の標 @Naphthalene! I’ve been wanting to read this series ever since learning about it (through Bento Books announcing they were going to localize it, which as far as I can tell never came to be 
), but completely forgot about it until I saw it in your profile, haha. How do you like the books? Would you say that the sci-fi setting makes them a harder read?
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I’m technically not reading it at the moment. It’s just a clever ruse to pin it to my dashboard so that I remember to get back to it someday 
I really liked the “first” book (volume 1 上 and 下, so two actual volumes in this edition). Then the second book had a ~500 years time skip backwards and it was hard to get back into the flow. Then the third book (this one) jumps again 200 or 300 years forward (so, it is in between the other two). Due to the author’s style, I always have troubles getting to care about the characters, but when I finally do, we move on to a different time.
The books itself are fairly hard in terms of vocabulary, due to the setting (and the technical terms change based on the time period!), but the writing style is straightforward.
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Very interesting. Given that the series has 17 volumes (so far), I wonder if the time skips settle, or if they’re just a feature?
So given the large amount of time skipped, could you treat volume two as a standalone volume? Or would you definitely need to have read volume 1 first?
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If you count 17 volumes, then that’s the same edition I am reading. Volume 1 and 2 are simply the first book being split in two (from the 10 books edition).
Book 2 can be read independently from book 1, however it completely spoils something from book 1. At the same time, book 1 being 500 years in the future shows clearly that something they are trying to do in book 2 is not going to happen (and I also know that something that they are trying to do in book 3 will happen because of book 1, which made me lose interest at the time).
Book 2 is a medical thriller rather than SF, so it might make sense to read it independently, though.
That being said, there are some connections in book 2 and book 3 that you can only make because you know those other things, but that’s not too much of an issue, I think. In particular the epilogue of book 2 would probably fly over your head.
(I also enjoyed a moment in book 3 when we meet a character who’s obviously the ancestor of a character I liked in book 1 and the descendent of a character I liked in book 2)
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Cool, thanks! I’m definitely going to add at least book one to my to read list. I glad I asked you about them ahead of time; time skips of that magnitude would definitely throw me off, haha.
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I am not reading these yet, but these are two books I bought at BookOff for 200 yen.
They actually have volumes 1-7 of Overlord all for 200 yen each, but I am not planning on starting it for a few months, so I just bought the first volume. Maybe I will love it and then regret not buying 2-7.
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I started reading 草魔法師クロエの二度目の人生.
It recently got picked by a publisher, but the price tag is too high for my wallet (1500 jpy per volume).
Checking the preview, there’s been some slight improvements in terms of writing, but I can do without.
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I finished:
so I’m going to jump to the next one. Catching up doesn’t look impossible!
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I’m just started reading 魔女の旅々1 and a few pages take me quite a while since I’m looking up every single word I didn’t know compared to my other book, where I just continued reading. I’ve also decided to read SPYXFAMILY1 with the WaniKani book club as well as continuing the series by myself!
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Continuing chapter 4 of ノルウェイの森 today, and the description of the deranged girl who wants a guy who would spoil her was pretty hilarious.
She wants a guy who would buy a strawberry cake for her when she wants it, but then she would just toss it straight (ぽい!) out the window and expect the guy to apologize and get her something else.
ぽい is also one of my favourite Japanese words, but I usually say ぽいぽい as in tossing one dirty shirt after another into the washing machine.
The light heartedness of this section is also a huge contrast to the gloominess of the pervious conversation of her mother’s passing away, her father ditching her family, and the sudden fire three blocks away which created a smoke engulfing the entire run-down old street.
If this section was taken out of context, it would have read like any third-rate light novel. The smooth delivery from the previous state of sadness to this section elevated the read a lot.
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I’m taking a break from 5分後に意外な結末 - 赤い悪夢 for a few days now already. Eventually I will finish it, but I noticed that I don’t care at all anymore about the short stories and so it doesn’t do any good for learning.
For the time being I’m reading:
I picked this book up some months ago because I saw someone on Youtube recommending it. Just finished chapter 5 earlier and it got surprisingly sad? Well, maybe only for me because I expected a more light story, actually
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Sounds like my experience with 本当はこわい話 かくされた真実.
Unlike with 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ, the stories where so short, that it’s almost impossible to feel invested in them. Also there’s no connection between them, so it makes them feel even more hollow.
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If anyone wants to read 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 (The Night is Short, Walk on Girl) but was concerned about difficulties with kanji, a Tsubasa Bunko version was also released. I’m going to request to add it to the website.
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Kanji were not the problem here, for me. That story is a trip. I was very confused. And I wasn’t sure my confusion was due to a language issue or because the story was just confusing. Probably a bit of both. I watched the anime afterwards and the story is indeed very weird. 
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I finished 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 | L31 today. The reviews aren’t great for it, but I found it to be a very engaging read and I enjoyed it. I wanted a bit more from the end, but it was the most fun I had reading in a while and I finished it in 3 or 4 days.
Started やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている。 3 | L34 afterwards.
(not quite sure why, but the first link doesn’t work with the https:// in front 
)
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The stories in 5分後に意外な結末 - 赤い悪夢 are about 10 pages long and there is also no overarching storyline or something like this. Idk, the stories are just not interesting. Should have known better by the reviews maybe? But well, I will sell the book once I finished. Maybe someone else will enjoy it.
I also read ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 which contains short stories as well (although to be fair they are about 20 pages long) but I really enjoy this series. It’s written well enough and I find it interesting what “problems” the protagonists of each story are dealing with and what sort of candy they get.
My happy mail came yesterday and I actually ordered the first three volumes of 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ. Yours and @Wakaman reviews made me buy them. Not sure if they are my next read or if I will continue with 夜カフェ first, but I’m defiantly looking forward to reading it.
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I was one of the reviewers who was pretty ‘meh’ about the book. I suspect I’m not that into light novels, or as @Naphthalene once noted, perhaps not that into light novels aimed at boys. The characters just leave me wanting for depth 
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I’m very interested in your thoughts about it! As something I bought by myself without external input while browsing Tsubasa Bunko on Amazon, I’m very happy with my discovery.
Some of the stories left an impression on me when the twist came, and it’s always fun trying to figure out how is going to go wrong.
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