Year 24 Group - Wikipedia might be a good starting point
Also this has a list of pre-1987 shoujo (specifically ones with sapphic elements): Fulles Dansaires: Shōjos d’abans del 1987 amb yuri - you have to scroll down kinda far for it tho
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Didn’t see it on Cdjapan or Suruga-ya. Didn’t think to check Amazon, cuz it’s usually not worth the shipping for me to order from there.
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Its on Kinokuniya too. That’s usually where I buy my manga.
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For fans of Yotsubato: volume #16 will be available in about one month from now: 2025/2/26.
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Ooooh. 
Big news!
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Thx. I put in a proxy request w/ Cdjapan, since I’m already ordering some other proxy stuff through them anyway.
Not sure if you have a specific reason for using them, but Kinokuniya charges almost 2.5x as much as the manga costs + sales tax & shipping, for all their manga. If I were already in-store, I might buy it anyway, but otherwise I won’t use them.
Price comparison for Amazon, Cdjapan, Kinokuniya
| Store | Total (USD) | 2 manga | 3 manga | 4 manga | 5 manga | 10 manga |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon JP | $22.27-23.74 | $28.83-30.47 | 35.41-37.21 | 41.97-43.93 | 48.55-50.67 | 82.06-85.04 |
| Cdjapan | $15.53-32.14 | $25.11-39.15 | $32.91-43.5 | 40.7-7-52.08 | 48.63-60.83 | 80.43-103.64 |
| CDjapan (DHL) | $30.06 | $37.02 | $41.37 | 45.71 | 53.91 | 84.69 |
| Kinokuniya | $21.76 | $34.82 | $47.87 | 60.93 | 65.27 | 130.54 |
Notes:
- This is using multiple copies of きみの色 1 or 2 (depending on the store)
- Amazon had 2 shipping options - arrive by Jan 28, and by Feb 10
- Cdjapan - I have DHL specified separately b/c I always use them, but they offer other providers, hence the range
- I went up to 5 manga b/c that’s when Kinokuniya’s free shipping kicks in. But at $11.99 per volume, that’s not gonna scale well
- Amazon is apparently cheapest in this case, tho I’ve also heard their packaging is much less reliable
- Kinokuniya starts out cheaper, but after 2 manga becomes significantly more expensive than other options, despite their free shipping above $50
- This doesn’t account for points back, nor membership (which iirc is 10% discount, meaning Kinokuniya would still be more expensive starting at 4 manga)
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I’ve been working on 蛇を踏む by Kawakami Hiromi for the past week or so.
I like magical realism, and I like weirdness, but… I think the difficulty of the prose, combined with the strangeness of the events, is a lot for me. You end up thinking to yourself, “if I understood the language better, would I understand the symbolism and the metaphors better, or would I still be going ‘huh’?” - and it seems like a lot of people struggled even with the weirdness of the English translation, so I guess I’m not alone.
(But this isn’t a non-recommendation! It’s pretty compelling and pretty interesting even if there are parts I don’t really get!)
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Update: I’ve finished 悪役令嬢は織田信長に憑依される. My detailed review is linked above. It was a fun, entertaining read, although it didn’t blow me away with its writing or originality despite the titular concept. 3.5 stars.
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Her boyfriend was cute too, although I guessed his secret the moment he appeared.
He was, in fact, a she.
I can dream, Harold.
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Finished volume 5… it was okay, but too much foodstuff and not enough romance. The very last part (and last illustration) was good, salvaging the whole thing from a 3* to a 4* in my book, but come on.
The cover was nice too, I guess (I really like the illustrations in general)
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Makes me think of 〆切前には百合が捗る | L28 - tho the presence of food stuff is understandable there considering one character is effectively a cook/housekeeper, and the other likes to run away to fancy restaurants.
The balance is fine there tho, just much more than I expected when I went in
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There was a group thinking about doing an club club around かがみの孤城 | L28 , right? Any of those people interested in doing it soon?
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I’ve already read the book digitally and listened to the audiobook, so I’m not really who you’re asking… but I’ll hang out to discuss plot and help with questions where I can.
Also, I’m considering buying the physical copy in the next 1-2 months, so maybe I’ll end up reading it a third time. 
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Finished 誰が勇者を殺したか | L31 - good story. Maybe not quite as good as the hype, but I did enjoy reading it a lot.
Starting なぜ僕の世界を誰も覚えていないのか? 運命の剣 | L32. I have the feeling that I read a really convincing review of this a long time ago. Hopefully past-me made a good choice, because on the surface it doesn’t sound like anything too special.
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I would be up for it
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Do you feel like there’s too much joy in your life? Not enough clouds in the sky, the birds’ chirping is insufferable, and you can’t seem to find a way to stop smiling despite your best efforts? Boy, 闇祓 | L29 is the book for you!
In my quest to finish my TBR starting from oldest (still in my “prior to Natively” lists), I picked that book nearly two months ago. In the middle of the first chapter, I had to stop for a while because I just wasn’t in the headspace to read that. Then, when I got better, finished the first chapter and stopped in the second chapter because it seemed completely unrelated AND dark as well. Then a few days ago, I just decided to push through in between sessions of ダリヤ and finally finished it! Turns out it was all connected in the end, but still.
I’m having a hard time giving it a star rating. It was 4.5* at giving me a horrible 1~2* time. So, I just averaged to 3*, which means nothing. I should probably format this into an actual review huh.
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大ニュース！
So excited for that
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Yep, I’m 100% curious after reading this. The description makes it sound like horror, but is it?
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I would say it is, yes, but the “horror” is quite light compared to more mundane trauma fuel present in the book. It’s certainly horrifying, if nothing else.
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Thinking about it, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a reading update of my own. I’ve managed to finish a few books recently, so it’s a good time to post.
Finished
- 最弱テイマーはゴミ拾いの旅を始めました。 | L24 - my first audiobook of the year! It’s sitting quite nicely on my bingo board, which I’m quite happy with. The book was okay overall; I’m not sure if I’m just lukewarm on it because I was missing chunks due to only listening to it, or if I would’ve found it just okay reading it; probably both. While I would like to start up another audiobook, I might hold off for a bit; they are, unsurprisingly, a more difficult media to listen to than podcasts or TV shows for me, so I might see if I can develop my listening skills a bit more before starting a new one.
- D.Gray-man 10 | L25 - I’ve read this whole series in English, and I’ve been slowly re-reading them in Japanese. It’s one of my favorites, and I feel kind of bad because whenever I rate one on Natively, I have absolutely no objective way to measure the star rating, I just default to “omg it was amazing!!”
Easy reads that are quite action-packed, so I’m hoping to make a good dent in them. - ホタルの嫁入り 2 | L31 - Volume 1 recently came out in English; I picked it up and enjoyed it, and didn’t want to wait for the next volume to be localized, so here we are. Fun series so far, a bit on the shallow side (it’s shoujo, granted) but entertaining. I’ll probably read more here and there as the mood strikes.
- 海の綺士団 1巻 | L31 - I’ve had this on on the Now Reading pile for a while now, so it felt pretty good to finally wrap it up. I really enjoyed the author’s other series レバダン・希望の花 | L30, so while the first volume of this one didn’t immediately grab me, I’m definitely going to give it a bit more time and page count to see where the author wants to go with this, since volume 1 definitely felt like little more than character setup.
Reading
- D.Gray-man 11 | L25 - Just gonna be reading it in the background…
- FLESH & BLOOD 17 | L35 - I’m finally making progress on this again; hoping to finish it before the end of the month.
Future?
I’d like to start another bingo square book soon to keep up my good momentum; perhaps after finishing F&B 17. I think I know what I’m going to read, but I won’t say since it’s for the no revews/ratings square. 
I’m also happy(?) to announce that I’ve been doing a decent job of keeping my active book club books to just two this month; there’s a bunch coming up that I’d like to participate in, so we’ll see how well I can juggle it all, but I’ve been wanting to cut back a bit solely to give myself more time to read my own books.
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