What are you reading today?

Apparently the only instances in any of my books is in ティアムーン帝国物語, which I haven’t read yet.

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Also, @Naphthalene are you not going to respond to my 本好き commentary? :sweat_smile:

By the way, what’s the plotline from the webnovel version that was dropped in the published version? I remember you mentioning there was some plotline fairly early on that actually did come back towards the end of the series, so I’m a bit curious what it was and (if you know / have a guess) why it was dropped.

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How did you even figure that out? (I know you can search individual books, but like the whole collection?)

I feel like I’ve seen it very rarely… But couldn’t point to anywhere specific, besides that I came across it just now while reading マリみて 29

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I had みずうみの歌 | L26?? on my wishlist and couldn’t remember why, but it was cheap so I bought it. I started reading and later looked up reviews and found this one on bookmeter, which also fits well with my first impressions of the book:

ゆらゆらと捉えどころのないような、不思議なファンタジー。いや、ミステリー?幻想的な雰囲気があり、夢の中にいるような気分になった。

I have only read like ~30 pages so far. I hope it will keep up its mysterious atmosphere, because I really enjoy it.

(Just realized it’s not cheap anymore. It was 300 円 when I bought it, in case someone wants to know how low the price can go.)

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I don’t really know what to say :sweat_smile: I really liked the last volume and in particular really appreciated the 書き下ろし parts that tidy up a lot of loose ends, and it seems you didn’t. Since I don’t really have anything to say (except maybe “I didn’t feel this way”; ah that also apply to the phobia and memory loss plot elements), I just liked the post :sweat_smile:
I really really liked the epilogue too, though.

I haven’t checked if that was edited out or not since then, but in the webnovel version, at the end of arc 2, フェルディナンド is waiting in his room (and not answering the door) on purpose to have マイン get attacked, so that he can just swoop in at the last minute and catch the guy and 神殿長 red handed. In the published version, there was one of his servants (forgot his name) preventing マイン from getting in. Generally, he is shown as much more calculating and borderline evil in the web version (and マイン sometimes refers to that incident when reminding herself that X or Y is something he would actually do). While he is still calculating, the published version softened him a bit.

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Notepad++ has a search all files in subdirectory feature and I have all my books in a searchable format. I could have searched on my kindle as well though.

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I’m in the middle of ふくよも 1 | L16 and it is so cute! It’s difficulty level is similar to よつばと! but the no furigana is really killing me! I guess it’s good to get used to reading things without furigana, but man it’s hard.

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I just read 尾守つみきと奇日常。(1) | L22 because it was at the top of the “currently free to read” manga list on Booklive, and I liked the design.
Since it was a high school romance comedy type of thing, I came in with negative expectations, but it was actually okay! Note that my standards are based on whether I would (as a teenager) date the main character or not, so my opinion might not apply to a lot of people. While he does have a lot of the negative traits common for MCs in that type of stories, the author does show us the point of view of the lead girl one (1) time, and he is indeed really cute there. As long as the author can convince me that there’s a reasonable cause for her to be interested in him, I am fine. Also, basically no fan service (you do see briefly some cleavage when vampire dude is about to “have lunch”, but it wasn’t much and it felt justified).

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What I really like about that manga is that it leans so much into the “half-human beings” nature of the characters - lots of chapters are centered around it and there’s plenty of tidbits or quirks based on it. It’s not super deep, but I enjoy that “what if that creature existed in human society” part a lot and it’s the reason why this is currently one of my favourite mangas! It’s definitely not because of all the cute monster girls.

On the other hand, the dilemma our MC currently faces in his life is introduced in the very first chapter… and then the author seems to forget it because there are so many shiny fun half-human/half-monsters to spin fun chapters around. We sometimes briefly come back to it, but it really plays second fiddle.

Romance plays third fiddle. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for that tbh.

Ah, also, it stays basically fan service free as far as I could tell!

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That was my impression too from the first volume. That’s kinda sad, it did distinguish the MC from other stuff I have seen.

Wow, that’s funny, because for me, it was “a bit much”. Glad to know it stays that way, though.

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I think I might’ve misrepresented both the romance and MC’s problem a bit. It’s not like they are forgotten. Both stay as an undercurrent to inform decisions/reactions/feelings, but romance is best when it develops, and problems are best when they lead to character growth, and both of those definitely take the back seat compared to “let’s have a fun/interesting chapter based on monster natures”.

If you’d skip 20 chapters at any point, you’d probably be like “Who are those new characters” or “Oh, we are in the middle of a school festival/trip/whatever now”, but both the romance and MC’s problem will be almost exactly as you left them.

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Major Congrats! You’ve officially beaten me to it, though I hope to follow you over the finish line soon.

(must…not…open spoiler…)

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I finished the first of the three stories in 吸血鬼はお年ごろ | L25 this afternoon. It’s the first book I’ve found at my level that I can read with minimal lookups and I think I’d read the book even if it wasn’t for improving my Japanese. I’ve been looking for a series to read a bunch of books from, and I think I’ve finally found it. And with 31 books I don’t think I’ll ever get through all of them!

Anyway, gotta make this short because I wake to start the second story before bed :joy:

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You have successfully reverse psychology’d me into buying the whole series.

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I finally finished ICO-霧の城- 上 | L30??
I really liked the first two chapters… and then suddenly chapter 3 came in and completely stopped the story in its track, talking about stuff even I don’t care about.

Hardcore cliffhanger it is, I guess. We are in the middle of a flashback inside a flashback, and we still haven’t been told why we are having the second flashback (although, I think it’s obvious from context).

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I just finished volume 2 and I have no regrets. I really like the MC.

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Finished マリア様がみてる 29 薔薇の花かんむり | L29 - so I’m past the anime now! (Tho I have to go back and read マリア様がみてる 28 フレームオブマインド | L29), which I skipped temporarily bc it was side stories. Anyway, 29 was great, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the series continues!

Finished. It continues being nearly identical to the anime, except that the anime fleshed it out so very well! Artistically, and in terms of storytelling I absolutely love it. The art style is extremely creative, evocative, and surreal. It requires you to think a bit about, and interpret, what you’re seeing a bit more than more recent manga styles (at least anything I’ve read), and you really get a good look at the characters’ emotional states at any given moment. The lack of chapters, and the constantly changing paneling is very engaging. One thing I prefer with the anime is that it feels a lot easier to connect with the characters, due to the pacing. The pacing is very breakneck here, and you’re constantly cutting to new scenes without any proper introduction. So the characters just seem even crazier than they already are.

While I’m minimizing non マリみて reads still, I’ll probably start きみの色 | L24?? after I finish vol 3

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Aaaand I’m done with the last available volume. I thought the last volumes were a bit weaker in the sense that, as @Legato said, there are a bunch of chapters that focus only on a single character (+ the two MC), and we don’t see much of the other characters. Then that new character just joins the pile of characters we only see a bit in the background from time to time. It was still pretty fun otherwise.
Not super thrilled about the announcement of the next volume, but I’ll keep reading I think.

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I’ve finally started 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~第一部「兵士の娘2」 | L31! I’m going to use it for my listening log, though I’ll be reading along with the text as I go. I think this’ll be good for my listening; it’ll help train my “listen and understand to a long sentence” abilities, and has the side benefit of finally getting me back to the series, which I’ve wanted to do for a while. :smiley: If all goes well with this volume, I’ve got 10 more 本好き audiobooks already purchased and waiting for me. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve also been getting that itch to return to another series, though this time it’s the third book: 薬屋のひとりごと 3 | L38. I figured it’d be a good idea to review my Anki cards I’d made previously for books 1 and 2 while I work on clearing up my current plate of JP books, and man am I glad I did. I’ve got 1,827 cards to review, and boy do I not remember the majority of these. :sweat_drops: Which hopefully means that once I do start 薬屋 3, I’ll be much better prepared than when I read volume two, since I didn’t do any review before then.

Otherwise it’s mostly book club books at the moment; 人狼サバイバル 1 絶体絶命! 伯爵の人狼ゲーム | L24 is nearly wrapped up while 幻獣調査員 | L33 has just started. I’d like to read the mystery club’s pick with them, but I’m trying to hold fast to my resolution of not being in more than two (active) book clubs at a time for my JP reading. (I’m cheating by not counting 魔法少年なつき×らびっツ 2 | L23 since Natively doesn’t allow re-read functionality, meaning it doesn’t show up on my dashboard. :X) Helps that I wouldn’t have much time regardless to read it, I suppose; there’s a few mystery club books I wasn’t able to join/finish while the club was active that I’d like to get to anyhow (水車館の殺人 | L34 and 木洩れ日に泳ぐ魚 | L32 immediately come to mind), so I suppose ~The Book~ may be added to that pile.

D.Gray-man reverse 3 Lost Fragment of Snow | L29 for my free read is almost done; it’s an easy read and should probably be a lower level than it is, since the writer doesn’t believe in paragraphs, and I’ll be done as soon as I can find an hour or two to sit down and finish it. Not sure what my next free read will be; probably FLESH & BLOOD 18 | L35, but I’m tempted by some other books I’ve have on the backlog for a while (NO. 6 〔ナンバーシックス〕#1 | L32 among them, since it’s getting a brand-new continuation this year).

Edit: Finished D.Gray-man reverse 3 Lost Fragment of Snow | L29! I’ll write a review tomorrow, but it was an excellent finisher to the light novel series; really one of those “saving the best for last” cases. Hoping to start my next free read this weekend.

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Just finished 君と綴るうたかた: 6 | L21. Overall I’d say the series was a solid 4/5, with the ending being particularly strong. I’m always a sucker for a sad ending, and this one was done very well.

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