My April is cut up kind of weirdly due to IRL stuff, so if there was interest I figured I’d post a thread starting April 1 or something, and people could drop in according to their schedules. I just didn’t want it to just be me posting; gets lonely. 
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Yes, quite a bit. I’m not fully sold on the overarching plot, but I like the gothy vibes and the way it does fantasy. Overall a bit more to my taste content and style-wise than 薬屋のひとりごと. After the first book I found it much easier.
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Well, I did start reading the VN ISLAND one year ago, at Wanikani level 5, so… I’m a firm believer that a dedicated beginner, armed with a dictionary, can read anything! 
I also “cheat” by first reading a chapter in Japanese (on Kindle so it’s easy to look up) and then re-read the same chapter in English to see if I understood everything. It’s slow, but fun!
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That’s honestly probably too soon for me, but I’ll keep it mind for after I finish sailor moon, I guess. Totally get what you mean about not wanting to be the only one tho
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Honestly, it’s really a great mindset to have. I’ve got Island download on my 3DS myself, though I’ve never tried to play it. I think the most important thing you need is stamina and patience. One of the most difficult aspects of learning for me has been learning how to be patient with myself as I try to understand things.
I “cheated” by watching the anime for 本好き first.
At an elemetary school I worked in I snatched up a bunch of Magic Treehouse books they were going to get rid of. I wanted to read them in english before reading them in japanese. The teachers there were really cool and when I told them why I wanted the books they told me “that’s just how we learn, we copy what we see and draw similarities from what we already know”.
Edit: (oh also for perspective, I’m not a teacher at the school, I’m tech support)
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I think we’re opposites on the style, but I agree about the vibes and fantasy approach - especially for a book with all the archaic vocab, the lack of fantasy info dumps is nice
ドMね？ 
As long as you’re enjoying it… Everything’s hard as a beginner anyway - so being into what you’re reading is probably more important than difficulty
Kindles are such a game changer!! (Well not for ppl who read with Yomitan, but I don’t usually read on a computer). Tho even still I can only tolerate so much unfamiliar vocab per page. If it gets to be more than 5-7 words on average, I’ll usually put it down for a while.
It’s basically the equivalent of doing your math homework and then checking the answers in the back of the book (is that still a thing?). I used to read so much stuff side by side like that. If anything doing the opposite way is sorta “cheating” - but still quite beneficial, and I utilized it quite a bit with manga, and especially anime at first - I’d only watch stuff I’d already seen with EN subs, so I’d have some hope of understanding it.
Totally agree on all of this.
How does it compare to the books?
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*laughs in 本好き＊
They “check” their answers with Chat GPT on their phones now. 
So far, it seems a bit more simplified than the book, but following the same main beats. There’s a part in the book where they purify oil (idk what the process is actually called) and make candles. Those parts aren’t in the anime, just where Myne is trying to make paper from the plant stems. It looks like they cut less important parts out to be able to move the main story forward.
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Finished キラキラとギラギラ 4 | L22! Consistently excellent; I can’t wait until volume 5. Definitely going to need to get physical copies.
Edit: finished ゲッシング・ゲーム | L29 as well. Full story spoilers here. A decent little manga, very of it’s time. Wouldn’t necessarily recommend unless you’re looking for 70s stuff.
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Because you’re looking up less than or more than 5-7 words per page? I actually can’t tell.
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Ugh I love everything SMT so I’m very tempted! I will definitely try to read the Manga before the game comes out (would prefer the novel but can’t imagine going through it without easy lookups since it seems to be only physical) so I get used a bit to the setting vocab and so on. But I can see it being too hard too, I remember even having troubles with the English PS2 version when I was a teen, even though I already played most games in English (including other SMT titles) back then… So could be that I would drop out if I feel like it is too hard…
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Started reading きみ死ぬ きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい | L23 on the 23rd. It’s the 29th and I’ve finished up to volume 7 (plus the bonus 21 page extra comic) and will 100% finish volume 8 (which I think just came out?) today I’m picky with yuri as a massive lesbo myself but dang is it really just a nice (and very sad) read. The mcs’ character development is SLOW though and the romance even slower.
I do think part of the appeal for me is not knowing what it is they’re fighting & how the magic works (I think it adds to the “why the hell are we making little kids into soldiers” feeling) though, so there’s a possibility that it loses me as we understand more about the war & the world. I get that it kinda has to do that to continue as a series though haha.
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Volume 9 came out earlier this month
I think it’s been pretty steadily paced (tho I think a lot of yuri moves too fast, in general). The human weapon girl’s development was a bit slow to come tho, I agree.
I’ve really enjoyed that there’s been so little battle portrayed so far, and that it’s just been these little drops and hints/foreshadowing(?)
Tbh it’s hard to think of any convincing rationale besides “kids are easily moldable, and these ones were vulnerable” - so I have low expectations there. It’s one of those “I’m just gonna not question the premise here”, suspension of disbelief things for me. I have some more thoughts, but they may be based on later volumes, so I’ll hold off.
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I think it’s vol8 that just came out, it’s just listed as the 9th “volume” in the series because of the けんかのあと bonus that comes between vol 5 and 6 ^^
Yeah, definitely having to just suspend my disbelief lol. The characters are kids because manga with child characters sell. lol. It’s just a slightly higher hurdle here because they’re 14 and the art style makes them look even younger, especially Mimi (which is addressed very endearingly in vol8 & brought a lot to Mimi’s character imo).
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Ah you’re right, it is vol 8 - sry!
I’m not sure I agree about the art style making them look even younger (Mimi aside)… at least relative to other yuri middle schoolers - and the high schoolers in the series. (Otoh I can think of multiple high school+ series with younger looking characters)
Definitely agree re: vol 8 & Mimi’s character development
Yes, more than 5-7 words a page a points. At least when a new topic is introduced.
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Actually could you or someone else maybe point to a point in 本好き 1 where you had a lot of lookups, or otherwise felt it was difficult? I’m trying to get a sense of relative difficulty (specifically compared to マリア様がみてる 1 | L29 and low L30s series I’ve read). I read 7 pgs just now, starting from where I paused last year… But not sure how representative those pgs are
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Actually I recently dropped 2 of the things that would be time sinks, so if you do start it for the manga I’d be interested. (It would also be the hardest manga I’ve tried, apparently)
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Personally, I don’t think 本好き is that difficult. If you are generally familiar with medieval fantasy settings it’s manageable. It does become harder later on in the series because there’s more characters and plotlines to keep track of, but there are very few times throughout the entire series that I felt lost.
Below are the topics that cause some difficulty spikes and around when they occur. I’m not giving away major spoilers, but if you want to go in completely blind you may not want to read these. If you don’t want to look at the individual topics below, the tldr is that each arc (and sometimes within an arc) introduces changes in the story that bring with it changes in language usage. Whether that causes a difficulty spike for you personally will depend on your existing familiarity with that type of language.
Specific examples:
- Paper and book making terms - starting in the first volume and expands throughout the series.
- Food terms - occurs once or so in the first volume and occasionally throughout the series
- Business terms - starting in the second volume
- Magic and fantasy terms - starting a little bit in the second volume, but becomes more prevalent later
- Greater use of 尊敬語 and 謙譲語 - starting in volume 4 and increases again a litter later in the series
- Political terms (moderate spoiler) - starting around volume 8
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That is also my impression… and I’m surprised it’s considered L32 (but with 1k gradings, it’s hard to argue). I’m not sure if I just got 7 of the easier pages. I do remember the sections you mentioned. The part I read earlier: they were in the woods, after the storm destroyed her tablets, and she was crying, and then she taught the boy how to write his name. Then the next chapter started with something about the coming of age ceremony.
The thing is I’m not really personally interested in 本好き as a story right now. I’m interested to see how dense the vocab gets, and how complex the sentences get, so I have some ideas of how it is relative to other series. Specifically what prompted this is recent discussions about level/difficulty in Home thread for SeaBed - informal Visual Novel Book Club or about マリア様がみてる 1 | L29 or just occasionally seeing things compared to it. Until earlier my impression was “harder than マリみて”, which it seems like @bbo also agreed with. But after earlier I’m not so sure.
So I’m hoping someone could either grab a snapshot of a hard section of book one or say “starts from around this sentence” - cuz otherwise it’s like I’m searching for a needle in a haystack. Worst case I can just force myself to read the next chapter.
Your guide is helpful tho if I do wanna dive back into it later. Thx for that 
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I haven’t read a lot of 30+ books, but 本好き felt significantly easier than. 京都寺町三条のホームズ | L31, which is only a 31. There’s a lot of very specialized vocab for the things she makes, but otherwise I don’t think it’s a very difficult read, and for context I finished it with the book club over a year ago.
I’m planning to start #2 this week so I’ll keep an eye out for something I consider difficult, though.
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