What are you reading today?

Japanese Reading
5279

I agree, I just think the author could have dialed the constant banter down a little, while still achieving the same effect. The way he’s written in vol 8-9 is very different, and much more interesting

When was the inner monologue in vol 2? Was it when Haruhirob was fighting Dead Spot? (Or w/e its name was)?

Also random question, but does the author use 軀 for からだ (instead of 身体 or 体) frequently? Cuz it’s been so over the last few books, and I definitely don’t remember it from before

She also does in vol 8… Except she wasn’t name dropped till vol 9 (which doesn’t have a character chart) … So :woman_shrugging: You may be be onto something tbh. I’m curious, but I told myself I can’t look things up anymore, bc of spoilers

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灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
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I had to tear myself away from finishing 魔法少女ダンデライオン 2 | L24 last night. What a great series, excited for whenever the next volume comes out. I am also joining the Shade’s eyelashes appreciator club. :see_no_evil:

Now to get caught up on my one and only book club before I start more manga…

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5281

The manga looks interesting, but whenever I see a volume-per-three-month publication schedule I get scared off. I follow literally one series that publishes every ~4 months (シャドーハウス | L23) and one that publishes every 5 months (雨夜の月 | L23). Most others I read typically publish every 8-12 months. If I picked up just a handful of these 3-4 month publication schedule series, I’d never keep up with everything. :sweat_smile:

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5282

I should probably just purchase it already… tho I might want it in physical, assuming I like it

I don’t understand these words :joy:

I fail to see the problem - you’ll just never run out of things to read

Otoh there’s something like 気になってる人が男じゃなかった | L24 which is once a year… I should probably pick that up again one of these months… Or maybe in February when vol 4 (presumably) comes out

I’ve been so lazy about keeping up with the chapters that I’ll have to wait for the next volume at this point :sob: (I’ve stopped keeping up with almost anything that isn’t in Yurihime lately… I need to remedy that)

Btw does anyone have good recs for tracking upcoming manga releases? I’m really forgetful about it

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5283

I just let Bookwalker let me know that a next book in a series I’ve bought from is upcoming.. that’s only helpful if you buy digitally and from BW, but it does work for me..

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5284

I won’t lie… I am considering getting physical volumes too… But it’s easier to make people read them if I buy the English translation, so decisions, decisions. :thinking:

That’s basically how I do it too.

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5285

Before that. There’s a whole part from his point of view after he let everyone else run away from the kobolds.

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灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
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And then I finished vol 9, instead. Very much defied my expectations. Apparently the author wrote it with very little planning in mind… And honestly it came out really fun! I really hope book 10 stays in this setting too

Also I now understand why there’s been zero romantic progression between the two obvious candidates. They’re both impossibly dense, self-repressed, overthinkers with a kinda warped way of viewing things. . Tho after this point, I won’t blame Haruhiro bc (under extenuating circumstances) Merii shot down the possibility in the most blunt, conclusive manner possible

For better or worse, the author brought in some pre-isekai memories scenes - which did at least flesh out the characters more. I was surprised to learn that Yume is actually not a native Kansai resident, but moved from somewhere with 標準語

Not gonna write out more thoughts bc it’s after 3am now - but I’m really having a lot more fun with this series than I was expecting

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5287

Small heads up that @shitsurei, @soggyboy, and I have been talking about starting an informal reading club for 私の夫は冷凍庫に眠っている | L28 at some undetermined point in the near future; others are welcome to join as well!

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5288

Come to the freezer, we have husbands in here :ice_cube:

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5289

I did start that book last year, but didn’t go very far. It could be a good chance to get back to it!

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5290

1/3rd in. So far 灰と幻想のグリムガル 10 is my least favorite of vol 7-10. But I’m hoping that will turn around.

It started off in the same larger setting, but in a different area, where once again, there are no other humans are around. They spent the first 1/3rd of the book fighting and then running from gorillas (I wish I was joking). Essentially a hex crawl :face_exhaling:

Prologue was a mostly irrelevant side story

prologue summary

Prologue is dragged out and weird and related to a bullied American otaku from Colorado, who moves to Japan, but somehow wound up in Grimgar. He quit adventuring at some point. Now as he’s dying from being mauled by a bear, he somehow remembers everything from pre-grimgar, babbles about simulation theory and transferring worlds, and some mysterious woman shows up and seemingly does something to enable him to live on, while abruptly leaving

semi-romance moments (spoilers for events in vol 9)

Haruhiro is voluntarily, but begrudgingly in a 恋人ごっこ setup with someone who’s indispensable (they’d have died multiple times without her), and rude & overbearing - and is kinda obsessed with him bc he’s atypical.

Anyway, after reprimanding him for not valuing his life enough, she proceeds to kiss him on the forehead, and メリイ reacts (Note: blurred name is major spoiler for vol 9):

ハルヒロの額にセトラの唇が押しつけられ、ちゅ、と小さな音を立てた。ひんやりしていて、やわらかかった。
メリイがまた咳きこんだ。もしかして、風邪･･････?

Come on man, I know メリイ loudly shot you down last volume (for reasons related to this setup & cuz she’s dense as hell too), but you can’t be this dense :joy:

They also had some discussion about クザク’s attractiveness, and whether anyone in the party thought they might have had any sexual encounters pre-Grimgar. It was nice they could just have a normal conversation about it.

That said, I’m fairly confident that whenever セトラ finally parts with them, I’m sure the author will find another way to make things not develop btwn ハルヒロ and メリイ

Also I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of the other party from last volume, cuz I was enjoying whatever was going on btwn シホルand ツカ

Party changes (major spoilers for vol 8-9)

Having ランタ 100% gone is soooooooo nice.

セトラ is a lovely replacement for ランタ, even though she’s not quite a party member. I like that she’s brought some semblance of romance discussion into the story, and even though stuff’s gotten tense with メリイ bc of her, and the party mood can be uncomfortable, the vibe is sooooo much nicer than with クソランタ. Also, she has combat value (via a 人造人間) & out of combat value via the same thing + the ニャアたち (yes they’re cat-like, and really useful)

Also I feel like the party has gotten a bit more affectionate/supportive of each other over the last few volumes, and that’s nice to see

@Naphthalene you may be pleased to know that the party has apparently discovered CPR, somewhere in the last x volumes - and an explanation for why they can’t just magic someone who’s not breathing (in this case, who had just drowned)

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灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
5291

I would assume the last 9 volumes. They did perform CPR as early as volume 1.

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They did?? Was it when マナト died? I was thinking of your comment from before:

I reasoned they just didn’t know CPR at the time (or else they’d know that fact), but nevermind I guess

灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
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Yes. They kept doing it long past the time it made sense too (as seems natural in such tragic case).

Ah, I see your point. Yeah, they (or at least the main character) should have known better, which is what made me annoyed at that specific point. I would have been fine if the book told me sorry bub, he is too FUBAR for even magic to work, but we didn’t get that.

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灰と幻想のグリムガル - Discussion Thread
5294

I finally finished ノルウェイの森 (1) | L32 !!
It’s hard to express how I feel about that. It’s the first non-manga book I bought in Japanese, more than 15 years ago, and I just stubbornly kept it with me (along with the 下 volume) over all those years. There are books I bought after that felt too hard at the time and that I just sold back, but not those two.

I did read a few pages here and there. About 10 pages at the time I bought it (then gave up). Opened it and closed it without even finishing a page for a couple years. Restarted and reached the end of chapter 2 back in 2015, when I was trying to get to N1. Pretty much left it to gather dust until last year when the bingo prompt was “read the book you’ve bought the longest time ago” or something, read about 100 pages (not restarting) but then just stopped when one of the first manga I bought (but sold back since I couldn’t read it at the time) became available for free on Booklive and read that instead.
Then, this year, I noticed that it was published in my decade of birth, thus fitting another prompt, so I kept reading it a bit at a time since January. Still not restarting.
Let me tell, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details of the plot. Sometimes, characters would be mentioned and I would go “huuuuh who is that again?”, look them up and find out they are from the part I read 10 years ago :sweat_smile:

Needless to say, I don’t think I can provide an objective evaluation of the plot. I did like the writing (Murakami is indisputably a great writer, even if I don’t like some of the stuff he typically puts in his books), but, as the timescale implies, the story didn’t really hook me.

I will think about reading the second part. It does feel a bit much right now. Maybe in 15 years.

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5295

Yeah it was my least favorite of the recent books. Got 3 stars from me. Vol 11 is doing better, tho I found myself skimming a decent amount, due to things carrying on too long, me not being particularly interested in a certain character, and also just bc I’ve been reading non-stop (besides sleep) since yesterday.

The prologue section of vol 10 turned out to be very relevant for parts of 10 & 11, but it still was an unnecessarily long side story that could have easily cut out half or more. Vol 10 & 11 are basically a single combined story. I think/hope they’ll finally move on to the next world/アルタナ/グリムガル or w/e after this.

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5296

August Manga Reading Challenge, Week 3

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Wow, look at the small pile. :sweat_smile: My motivation for reading manga has been really dropping lately, which is really interesting; I really didn’t expect it to. Let me jump into a few thoughts on these books first, then I’ll talk about the rest of my plans…

Completed books:

Reviews/Thoughts:
斉木楠雄のΨ難 1 : Aaah, Saiki K. This is one of the rare properties where I watched the (entire) anime first. I picked up this volume one out of curiosity to how close to the anime it would be, and it’s pretty darn close. Doing more research, there were only a handful of manga chapters not adapted to the anime, so… Honestly I feel fine not reading through the manga? Like I really enjoyed this volume, and did even laugh a couple of times despite already being familiar with the jokes, but it’s kinda nice to know that I’m not missing anything.

Heavenly Blue : I don’t remember when I acquired this book, to be honest; it’s one of my earlier acquired books in my Japanese journey. I do remember opening this up, years and years back, and being absolutely flummoxed at the difficulty and quickly putting it down. And now, years later, it’s one of the easier books I’ve read during this little challenge. :rofl: I always enjoy these extreme before/after comparisons; they make me feel so smart, haha. Anyway, I enjoyed this book; short story compilations (especially manga ones) are so hit or miss, but this author has only three published books, and this was the last one I hadn’t read, so I really wanted to try it out. It’s a shame they published so little; I’d have loved to see a few of these expanded into real stories.

So as of last week, I’ve hit one month of manga-reading (as I started during the last week of July). It’s not a technical full calendar month, but I think I’ve done pretty okay, and I’m happy to close it out here, I think. Overall I read eighteen volumes of manga, only one of which was digital; the remainder were all physical backlog volumes. I set a goal for myself this year to read 50 of my physical JP manga, which brings my current year total to twenty-nine. I’m (finally) over the halfway mark, which while I’m happy about, it feels like I should be farther along. 21 volumes left out of the 153 I’ve got left… So I might need to make another challenge month this year, we’ll see. :sweat_smile:

I’ve really been jonesing to start reading some novels again, so I’ll be moving onto those full steam ahead for a bit, I think. So here’s a general novel update!:

Currently Reading:

Up Next:

So I’ve already got quick a bit upcoming on my plate; I need to knuckle down and finish the last few books on my bingo as well…

Anyway, these updates have been fun! Thanks for following along! o/

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The 'Read Your Owned Books' Thread
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I’ve posted the home thread for whoever would like to join!

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5298

Finished https://learnnatively.com/book/21dfa9115c/ and well, I’m probably ready to take a break for a day or two. There were some parts I liked, some parts I didn’t, and some moments I’ve been dying for. But there’s just been so much wrapped into these last few books (and so many long battles) that I wanna take a breather, even though it’s mid-arc.

Finishing https://learnnatively.com/book/c25baa24d8/ and then I’ll probly catch up with クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27 and try to stay on pace with https://learnnatively.com/book/bc74ea7441/

Edit: I ended up starting Grimgar 12 anyway :sweat_smile: … For once both genders get a fan service-y opening illustration

illustrations

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Somebody plz teach light novel illustrators how women’s bodies work

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Really it would be nice to see the guys in a bath/beach scene too, if we’re gonna go for service-y shots… But I’ll settle for a shirtless ハルヒロ shot for now

Also every time I see ランプ I think of ramps :sweat_smile:

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