I read the books in sync with the anime when it released (now sure how I managed to line it up, but each weeks episode covered pretty much exactly what I read that week).
I really liked the internal monologue and the introspective style especially in しまむら POV a lot.
The anime wasn’t bad exactly. But making an anime adaptation is a book that’s more than half internal monologue is kind of silly. There are light novels that feel like they’d be better in a visual medium (ones focused on action or moe or just generally with few internal monologue, narration or description). But 安達としまむら is definitely not one of them.
But then there were other aspects I didn’t like at all and I dropped the series at the beginning of volume 10. (To be clear, it’s not like there was something in volume 9 or 10 specifically that I disliked, more that I realized what I disliked wasn’t going to get better). It’s a bit frustrating. Though maybe there are aspects I didn’t quite understand correctly because of language barrier. Maybe we can talk about it when either of you two reach volume 10 or drop it, too.
Finished 宇宙生命図鑑―book of cosmos | L34 - good stuff. Wish it were easier to find science fiction like this and around this difficulty level.
Something I just discovered while googling - apparently it won the 2002 Sense of Gender award, which I didn’t know was a thing but might be interesting to some other people here…
I thought it was great, dark, unflinching, and the ending for me really felt like out of the frying pan into the fire.
I also enjoyed 村上龍’s afterword. He was on the Akutagawa committee, and got himself all ready to come out swinging for the book, and seemed a bit disappointed everyone else on the committee were like ‘yep - it’s a good book’.
And next I needed something a bit lighter, so back to 赤川 with 過去から来た女 | L28 .
This was a pretty straightforward murder mystery, with the plot
after 7 years, a women who ran away from her hometown village returns and murders ensue.
It’s billed as a comedy too, but it wasn’t so silly, there’s a few jokes about the 田舎-ness and also about the leads current boyfriend, but nothing crazy.
I’m still reading 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 | L31 and it’s still just okay. The writing has gotten slightly better since the prologue I guess, but now it’s just a lore dump. I’m reading through a very long chapter that’s explaining how magic works in this world, and it’s so much information which I’d normally expect to be spread out over multiple volumes (or at least multiple non-consecutive chapters) to improve the pacing. It’s fine enough that I will finish the volume, but unless something really draws me in later I’m unlikely to continue with the series.
Fwiw I think this improves going forward (and based on my reviews, I apparently thought book 2 was substantially better than book 1 in this and other aspects - though it’s all blurred at this point). It’s been intriguing to see how nonplussed you are about the book so far though.
I stopped after vol 4 for a different reason, but I do feel like I should give the series a second chance eventually…
I just read volume 9 of 尾守つみきと奇日常。 | L23 and it was a mixed bag. There were parts that I did like, but I still hate the way the author is dealing with the succubus character. It seems completely incoherent to me that she can both be extremely shy about stuff like touching the main character’s shoulder while being completely casual about asking him to fondle her breast (she was stopped mid sentence by another character). Meanwhile, she can’t even ask him what kind of girls he likes. The new character introduced in this volume was just as incoherent too (albeit in a different way).
Probably because I feel like nothing has happened and because plot-wise I already know what’s going to happen because I remember a lot of the story from watching the anime three years ago.
The only other thing I can add right now is that アニス is a bit of a creep and I generally don’t like how she’s so open about wanting to work with ユフィ (in part) because she’s attracted to her. Oh, and unless I misunderstood (which is possible), it sounded like ユフィ’s father in private discussion with the king was like "maybe it would be good if アニス took advantage of ユフィ?!? Like what? I really hope that was just me sucking at Japanese and not the intended meaning.
40% in & I really love this. It’s round table style & not overly academic (while still being informative). The authors are all very interesting people. There’s been a mix of new information, things I’m very familiar with, sentiments I agree with, and occasional things I’m not so sure I agree with (the authors all expressed disappointment with the 2nd season of 機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 | L31 in a way that didn’t resonate for me). There’s a nice inclusion of IRL history and issues, based on the authors’ lived experiences as long time queer yuri fans.
Taking into consideration some of the Japanese Amazon reviews, I have to wonder how my experience of this book would have been if I hadn’t already read books like “By Your Side: the first 100 years of yuri” or other books & papers on shoujo & エス (aka Class S in English) history. I got the impression some readers (not here) were expecting this to be intro level based on the title… But the target audience is definitely existing fans of the genre.
I’ve only read a chapter or two so far, but there’s a few things I’m intrigued for. Though neither 私の百合はお仕事です, ささやくように恋を唄う nor 今日はカノジョがいないから have a chapter this month… Which means they’ll probably all have one next month!!
Reading with the yuri club. It’s fun, and I see why it translated well to a JDrama (I enjoyed the few eps I watched)
Introducing Kizmel & the Elf War Campaign. Kirito claims this is when SAO (ie Aincrad) really starts, and as much as I enjoy Book 1, I agree! It has a much lighter/faster vibe than the main series
I’ve been really impressed with the audiobook (same excellent narrator as main series), and am relieved with how she’s voiced Kizmel so far. The narrator captures the characters so well, though she talks fast, making it a good listening challenge for me. Unlike the main series, I’ve only read these once. So I’m trying to follow along very closely, since I can’t just go by memory. I’ve only had 3-4 lookups per page at most, which is surprising. Anyway, hoping to finish this weekend, and what I do remember of the plot, I’m really looking forward to
Ah yeah that will do it. Tho for me, the stuff besides the plot made it more interesting for me, in general. Tho I watched the anime after reading iirc
That’s definitely true, though at least Yufi knows clearly what she’s getting into. And Anis did state that she wouldn’t do anything/wasn’t just looking for someone to play with… But yeah, I’m with you there
I interpreted that line (whether accurately or of my own volition, idrc) as him thinking it could be good if something happened between them (I assume because it would help her move on)… which would “of course” necessitate Anis making a move, since Yufi is still painfully passive at this point. If it is the way you read it (which seems likely), it seems rather out of character for him
Do you happen to have the line handy? I’m curious to reread it.
Yeah, I agree it’s hard to read 手籠め otherwise - unlike if it was say 襲う or 手を出す. It’s also… (allusion to vol 4) not the only time the story will be more blase about consent than I’d like. But that’s the only time I recall a remark like that being made fwiw. And rereading it, I appreciate that even the other guy was like “wth?!”
Edit: even looking it up in JP, I really don’t see any nuance with that word - unless I’m also missing something
I’ve started my first 村上 春樹 book in Japanese, ノルウェイの森 (Norwegian Wood). I had only read one book of his so far in my native language many years ago and didn’t remember much. I was a bit apprehensive at first as it felt like a rite of passage, reading such a famous author in the original, but it’s going well so far, neither too easy nor too hard. I’m in one of those moments when you feel you’ve kind of made a little breakthrough in your understanding of the language, something that only happens to me once of twice a year. Still a long way to go but I’ll savor the moment
Currently reading お母さんオンライン vol 6. I love this series soooooo much this is the first volume I’m reading in Japanese. I read volumes 1-5 in English years ago
started reading 勇者になりたい少女と、勇者になるべき彼女 | L28 today based on a recommendation by @暁のルナ a while back in the recommendation thread. Only read the prologue so far but I got more time tomorrow. It’s my first time reading yuri. I was a bit surprised by a female character using ボク, but I guess that makes sense!
I found the prologue to be quite difficult to read, but in my experience the prologue is always the hardest part of a book.
Honestly it’s not the most common in yuri (really depends on the characters/setting), but it shows up in het stuff too: https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=tag&tagid=2138 . Even irl there are some occasions (formal, workplace) where a woman might use ぼく - but that’s even more 滅多にない
Interesting, cuz it looks like you’ve read a number of harder books. Idrc whether the intro felt harder for me, but like you said that’s usually the hardest part.
I didn’t know that about ボク! I guess I’ll see it when I see it. Frankly I don’t have a lot of ‘feeling’ for first person pronouns of any kind yet anyway.
I read most books with partial understanding/by relying on translation here and there. It’s just really hard to find interesting books that’s also on ‘my level’. I’m slowly but surely getting better though
Welcome to the concept of ボクっ娘 / ぼくっこ! The following is just vibes but it’s amazing how aside from bokukko there are also orekko.
So, bokukko are not always tomboys even though that’s my first association with the pronoun. A bro-friend of the MC in a harem-like show.
Sometimes it’s like kudere/loli characters for which I don’t have explanation.
And then there is characters like Furina from Genshin so… yeah. That. Expressive/showy characters, think short hair male clothes in a villainess show, with the vest an all.
80 years ago there were some dialects north of Tokyo, where boys and girls, both used 俺 just like that without any vibes (see e.g. this autobiographical novel: トンネルの森 1945 | L28).
No idea though, how this developed over time, due to the influence of TV.
