So I gave myself the self-imposed challenge to finish a book (alas an easy one) in one day, and I sort of managed to complete it.
So I finished:
And now that means there’s only one volume left for the finale, which it’s probably what I’ll read next and free one slot of the in the “Reading” status.
Started it last week. But it will take me 4 weeks, I suppose, so maybe not your speed.
Why don’t you join us in the book thread? We’re discussing speed right now, and 4 weeks is one of the options (although starting October 1st, so you’ll have a head start - or will you be done by then?).
I finished 魔法少女事変 3 | L26 today, and… yeah, it’s a bit of a let down. It really does seem like the author was rushed to end the story.
For me it sat solidly in the gag comedy space, with just a few dips into serious character moments like chapter 4. But I agree it was a bit strange bouncing back to lighthearted slapstick jokes right after those moments.
Volume 2 was a huge shift from volume 1, which I thought was interesting and showed off more of the author’s ideas and magical world building. Volume 3 was a change in tone again but I didn’t really care for the human weapons, evil scientist angle. ゆづる’s whole multiple personalities thing is also way underdeveloped by the end. Does every ワルツ have an alternate personality that mixes with their own while transformed? Are they all separate, conscious entities, or only ゆづ like that? And what’s their dynamic now at the end of the story?
Also I would read an entire series about the witch who runs the magical bar in chapter 8.
Well, that’s also what I meant by not being able to figure out if it wants to be a more serious series or not (although, thinking back, the magical parts do not need to be action)
But yes, the world building looked really intriguing.
Yeah, that’s another “serious” direction, but that felt out of place AND poorly executed. They kept their whole thing secret for so long, but risk everything by attacking a school out of all places? The family has crazy political power, they could have just closed the school first (or have it evacuated or something). Also, how did the magical police guy find internal info about the test subject in the first place? I don’t think those files would be available on the Internet. And in the end, the ゆづる’s father just says “ah, my bad, we’ll stop then” and that’s it? Even if you have lost (some of) the emotional incentive, the original point (human weapons that do not need to sleep or eat for extended period of times) is still worth a lot of money and I don’t think the (potential) backers of the project would agree to just see it shut down, especially with an initial success.
It’s so frustratingly underdeveloped. Based on the comments of 白馬, different types of magic have different personalities and may take over, but I guess it would be only temporary and that eventually the magic really adjust to the body and merge with the original personality. That explains why サクラ is slightly different from 佐倉 as well.
Right? I really wanted to see how the relationship between ひろ/サクラ and ゆづる/ゆづ would develop. They seem to heterosexual regardless of their current gender, so there are two matches possible in here. Also, ゆづ literally asked ひろ to marry her… I feel like サクラ and ゆづ would think of each others as something closer to sisters (ゆづ even got an appearance that matches サクラ; I am guessing that the form they get is based on some kind of subconscious bias). As for ひろ and ゆづる, well, they are childhood friends… buuuuut based on the internal conversation between ゆづる and ゆづ, ゆづる may be feeling a bit more than that (and repressing those feelings). While he mentioned that marriage between two guys would be impossible legally (which, you know, denies nothing), they are now immortal, so they can just wait it out. (Although, I don’t really know what will happen to their legal status at the time, since it’s a bit suspicious for them to not age…)
Right? What other rooms does she have? What kind of customers are coming there?
And I’d like to read more about the magical police as well.
Now I am sad again that none of those things will ever be 
I finished イリヤの空、UFOの夏 その 4 | L32 a while ago now. Good ending to the series. I’ve been meaning to write a review - I can see why it’s held in such high regard, but it’s also very slow and deliberately not to the point, which frustrates my tiny attention span. As far as the general level of writing/prose goes it’s far beyond most light novels.
Currently reading 五龍世界(WOOLONG WORLD)―霧廟に臥す龍 | L30?? - I had a bit of trouble getting into this one, but have started to really pick up the pace. Also one of those books that makes me sad about how many words I still don’t know, and it’s not just the setting having a bunch of pseudoChina vocabulary.
After weeks of only making small or no progress on DOUBLES!! -ダブルス- 2nd set due to splitting my attention or focusing on other things, I finally finished it! I’d really only intended to finish the chapter I was on, but then it drew me in and I had no choice but to finish it. It was really good. And Sora-senpai made an appearance too! But he’s just retired, not graduated, so that was always a possibility. No idea about the later ones, though.
Turns out I love it. I liked the way it was done, and then when we get a couple sections from his POV and he’s still referred to by his surname in the narration rather than his given name like with Takuma and Kakeru, until finally it calls him Ryou? That was very good.
Turns out Doubles was originally planned to be a one-shot, Amasawa likes cleanly wrapping up stories in a single volume, until their editor asked them to write a sequel. They agreed since part of the appeal of scholastic sports stories is that you follow the MC from the time they join the club to the time they retire and you get to see them grow and move from kouhai to senpai… and then this one wasn’t like that lmao it’s still set in first year. Well, there are three more, so maybe we do get to see Kakeru’s and Takuma’s full high school career.
I’m sad to hear that 魔法少女事変 was disappointing and the ending obviously rushed. It seemed like it could be really good, and I was looking forward to reading it. At least I only got vol 1. So I’ll read that, and I guess whether I sell it depends on whether I enjoy it on its own or it feels incomplete (or it turns out to not be my thing in the first place after all).
I enjoyed reading volumes 1 and 2 (and I really liked the main character).
Read everything and join us in complaining about the ending!
Well, since I am here, I might as well mention what I read today (well, the day isn’t over yet, but still).
I started reading 東京かくりよ公安局 ミエナイ敵 (小学館文庫 Cま 1-2) | L31 (volume 2 of the series; the title doesn’t really make that clear 
). It’s alright so far (on par with the first volume; fun, but nothing special).
I also read the preview of pretty much all recommendations I got on gender-bendy things plus a few more I found.
I also, err, busted my Booklive home page again by reading a bunch of BL (the kind that probably cannot be added to Natively)… Even if I clear my search history, I doesn’t remove anything from the “最近読んだ本” nor the “あなたにおすすめ” sections, which is extremely frustrating. Sometimes, I show my Booklive to people to give them recommendations… Last time, I just kept opening random books until nothing suspicious was visible anymore, but it’s annoying. I tried looking through their FAQ, but didn’t find anything relevant and google just returns irrelevant stuff… 
Maybe I should have a secondary account just for that…
Have read 50 pages of まほり 上 | L30?? and I think I’m about to put it down and switch to something else.
It’s much harder than L30; one of the author’s other books apparently has gotten reviews from native speakers saying “Man, this guy uses some obscure vocabulary.”
I’m not into the story. The main character doesn’t have a personality beyond being a serious and ambitious sociology student, and the tone is very subdued and intellectual.
It’s two volumes. So the whole thing is 562 pages, which honestly seems like a LOT, for a story that I’m already not enjoying and can’t read quickly because of how difficult the vocabulary is.
Theoretically, I’m into folk horror (which is the genre of this book, although the book is very low on horrific or even slightly disquieting things so far)! The book has great reviews on Amazon! I feel a bit くやしい about giving up on any book because it’s too difficult - did I give up when I had to read Soseki or Mori Ogai?
But perhaps it’s best to go back to one of the four rules of extensive reading:
If a book is boring or if it is difficult to understand, put it down and pick another book.
I’m now about a fifth of the way through My Humanity | L30?? which is a book of four SF short stories. I picked this up ages ago because it won the 日本SF大賞 award in 2014.
The first two are set in a future with some kind of nanotech brain implants that allow the recording and transfer of memories and skills from one person to the other (the back cover blurb tells me the author has a long-form novel set in this world too). I liked the first one, it didn’t go quite in the direction I expected. The second one, which I’ve just started, is about an experimental brain nanotech rehab/reform treatment on a guy who’s in prison for life for sexual assault and murder of a child, so I’m not really super enthused about picking it up rather than some other book, but OTOH the first story was good enough that I’m not going to abandon or skip it…
Very tired today, and I don’t think I have anything going right now that’s easy-easy—I suppose I could have started the 3rd vol of さいとう野球部, but while the prose is a breeze for the most part, I don’t think my brain could keep up with Yuusaku’s ADHD just now, even if he probably won’t be meandering off on as many tangents as in the 1st vol—so aside from reading the last few pages of the first case from Jeweler Richard, I mostly just read in English. Or daydreamed and wished I was capable of napping lol. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I had been looking forward to starting Doubles 3
I was wondering @Biblio, how did you set up that neat chart you’ve posted a few times showing lengths of time covered by each book you’re reading?
it’s a gantt diagramm. It’s usually used for project management. 
This particular one, I simply used a free online tool for (Free Online Gantt Chart Software) but I think even excel comes with premade templates.. probably.
Ooh, thanks! I want to try making one myself!
I whipped up a quick chart of my current/upcoming book club reads; it’s neat to see a bird’s eye view of things. October’s going to be fairly stacked, regardless of whether I end up picking up リング or not, but everything else actually doesn’t look too bad. 
(コップクラフト is me working off of the original book club timeline, just transposed to when I re-started it. It’s interesting to see that overlaid with 本好き’s schedule; you don’t think about taking a full extra month until you see it out loud, as it were.) medium I guessed a bit, and 月の裏側’s schedule isn’t 100% confirmed, but it works.
I’m impressed with the organisational skills, guys! 
Out of interest, how many books do you (everyone) read the same time? I’ve noticed I can generally only focus on one novel and one manga (per non-native language) at a time - if I start something new, the current read is usually forgotten about… 
Generally I’m also a one novel and one manga at a time kind of person (in JP at least; English I’ll juggle quite a bit), but book clubs generally being formally scheduled means I can handle a couple of those as well at one time.
I can’t schedule those non-book club books as well given that I just read as I feel like it. It’s probably for the best they’re not on that chart; you’d see me lingering on single books for months. 
Minimum 2, max I’ve found to be around 6 and that was a strain.
I like switching between books unless I’ve found the magical type of book that I just don’t want to put down. When I started out in Japanese I stuck to one at a time though, because each book was so much more effort.
edit: I don’t have a Gantt chart but I put all my book club weeks into my calendar so I don’t lose track
edit2: just realized I spelled Cop Craft wrong on my calendar 
I always seem to mix up く and か in loanwords from English…
I tend to only focus on one thing, but it may be displaced by something more interesting.
I have one book I am currently reading (東京かくりよ公安局 2), and two books that I have partially read and plan to finish (聖女の魔力は万能です 9 and 魔導師は平凡を望む 3). The two I have partially read have been in that state for months now because there’s always something else coming up.
I can’t even juggle novels and manga. I will keep reading the same thing until exhaustion of material or until I get bored.
Book clubs are the only exception, but even then I will frequently rush ahead instead of following the schedule.
