It’s my most watched/read series. I loved it as a kid. But then I loved everything that had female main characters that were not portrayed as weak damsels in distress.
I had a thing against gender binary before I even knew what that was. 
Are you German? I thought it was only called this here.
Nvm, got answered in a later post. 
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I was kinda small. The plot involved people talking about other people and stuff that went over my head
That’s why I’m really curious to see how I feel about it as an adult.
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Oh nice! I didn’t even know there is a German version of the manga! So schön 
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Oh no! Did we discuss this and I forget? 
I got up to 18% done last night (this is 2hr32 min into the audiobook), but I can pause it. I managed to find a copy locally of https://learnnatively.com/book/5e10f5a2d8/ so I was also planning to try to catch up to that club, and I also bought the second volume of the medical LN series since it’s very easy to turn off my brain and read. I’m not lacking in reading material otherwise, I suppose is what I’m saying 
I recall your schedule is pretty packed, when would be a time you could pick it up?
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We had only vaguely discussed it, we hadn’t made any kind of specific plans at all, no worries. I wouldn’t want you to pause it again since you started now!
Maybe just make a thread (since it’s also part of the Profoundly Weird Club), and I’ll see if I can catch up? I was planning to read ahead in マリアビートル this week, but plans are made to be broken after all (and to be honest, I have no idea I’ll have enough time to read anything much this week, but I’m hoping).
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Can do! I’ll probably make it on WK as I don’t know anyone else interested in joining on this forum 
Also I can definitely take a little pause to give you breathing room. Gotta catch up to キラキラ光る (checked it out from a library so I have a time limit there) and I also toyed with the idea of trying to read my other “ugh this book is so hard” title from the end of last year, 戦前昭和の猟奇事件 | L30?? (nonfiction, those 1920s era newspaper excerpts did me in 
) so I’ll likely occupy myself with those for a bit.
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Thank you! I’ll try and catch up as quickly as possible 
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Who would have thought I’d get to make two book clubs with 
in the title
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It was a beautiful and crisp fall day where I am today, and perfect for reading. 
I ended up finishing all of 水たまりで息をする | L29 and enjoyed it a lot! I have a similar lifestyle to the main character, living a busy life away from nature in a city, so parts of the story were very relatable and it made me think about the nature’s role in my own life, amongst other things. I think I will keep pondering on about this book for a while. Another hit from 高瀬隼子 for me and a solid recommendation!
Now I will be starting 汝、星のごとく | L34 by 凪良ゆう after it has tragically spent approximately one year on the TBR part of my bookshelf. I really enjoyed 流浪の月 | L31 so I’m also hoping this is great, as it’s only the second 非BL book I’m reading from her now.
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Well, I only had time to go through ~150 pages, but my first impression is that they did my girl Comtesse du Barry dirty. She literally went from prostitute to maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XV, working her way up one bed at a time. That’s like the most hardcore 下剋上 stuff I can think of. You may say that it’s morally dubious, but, meh? Give me just one other way she could have done it. Plus, it’s not like there weren’t other women lining up just for a chance to become maîtresse-en-titre, all with better birth/blood/title/what have you. Not only did she get there, she stayed there until the death of Louis XV. The manga makes it sound like it just happened. Ah, and real life du Barry single-handedly tanked the French economy with her dresses and jewelry, and I love that for her (literal 傾国の美人).
Also, the manga tries to portray her fight against Marie Antoinette as petty, but in her case losing face is pretty much a matter of life and death. Even in the manga, Marie Antoinette just waltzing in to the top without having to do anything annoys me.
I do like Oscar, though, but there’s way too little of them (?) in the story so far. Hopefully that soon gets better.
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Feel like those gant charts would be a cool default stats output for natively (for past books obviously)
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Right now I’m reading 聖女？ いいえ、やったのはこっちのくまです！ ～可愛いもふもふくまさんと行く異世界浄化旅～. According to jpdb, it’s the easiest web novel they have. I suddenly became interested in them once I learned about syosetsu, so I’m trying to work my way up the difficulty ladder. Then soon, I’ll be able to pick a story myself
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I read the first two chapters of きらきらひかる | L33 today, and it’s oddly harder to follow than I would expect for 33. I suppose I just need to adjust a bit to the writing style. I don’t feel like I’m necessarily lacking facts so much as the intended emotions
I also have read the first quarter of 天久鷹央の推理カルテII: ファントムの病棟 | L35 which is the second in the series. It remains mindless fun that I can plow through quickly without taxing my brain. I was delighted that I didn’t guess the solution to this case early like I did the last two, but I did guess it well before it was revealed and the ‘proof’ scene took place.
I’m going to pretend that binge reading a silly hospital drama is just preparation should I ever be in Japan and need medical help 
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The urge to just skip the rest of this story is getting stronger. It turns out that the bit immediately after where I left off was a ten page description from the criminal’s point of view of the crime that resulted in his imprisonment, which I got about halfway through before feeling I’d had enough for the night. The fact the story originally disposed of “why is this guy in prison” in a brief unemotional paragraph or so at the beginning had made me think “at least the author isn’t going to drag the reader through that”, but nope, he was just saving it for later.
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too real 
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I was in the mood for some light breezy essays, so I’m reading 夢のような幸福 | L30?? by 三浦しをん. (By the way, can I put in a good word for light breezy essays? Great JLPT study material, because there’s some rhetorical stuff that’s more common in nonfiction than in fiction and you’ll miss if you’re just reading novels, and you learn a lot about Japanese culture.)
This particular volume isn’t really hitting for me - I’m not that interested in manga that I’ll never read or Miura’s quest to get the perfect frilly blouse. But I’m reading one essay in particular about the movie T.R.Y., and I have to quote from it here.
(I’ll post my own translation below.)
どんな映画に対しても愛を持ち、少しでもいいところを見つけて褒め
よ、と故淀川長治先生はおっしゃった。私も同感だ。何について語るにし
ても、その対象への愛がなければならぬ。愛がないのなら黙して語らずに
おけ。
いま自分の心を点検するに、私にはこの映画へのあたたかい眼差しはあ
ると思う。少しでも多くの人に観てほしい。そして語り合いたいのだよ、
この映画の愛すべきヘタレぶり)について! ああ、今日ほどだれかと
一緒に映画を観にいけばよかったと思った日はなかった。どうでしょう、
淀川先生。 わたくしめにこの映画について語ることを許可していただける
でしょうか?
(天国と交信中)。そうですか、では。
ええと、先生からお許しが出たので、『T.R.Y.』のとっておきの
見どころをお教えしよう。 これを聞けば、きっとみんな映画館に足を運び
たくなるはずだ。
My translation
The late movie critic Nagaharu Yodogawa says that you have to love every movie, to find even one small thing to like and praise about it. I agree with him. No matter what you’re talking about, you have to have love toward your subject. If you don’t have love, just shut up about it.
When I search my heart, I think that I can turn a warm gaze upon this movie. I want as many people as possible to see it. I want to tell them of this movie’s lovable suckassitude! I have never wished so hard that I had not gone to the movies alone. Well, Yodogawa-sensei? Will you give me permission to talk about this movie?
(On the phone with heaven)
Oh, OK.
Well, Yodogawa-sensei has given me permission, so let me tell you about the ace up this movie’s sleeve. I know everyone who hears this is going to want to rush to the movie theaters.
(The ace up the sleeve is just that they cast a particular famous Japanese actor as the Japanese emperor, which proves I don’t have the necessary context to get what Miura is putting down - nevertheless, I do love these few paragraphs!)
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Hey I’m back once again with another goal for myself 
I am currently sitting with 1390/1500 volumes of manga for my goal for the year but today I also decided to once and for all finish reading the light novel of 冴えない彼女の育てかた (series) | L32.
So from today until the end of the month I will (try to) read all the volumes I have left. This means:
25th → vol 8 
26th → vol 9
27th → vol 10✅
28th → vol 11
29th → vol 12
30th → vol 13
Today it was the first time I read one whole volumen within a day and I don’t have much time so this is going to be hard. But I will try my best!
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1500 volumes 
Is that completed within the year, or all time?
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All time hahaha, I started the year with 1000 so that would be 500 volumes read within a year 
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