Yeah so I forgot ダイヤのA Act I has 47 volumes, a.k.a. 2 more than HQ. I thought it had fewer. So if I do finish it, that will end up being a new top series! I ended up finding a set pretty cheaply on eBay and getting it. No Act II, though, even the cheapest set I found was a fair bit more expensive than some of the Act I sets despite having 13 fewer volumes, though I suppose that’s probably for the best actually. I still have a larger 積読本+読んでる本 pile than 読んだ本 pile even before adding all the books I’m getting soon! (It’s something like 75. I mean, not all at once, but. lol and y’all were just talking about spamming the feed earlier.)
Nope, did not, and I didn’t miscalculate the number of books of hers I’d read, so maybe when a book has multiple authors, that grouping is counted in a single author in stats, like iTunes? Oh well, guess I’ll just have to read more of her novels. Although these past couple days I’ve had a marked increase in fic ideas, so I’ve slowed waaay down in reading. I’m barely past the halfway mark in おっさん聖女, and I’d hoped to be a lot closer to finishing by now. And I haven’t had much motivation to pick up any manga either, so I don’t think I’ll be finishing anything until the second half of October…
Today I started and finished 推し、燃ゆ | L36 which marks the first time that I managed to read a Japanese book in a single day
I’m not into idols at all, so I didn’t expect to be able to relate to the main character, but I was pleasantly surprised. I’d recommend it, but it is rather depressing. I felt sad for pretty much everyone.
I have heard that in Japan the term “girls’ love” refers not to yuri but to pedophilia, which if true is a good reason not to use it. The Japanese Wikipedia article called 少女愛 confirms this (saying 少女愛 is synonymous with ロリコン), though to be fair I don’t know if that meaning is transferable to the English phrase “girls’ love”. Either way, this is why I avoid that term and prefer the term “yuri”.
I was thinking just anything Yuri/GL/wlw in general
(It’s kinda funny you say that because I avoid using Yuri because of the original specific uses they have lol (as in it’s Yuri only if it’s created by women - like it’s always a huge plus especially with how women are depicted by men but if a guy created something I like I try to be inclusive about it - plus it’s a bit exhausting to have to check for every series of the author is male or female each time I want to try something out for a bit), in the end the western-original use dispensary will always exist I think. I’ll just put GL/Yuri/wlw in the title instead to be clear about this)
Edit; for some reason I read genre instead of series lmaooo
I have several actually!!
But I would love to have suggestions (it’s partially why I want to open the club in the first place )
I can’t promise I’ll join based on my current schedule, but if the timing is right and it’s a series I’m interested in trying (or rereading) it’s possible. I’d recommend creating a “gathering interest” kind of topic. That way there’s a place to have a poll to check interest and gather recommendations, even if it doesn’t end up becoming a real book club.
You know when you start a book (well, a manga) and you get yourself in too deep because it’s way above your current tolerable difficulty level but you’re already in for a penny in for a pound and you can’t escape its orbit? That’s how I feel about ティアムーン帝国物語 ~断頭台から始まる、姫の転生逆転ストーリー~@COMIC第1巻 | L24??. I was rused by the Lvl24 default rating but it’s taking me 45 minutes to read like 10 pages lol. But also, I’m nearly done. And I finally learned the word 令嬢 so who’s to say if it’s worth it or not.
Does anyone have suggestions for the easiest possible starting point to ease into fantasy genre vocab? I’ve been itching to read something outside of the high-schoolers-lightly-flirting genre which seems to be the bulk of what is possible at my current basic Natively range of 15-22 or so.
Hmmm. I thought 異世界から帰還したら恋愛フラグが立ちました | L25 was pretty darn easy. The title story is a one shot BL episode set in university with only the thinnest veneer of fantasy trappings. (The second story in the book is unrelated and non-fantasy).
There’s full furigana, and the 18+ scenes are easily skippable (none are present in the title story iirc).
Kingdom Hearts-based manga and LNs are also pretty darn easy. Any KH-specific fantasy vocab is generally clearly written in katakana.
I don’t have anything that’s fantasy-genre in that range, but I have a lot of recommendations that are definitely not “high-schoolers-lightly-flirting” up to L23:
世にも奇妙な商品カタログ 1 インスタント死神・友だちクジ他 | L23 - A collection of short stories about (mostly) ordinary people discovering weird, magical items, with a dark twist.
The easiest fantasy book I know is 狐笛のかなた | L29 - the fantasy vocab and world building is not too heavy as it is only a rather short standalone book, and the author features a pretty accessible writing style in my opinion. Also there is a book club over at WK where you may find some discussions that may help you along.
It feels more like a video game than proper fantasy, but くま クマ 熊 ベアー 1 | L21 (manga version, the original light novel version is just 3 levels higher) is the easiest thing I can think of.
So, I used dark magic and extended the time I could rent 香君 by returning it and immediately getting it back. 200 IQ strategy.
Decided to put that extra time to good use, I immediately started reading the rest of しまなみ誰そ彼 (series) | L24
It was still nice, but at some point it just feels like a list of all the LGBT types of people and all the problems you may face in your everyday life (and the positives from being in a community as well). It’s nice in the sense that it may increase awareness to those (not just direct homophobia/transphobia but also the thousand paper cuts one can face daily).
Still, I found the characters really well written, it’s just too bad that it was so short. Slowing down the pace would have also removed the “list” feeling…
Speaking of the thousands paper cut thing, there was no explicitly bisexual character. That’s a little bit disappointing.
So I finished the first カルテ of 天久鷹央の推理カルテIII: 密室のパラノイア | L35 and I guessed the diagnosis pretty much immediately. I feel like the author made this one just a tad bit too obvious, or maybe it’s just too famous of an (albeit rare) illness.
I need to catch up to the Halloween club on WK but I admit I’m torn between amused and irritated at the bad writing. It’s certainly easy, but I can’t see myself going for this author again (even if he does develop better writing skills later on, nothing I’ve heard about his stories really entices me).
Remember to put holds on the books you want to read, people, or fall prey to maniacs like this.