Just crossed off the participate in a book club box 
I participated briefly and then finished the book in 3 days 
That’s 2 crossed off for me now.
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And I have now fulfilled my “1 bingo with a single book” by reading 痴人の愛 (for free, new author to me, book club, bad cover)
That’s only 2 new spots, but it gives a 2nd bingo as well!
Next is the cat book… which is kinda scary, but it will be interesting to see how I handle it, compared to… 10 ish years ago?
Oh, literally! It will be 10 years ago in a month and a half that I got that book! Hopefully I’ll be done before then 
(As usual, I’m going to read some LN before… maybe a manga or two as well)
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Category: “Beautiful Cover Art”
Date Completed: Jan. 24, 2024
Title: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 1
Stats: Manga, 213 pages, Natively Level 27
Notes: I always wistfully glance at the cover of this one whenever I pass it at Kino [1] but new volumes there are covered in plastic to prevent reading before purchase. All I knew in advance was that the story lacks furigana (scary for a new reader!) but as soon as I saw this category for bingo I knew Atelier would be my choice. And on day one I found out that the interior is even more beautiful than the cover art 
I so enjoyed reading this volume, even at my slow pace. It’s a good bet that Volume 2 will be my choice for the “same genre” bingo category just so I have an excuse to keep reading ahaha 
it seems unremarkable zoomed out; the art nouveau-style penwork is really gorgeous up close tho ↩︎
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I finally finished Diez negritos | L29??, the Spanish translation of And then there were none by Agatha Christie. It definitely deserves it’s pick as my longuest in TBR, as it’d been sitting in my drawer since 2016/2017 
So far
- Amnesia | L31?? (read in one day)
- Las 101 cagadas del español | L31?? (nonfiction)
- Aura | L31?? (new author)
- Diez negritos | L29?? (longuest in TBR)
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So thought I’d join in. For now, I’m just using the default 4x4, but I might upgrade to proper sized bingo grid at some point:
Girls Und Panzer: Little Army would have been 4 in one, unfortunately not making any lines 
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If you like Witch Hat Atelier, would highly recommend this video essay about the way the panelling is done in that manga (I forget if there are spoilers so probably watch once you’re further in). I love the art in that series!
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Oh gosh I loved this, thank you!! The influence of Moebius’ style in Atelier is so clear, and the comment about Shirahama’s background with western comics makes soooo much sense because more than once the methods of crosshatching and screentones reminded me of graphic novels I’d read as a kid. It’s so hard to explain why the art is so incredibly good in this manga, but knowing that I was subconsciously lumping the beautiful paneling techniques together with the drawing itself - well, I just can’t recommend this manga enough
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sorry for another post so soon, I just wanted to knock out this easy volume before diving back into my pile of slow reads
Date Completed: Jan. 25, 2024
Title: ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん 1
Stats: Manga, 172 pages, Natively Level 15
Notes: I’d read the first 9 pages of this manga almost a year ago when the WK ABBC voted on it for their April '23 read-along. However, despite my enthusiasm when I bought it, I quickly realized that it was a bit too bland of a story for my taste The art is nice but its only storyline is that it’s “cute” which may be great for some readers but is not really my speed. Nonetheless, because I bought it with real human dollars and didn’t want it to sit unread in my Bookwalker shelf forever, I cracked it back open for the sake of bingo. And after a nice 1.5hr reading session, it happily fulfilled the “one volume in a day” category 
By the way, does anyone have suggestions for a “workplace setting” manga? Anything under Level 28 is fine, and “workplace” can probably be interpreted liberally ahaha I’m just pretty new to reading in Japanese so idk what to choose (¯▿¯)
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Do you like incredibly silly josei manga? I’m the only person who rated この男は人生最大の過ちです 1 | L31 and tbh I have no idea if 31 is accurate because I don’t read much manga. Maybe read a sample and if it seems easy enough give it a go?
It’s basically a comedy about a woman being ardently pursued by her boss because she scolded him once (when drunk? I forget) and he was like 
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WORKING!! 1 | L22, ご注文はうさぎですか? 1 | L24, https://learnnatively.com/book/4886e59362/ (partially), 不可解なぼくのすべてを (1) | L22 all follow people working in a cafe.
こっち向いてよ向井くん 1 | L22 is in an office setting, which is more what the intention was, I guess.
セクシー田中さん 1 | L24 also follows people working in an office, but most of the action takes place outside of it. So does 魔法少女事変 1 | L26
ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ 1巻 | L23 follows people working in a hotel.
Edit: ah, technically 東京ヒゴロ 1 | L28. The story starts with the main character quitting his job, but we still see a lot of it as he reminisces about it or interacts with people who are still working there.
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I really enjoy the series マグメル深海水族館. Think it would definitely count as a workplace setting, the characters work in an aquarium that’s been built in the deep sea.
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@pyororon @Naphthalene @cat thank you!! i’ll sift through these and see which strikes my fancy. i really appreciate it! 
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Filled my book club box with 傲慢と善良 | L32 (learnnatively.com). I could also put it in the bad cover box (I dislike realistic faces on covers), but it’s not strictly true that I wanted to read it despite the cover 
Anyway, I reserve the right to change it later if I don’t manage to find a worse cover.
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Another book to add to my Spanish Bingo, Agua roja | L26??. This one was a pretty weird book again, the amazon desccription gives it absolutely no justice and doesn’t prepare at all for the actual content. I’m counting this as my free ressource, since that’s why I even picked it up in the first place, I was just browsing through the free books in the kobo store and got attracted by the cover.
I’m starting to get close to getting a bingo!
So far
- Amnesia | L31?? (read in one day)
- Las 101 cagadas del español | L31?? (nonfiction)
- Aura | L31?? (new author)
- Diez negritos | L29?? (longuest in TBR)
- Agua roja | L26?? (free ressource)
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Volumes 1 & 2 are showing as free to keep on Amazon for me right now, for those interested!
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When I first saw the book, I thought it was Cure Dolly on the cover 
So I totally share your sentiment of “bad cover”.
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I’ll throw one more in there: 今度は殺されたくないアザラシさん 1 | L21 - josei office romcom about a woman who was a seal in her past life starting to work with a guy who was the polar bear that killed her in his last life. It’s short, but unfinished (maybe dropped? I haven’t seen an update in a while)
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Getting on the board finally!
Read the first volume of ヲタクに恋は難しい 1 | L29 today. I did read the volume in one day, but since it’s harder to find workplace series than for me to finish a volume, let’s go with workplace.
I apparently have a thing for stories where characters go “:3”, maybe that’s a new list idea
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I’ll update in the book club thread later (I finished just a tad bit early) but I’m putting 痴人の愛 as my ‘got for free’ book as I just love the cover 
Admittedly there’s a million covers for this since it has movie adaptations and reprints but I think the one on Natively is kind of ugly and also…misleading
Technically it’s also the highest level book I’ve read so far at 42, but I have another book planned for that spot 
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