This week’s ending passage takes us to the end of Chapter 5, so I imagine the plan would be to update and continue on into Chapter 6 and beyond.
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Hi @ibrafarzat! As @nmillerche mentioned, we are still reading through this book. We are currently on Chapter 5 of 11, so if you are interested in joining and are open to catching up, then feel free!
As for the next book club, I can’t say, as this is not an official Bunpro book club, but just a community one I started after a few people expressed interest in reading Kiki.
If you’re looking for other Japanese book clubs, I would suggest checking out Wanikani or Natively as they seem to have pretty active book clubs!
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じゃ，追いつくように頑張ります！
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Oh that’s awesome! Always the best when you learn a word and then see it shortly after out in the wild.
I don’t think I’ve come across おすそわけ at work, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it pop up in a video game recently.
I’m currently playing 牧場物語 Let’s 風のグランドバザール and there is a mechanic in it where you can give things to characters in exchange for upgrades (screenshot above).
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Happy Saturday! How was everyone’s week? The weather in Kanto has been a bit all over the place recently. We got a bit of snow at the beginning of the week, but things are sunny again and the sakura are starting to blossom 
This past week, we finished off Chapter 5 and will be starting Chapter 6 tomorrow. Chapter 6 is a slightly longer one, so the next two weeks’ reading will be a little longer at 13 and 12 pages. If people feel like this is too much, let me know and I can err on the shorter side for future chapters. As always, if you’d like to confirm start/end sentences, please reference the Pace section at the top of this post.
For those wanting to double check their comprehension of reading this chapter, please feel free to read over the summary below:
Week 11: Chapter 5 - Part 2 Summary (SPOILERS)
Raising her voice again, the woman yells at her son to not go far. Turning back to Kiki and smiling, she makes a comment abut how it would be nice to be able to, at the very least, relax while at the beach. Seeing Jiji, she then suggests to Kiki that he should go and play with her son so that he won't wander off by himself. Poking him in the stomach, Kiki tells Jiji to go play with the boy. Muttering to himself, Jiji walks over to where the boy is playing by the waterside.Both Kiki and the woman go back to lying on the beach. Closing her eyes, Kiki is able to hear the various sounds around her more clearly. She also notices the salty, slightly fishy and seaweedy smell of the ocean. Suddenly, she hears the roaring sound of the wind, which is completely different from how it sounded before. She also hears shrieks from here and there. Blinking the sand from her eyes, Kiki looks around and sees the once peaceful beach completely transformed, with straw hats blowing through the air, inflatable tubes rolling around like wheels, people grabbing their kids and running towards the trees at the outskirts of the beach or running after their stuff that had been blown away.
Screaming, the woman next to her starts to run madly to the water’s edge. Following her with her eyes, Kiki sees Jiji and the woman’s son, floating on the water on an orange inflatable are being pulled between two waves. The woman tries to grab them from the water, but they’re pulled by a strong whirlpool out to sea. Shouting at Jiji to hold on, Kiki tells him and the woman that she’ll save them. Running back up the beach, Kiki goes to grab her broom. However, the moment she grabs it, the colour drains out of her. The broom she grabbed isn’t her mother’s broom, but a cheap one that looks nothing alike.
Heart pounding, Kiki wonders when the broom could have been swapped and what she should do. But with no time to think, she tries taking off on the broom. However, she struggles to fly, with first the tip of the broom and then the back dipping into the water. As if she’s riding a bucking horse, Kiki desperately tries to reach Jiji and the boy, who have been pushed by the waves even further out to sea. Finally, she’s able to catch up with them. Kiki extends out her hand while lying flat against the broom, but the boy is crying too hard to take it, so instead she grabs him by his swim shorts and pulls him up. She then grabs Jiji by the tail and pulls him up as well. This is met with cheers from the beach, as people looked on.
Somehow, Kiki makes it back to the beach and hands the boy back to his mother. While still carrying an exhausted Jiji in her arms, she hurriedly pulls on her dress over her wet bathing suit, grabs her radio, and takes off again. The bystanders tell her to rest a bit, but there’s no way, as she needs to find her broom and she has an idea of where she can find it. Furious, Kiki remembers the boy she saw earlier, realizing that he must have wanted a witch’s broom and swapped them at some point. Unable to stop shaking at the thought of what would have happened if she had been unable to rescue Jiji and the woman’s son, she determines that once she catches him, she’s going to make the boy apologize a million times.
Knowing that the first place someone would go if they wanted to try flying would probably be somewhere high like a cliff, Kiki flies from hill to hill between the beach and Koriko in search of the boy. Eventually, Jiji spots a person dressed all in black standing at the top of a small hill, looking like they’re about to try flying any moment now. Jiji urges Kiki to stop them, saying they’re going to hurt themselves. Kiki tells Jiji to be quiet, saying that if they want to fly, they should let them fly and that ff something bad happens to them while doing it, maybe they’ll learn their lesson.
Finally, the person on the hill jumps off the hill, landing on their butt with a thud, and rolling down the hill like a rock. Flying after and landing next to them, Kiki sees that it is indeed the boy from the beach. Covered in scrapes, glasses broken and askew, he seems to be about the same age as her. Seeing that he even put on a black dress like her, Kiki can’t help but laugh and tease him. Embarrassed, the boy scowls and stands up, pulling off the dress, then blushes and looks down. Kiki starts to chew him out, telling him he should apologize. When she asks him if he has any excuse for stealing, the boy starts to protest that he took it for research. He explains that he’s in an aviation club in town that’s researching new ways of flying and that they’re currently split into three groups that are researching, respectively, flying shoes, flying carpets, and flying brooms. He reveals that he was also the boy she saw near the shop earlier today and that when he overheard she was going to the beach, he followed her.
Kiki explains that even with the broom, he wouldn’t have been able to fly, as you need to have witch’s blood. However, she admits that she isn’t really sure how it works and adds that the broom you use does make a difference. She then berates him for the broom he swapped with hers, saying she embarrassed herself in front of people riding it. When she starts to ask for her broom back, she finally looks around her and notices that her mother’s broom is lying on the ground, snapped in half. Distraught, she picks it up and hugs it to her chest. On the verge of tears, she tells the boy that it was her mother’s broom and that it as given to her when she left home. The boy apologizes in a quiet voice.
Eventually, Kiki realizes there’s nothing she can do about the broom at this point. Pushing down her tears, she tells the boy that she’ll need to make a new one. The boy offers to help, but Kiki turns him down saying it’s a job for a witch. The boy comments that flying seems difficult. Finally looking up a bit and smiling, Kiki replies that it is, but that not being able to fly would be miserable too.
That’s all for this week! I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts on week 11’s reading, as it ends on a bit more of a serious note. I personally feel like if I was Kiki, I’d be a lot more pissed off, but maybe that’s just me 
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This morning, @Pep95 asked a really good question about the さ ending particle used by ジジ near the beginning of the book. Sharing a link to that thread in case anyone else is interested in reading up on it!
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I quite enjoy how unserious the world feels with all the quirky characters. When it’s relatively inconsequential, like with the woman concerned about her son at the beach, it’s pretty fun. When it’s detrimental to Kiki it can be frustrating but hey that’s just how it is.
I feel like the elephant in the room with the boy stealing Kiki’s broom is “why didn’t you just ask me?” Kiki teases that surely he’s not a thief by nature, but if his first resort was to steal rather than talk to Kiki, it sure seems like he is.
Arguably there’s meant to be a little lesson in Kiki disregarding Jiji saying to stop the boy from trying to fly and his attempt resulting in her mother’s broom being broken. I hesitate to read too much into that though, since being the bigger person doesn’t seem to be stressed much in the book so far. Maybe I’m still just salty about Kiki’s mean mom, though.
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Happy Sunday! How was everyone’s week? It’s a long weekend here in Japan, which has been very nice.
This past week, we read the first part of Chapter 6, which means. . . We’re officially halfway through the book! Congrats to everyone who’s reading along and has made it this far 
This week, we’ll be reading the second part of Chapter 6. As always, if you’d like to confirm start/end sentences, please reference the Pace section at the top of this post.
For those wanting to double check their comprehension of reading this chapter, please feel free to read over the summary below:
Week 12: Chapter 6 - Part 1 Summary (SPOILERS)
The day after the disastrous day at the beach, Kiki heads to the forest on the outskirts of town to find a branch for her new broom. However, unlike the one she made before her trip, this time around she no longer wanted a thin, fancy one, but rather one that would be both sturdy and flexible. Although she debated making a new one entirely, in the end she decided to reuse the bristles from her mum's broom, as she couldn't bear the thought of throwing them away.However, whether it was because she made it in such a hurry to make it or because she wasn’t used to it yet, it didn’t fly very well. Although she ended up dizzy every time she rode it, she didn’t give up and kept practicing. The problem was that the bristles from her mum’s broom were more lively than the handle, so whenever she flew with it, the back would start bucking like a wild horse. Weirdly enough, seeing how poorly Kiki was flying, the townspeople started calling out to her much more than before, with some people even saying that they prefer how Kiki flies now as before they couldn’t help but think of an evil witch when they saw her flying like a pointed black streak through the sky.
On the tenth day after dealing with the broom issue, Kiki received a call from the artist who had painted the picture of her and Jiji. She tells Kiki that she’s finally finished the portrait and, even though it’s on the larger size, asks Kiki if she’ll deliver it to the exhibition venue. At first, Kiki hesitates, thinking about how difficult it would be to fly with something so big and flat, especially when she’s already have issues flying with her new broom. She also remembers a scary time from when she was younger when, shortly after learning to fly, she had tried to deliver an umbrella to her dad. Popping open in the strong wing, the umbrella had caused her to spin like pinwheel. However, the artist insists that she wants Kiki to do it, since it’s a painting of her, so feeling like she has no choice, Kiki agrees. The artist, excited to show Kiki the painting, tells her to stop by tomorrow around noon.
The next morning, there’s not so much as a cloud in the sky. However, Kiki is worried, as a sky as clear as this usually meant that the winds higher up were blowing strongly. While wondering whether she’ll be able to transport the painting, Kiki remembers the boy from the aviation club and how he mentioned he had extensively researching ways to fly smoothly. Borrowing a phone book from Osono, she looks up the club’s number and gives them a call. Not knowing the boy’s name, Kiki asks for the tall and skinny boy from the witch’s broom research division. The person who answers the phone says she isn’t sure who she’s talking about, as everyone is tall and skinny. Kiki then asks if there is anyone that has a bunch of scrapes on his forehead (or at least that she hopes still has scrapes on his forehead). The person on the phone laughs and tells her he still does, then explains that his name is Tombo, as his glasses make him look like a dragonfly.
Coming to the phone, Tombo apologizes again for the other day and asks if he’s done something else wrong. Kiki assures him that’s not the case and asks him if he has any advice on transporting the painting. He tells her she should use the “going for a walk method”. Obviously confused by this name, Kiki asks him what he means. Tombo tells her to leave it up to him and agrees to meet her later that day outside the painter’s house.
Arriving at the edge of the park, Tombo runs over to them holding a big paper bag. When the artist sees Kiki, she cheerfully brings out the portrait, which depicts a picture of a witch in a black dress and her cat against a dark sky. The black of the painting is so lustrous and beautiful, that Kiki ends up looking down at her own dress to compare. Breaking the silence, Tombo tells the painter that the eyes aren’t right, that Kiki’s are more round and cute. Clearly confused about who this random boy is, she tells him that she was trying to bring out a more witchy feel. Kiki hurriedly introduces him to the painter, and explains that he’s here to help her transport the painting.
Not saying anything else, Tombo purses his lips, looks at the painting once more, then gets to work. From the paper bag, he pulls out a bunch of coloured balloons, to which the painter nervously asks if they’re going to make it fly away. Tombo explains that they’re to use them to make it “walk”. Taking out a small canister, he uses it to blow up the balloons. Then, attaching them to long strings he secured them to the top of the painting with a screw. Finally, he attached a thicker string to the screw as well. Letting the balloons rise, the painting hung suspended slightly off the ground, neither floating up or falling down.
With a slightly proud look on his face, Tombo explains that the trick is getting the number of balloons and the amount of helium right. He then tells Kiki that she should hold the thicker string while she flies and use it to lead the painting like a dog. If the wind tries to flow it away, she can pull on the leash to make it listen. Kiki is impressed, as she would have never thought of something like this by herself. She tells him that it’s great, and that she thinks it’ll work. Hearing this, Tombo smiles at her for the first time.
Flying to the exhibit goes really well, with Kiki able to pull the painting obediently behind her. Along the way, people were also able to see both the painting and Kiki and Jiji, and compare the two. Titled “The Most Beautiful Black in the World”, the painting was very well received. As thanks, the artist painted a picture of Kiki and Jiji on her shop’s sign. People from all over town also came to know about Kiki and her business, and from then on, her business got much busier, with people asking her to deliver all kinds of things. However, occasionally, she would also get ill-natured requests such as delivering insults, which she turned down.
With the heat from summer passing, it gradually started to look like fall. Having gotten used to her new broom, she was now able to fly smoothly, and her life had sort of settled into a routine. But, for no real reason, around this time Kiki was in a bit of a foul mood. Kiki told herself that it was just because she was tired, with everything that had happened since arriving in town. But faintly, she knew this wasn’t the only reason. Since helping her with the painting, Tombo had started coming to her shop to hangout. On one occasion, he casually remarked that she wasn’t like other girls, and that he felt like he could talk to her about anything. This remark, along with his earlier remark about her eyes, makes her wonder if she’s somehow different from girls from a big town.
One day, discovering that she was once again missing one of her slippers, Kiki raised her voice at Jiji, telling him that it’s fine for him to play with them, but to properly put them back when he’s done. Jiji just yawns, ignoring her. As this is happening, the phone rings. Hopping over to it on her one slippered foot, she answers. When she does, a relaxed voice asks her if this is the witch’s shop and whether she can ask her for anything, as there’s something they’d like delivered. Unable to change her mood, Kiki answers absentmindedly. The woman on the phone slowly tells Kiki that her name is Sumire, and that she wants some biscuits delivered to her older sister Nogiku. She tells Kiki to come to 99 Willow Road. Answering quickly, Kiki tells her she knows where it is and then hangs up the phone before Sumire has a chance to answer. She then violently kicks off her slipper into the corner of the room.
What did people think of week 12’s reading? This one felt a bit lighter on content than the previous chapter, but it looks like it’s setting up a few things. I still don’t know if I’m sold on Tombo* yet, but at least he was helpful this chapter!
(*Note: Tombo seems to be the standard Hepburn romanization of トンボ, which uses “m” if ん is followed by “b,” “m” or “p.” However, the Japanese government is apparently in the process of trying to change this.)
Here’s a picture from this week’s reading that shows how Kiki ended up transporting the portrait:
Yeah, I (an ALT) just got a notice at work about this. Hopefully that means I’ll start seeing ‘syu’ ‘ti’ ‘si’ etc. less on English writing assignments lol
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This past week’s reading is making me wonder if there’s any overarching conflict happening. Generally it’s just Kiki settling into town, but the story skips through nontrivial periods of time where she’s doing just that with little issue. That’s not strictly a bad thing, and I’m continuing to enjoy meeting characters like Sumire, but so far the story seems very happy to meander rather than work towards some big narrative goal. Whether that ends up being the case or not, I enjoy seeing different ways of constructing and telling stories.
Tonbo/Tombo is coming around. I appreciate that he was instantly ready to help Kiki with the painting and that whole sequence went far smoother than I was expecting.
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Hey all!
This week, we wrapped up Chapter 6 and will be starting Chapter 7. I don’t know about everyone else, but it really feels like we’re making progress in the book now.
Just a heads up that I’ll be away on a trip for the next week without access to a computer. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up having time to write up a summary for Week 13, but I’ll try to post one for Week 13 and 14 shortly after I’m back. If anyone else wants to take a crack at it for practice, that’s also cool too!
I’ve updated the start and ending sections for Week 14. As always, if you’d like to confirm start/end sentences, please reference the Pace section at the top of this post.
Although I won’t have my computer, I’ll still occasionally be checking in on mobile, so if anyone has any questions or thoughts, please feel free to post!
Happy reading everyone~
I’ve been so busy with work, I thought now schools have finished I’d have time to read 
I’ll get some reading time from next Monday! I’m looking forward to catching up.
ごめんね
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My schedule has been hectic so I’ve just been reading when I have time without paying too much attention to this thread, but it seems I’ve accidentally overshot and finished the chapter, which is better than being behind!
W.r.t. my previous comment about the overarching theme of the book, it looks like it’s leaning a bit in the direction of being a coming of age story, albeit a relatively low-stakes one.
The interaction with the new girl customer continues a bit of Kiki’s conflict (if you can call it that) with not being conscious of romance, I guess? At least that’s what I’m inferring between Tonbo saying Kiki didn’t feel like other girls and this new customer mocking Kiki for not understanding the situation with Ai-kun. I may just be reading too much into it but “coming of age means starting to feel awkward around boys” could be a critical way to read the book so far.
Regardless this chapter was pretty easy to read and I enjoyed it!
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Hey all!
Start/End sentences for Week 15 have been updated.
I just got back from my trip this morning, so been focused on prepping for the coming work week. Will hopefully be able to write up some chapter summaries soon.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of an ad I saw on the way home. I was surprised to see a non-Ghibli Kiki reference out in the wild!
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I don’t post a lot on here, but @nminer I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for the work done in this thread 
I am following the book as a very first novel fully in japanese. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard but overall, I am learning a lot
The summaries help a lot with keeping up with everything.
Thank you again!
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I’m glad to hear they’ve been helpful!
Reading your first novel in another language can be pretty daunting, so please feel free to ask any questions here about the hard parts too if you want!
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Agreed!
I’m not fully caught up at the moment, but this book club has been incredibly helpful. This is the first book I’ve read in Japanese aside from the occasional picture book when I first started.
I wish I could get into manga, but I’ve really never been much of a manga or comic book person, and unfortunately that didn’t magically change when I started learning Japanese. I love reading, but I knew in order to really enjoy it I would have to wait until I was able to pick up an actual novel. Kiki’s has certainly been a challenge, but this book club gave me the push I needed to get started, and it’s been a huge boost to my confidence and motivation!
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Hey all!
Here’s the summary for Part 2 or Chapter 6, which we read a few weeks ago. Hoping to have Week 14 and 15 summaries up soon as well now that I’m back from vacation.
Week 13: Chapter 6 - Part 2 Summary (SPOILERS)
Heading to Sumire's, Kiki is quickly able to find the house. Pulling the string hanging beside the door, she hears a rattling noise, and a voice from behind the house calls her over. Walking through an alley to the garden at the back of the house, Kiki sees an old woman with her sleeves rolled up in the middle of doing laundry as well as four big tubs lined up in a row. The laundry is split into colours amongst the four tubs, one for whites, one for blacks, one for blues, and one for reds. The soap bubbles from the tubs, each dyed the colour of its contents, shine in the sunlight and look almost like they're alive as they softly move.Kiki asks the old woman in front of her if she’s Sumire, and introduces herself as from the witch’s delivery service. Sumire is a bit confused, as she thought she was from the “witch shop” since she heard she was a witch and had thought she took on any job. She continues to explain that she’s glad Kiki only makes deliveries, as Sumire also takes on odd jobs and if Kiki was as well it might make Sumire go out of business. She then immediately starts talking about her stubborn sister and how if Sumire says she’s going to bring something over today, it absolutely has to be today or she’ll be upset. Since she has to deliver something or talk to her about something at least once a week, Sumire wants her and her sister to live together, but apparently her older sister refuses and says it’s easier to live on her own.
However, Sumire is too busy today to go visit her sister today because she has to do all this laundry a customer asked her to do, which she is washing by hand as she doesn’t own a washing machine. Spellbound, Kiki watches as Sumire continues to do laundry, completely forgetting that she’d come her for a job. Eventually, the clothes are all washed, rinsed, and wrung out, then piled up like a mountain with whites on the bottom, then blacks, blues, and finally reds on top.
Needing to dry the laundry, Sumire takes out some twine to start hanging it up. She asks Kiki to hold one end, since they need a very long clothes line to hang everything up. Starting with the littlest items from the red pile, Sumire starts hanging them up, with Kiki slowly lengthening the rope as each item is added. Soon, the line starts to sag under all the weight. Frantic, Sumire asks Kiki to stand on tiptoes so it doesn’t touch the ground. When that doesn’t work, she asks Kiki to fly on her broom to hold the line higher.
Jumping on her broom, Kiki flies up to eaves of the house. Sumire then starts hanging the blue laundry, then the black laundry, again going from smallest to largest. When it looks like the line is going to touch the ground again, Kiki flies even higher to the top of the roof. Finally, the whites are hung up as well and Sumire tells Kiki to tie the line up somewhere. However, since she’s flying in the sky, there’s nowhere for her to tie it up. With a shrug, Kiki ends up tying it to her waist. Seeing this, Jiji exclaims that it looks like they have a huge tail, and Sumire remarks that it looks flags at a Sports Festival.
With no other choice, Kiki decides to fly around in circles to help dry the laundry. As she does, each time she feels like wind her bad mood from earlier slowly blows away as well. Eventually, the laundry dries and Sumire starts taking it off the line, with Kiki slowly lowering the clothes line. Sumire tells Kiki that she was a big help and the two of them go inside the house, which is full of weird things*. Sumire gives Kiki two bags, one for Kiki as payment and one for her to deliver to her sister. She tells her that they’re called stardust biscuits, as she messed up the recipe and they came out too small.
Kiki takes the bag of biscuits to Sumire’s sister Nogiku, who lives in a pointy house. When delivered, Nogiku complains, but her eyes are happy when she looks inside the bag. Later that night, back at her shop, Kiki and Jiji sing a little song together over and over, using the single slipper from easier as a makeshift microphone.
*Note: this section has a bunch of play on words with 間に合わせる, which means to make do with/makeshift. For brevity sake, I’ve excluded it from the summary since it doesn’t really translate super well into English, but if you have questions about this part let me know!
While this section felt a bit more side-story than some of the other ones, I thought it was quite cute. I think it also illustrates very well how a different mindset/change of scenery can improve your mood. Having just come back from a little vacation myself, I’m personally really feeling this on my end!
In terms of Japanese, I found all the uses of 間に合わせ very fun. When I read this chapter, I initially thought they were using the word in the “to be in time for” and thought Sumire’s business was for last-minute requests, but when they started talking about all the stuff in her house I realized this must not be the case and realized that they were using the other meaning of it, which is “to make do”.
Anyway, here’s a picture of Kiki flying with the laundry:
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I had the same thing with 間に合せ屋さん at first, but this chapter was a great way to learn the other usage.
I did end up getting antsy (and I can only check out the book from my local library so many times) so I went and finished reading the book, but I’ll avoid spoilers if I pop back in to chat about future chapters since there were some very fun parts!
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Ohh congrats on finishing the book! I get what you mean about wanting to read ahead sometime, and makes sense if you were borrowing it from the library. Looking forward to hearing which parts you thought were the fun parts!
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