In English or in Japanese?
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I’m a bit late to this BBA meeting (Book Buyers Anonymous) but I’m quite sure I most certainly belong in this thread since I own over 1050 physical books in Japanese and around 120 of them are textbooks, dictionaries, kanji and grammar resources though I’ve only really read about 50 of the books I own including a few of the textbooks (don’t even get me started on my English TBR pile though it is considerably smaller than my Japanese one) 
Did I also mention I have 2 orders awaiting pre-orders with at least another 50 books across the 2? Then there are the games in Japanese across PS5 and Switch/Switch 2.
Plan for this year is to reduce my manga TBR pile down by at least 170 since it’s currently over 250 on my shelves 
Next year will be starting on my Kadokawa tsubasa (green) bunko, aotori (blue) bunko, TO junior (turquoise) bunko and shueishamirai (orange) bunko books though there are a lot less of those in my collection.
I do employ this, just not in the way it’s usually advised. It depends on my mood and enjoyment of the text involved.
For immediate re-reads, I only do this with textbook stuff or grammar example sentences that I an seriously struggling to understand.
Usually though for standard manga and novels, I’ll read through a story the first time looking up whatever I feel the need to, then I’ll wait, usually around 6 months to a year before picking it up a second time, reading through again and looking up anything I still feel unsure about.
If I need/ want to read it a third time, I usually wait at least a year or more til I know my level of understanding as a whole will have improved before re-reading.
E.g. I read through Sandland and Flying witch for the second time about a year and a half ago, read through Sandland for a third time a week ago without having many look ups and I’ll be re-reading through Flying Witch again from the beginning in the next month or so after the most recent volume gets here.
I use this method more for seeing progress than for active study since I tried it previously for study purposes and it killed my motivation entirely. Seeing the progress I’ve made does help me continue to be motivated, especially if I’m not seeing much progress by other means.
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Whew! Finally someone doing worse than me. 
Surely you meant this year?
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I’m sure there is someone worse than me out there…. Maybe 
Nope, Manga this year, 3-4 volumes per week for 170 volumes is about 6-10 hours of reading per week in addition to my listening, language exchange, lessons and casual anime watching since I also work full time
Next year will be my reading war against my bunko shelf since there are 50 of those across the different brands. That would be reading 1 per week and I know a few of those will take longer than that for me to read (Genji monogatari, wagahai ha nekodearu parts 1 & 2, Bocchan and The reason I jump)
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Bruh where is your bookoff? Mine NEVER give that kinda deal (granted im city adjacent so lots of tourists in/near mine.
Ive been a bit busy with mixing up my studying style and the like so I havnt been doing as much reading these past few weeks. I had taken a break from the Ramen Manga so Ill probably kick back into that starting next week. Im also applying for Grad school, got past the first hurdle and so my entrance exam is on the 25th. If I get in, Ill be doing PLENTY of reading for my textbooks alone. Ill also have to take the train for like 2 some odd hours into Tokyo every few weeks so that train ride will be filled with either reading or listening. Ill make some headway into my reading then for sure.
Keep going everyone, by zyzz we all gonna make it
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As birb parent would say, gold star for you! Personally both Frieren and Witch Hat Atelier are on my “temptation” list, but I’m probably safe until the next time my friends and I wind up in a bookoff…
I tend to buy stuff out of excitement too, but I will say - although perhaps I shouldn’t, given the goal of this thread - that it does also simply bring me joy to see them on the shelf, even if I know I’m so ridiculously behind on reading.
Yeahhhhh I think we’re all a bit weak to this one. Very weak to this one, even. Perhaps this is even super-effective against some of us.
Hey, a little at a time builds up! Your own post shows how much longer your ‘already read’ list has gotten, which I’d say counts for a whole awful lot 
Man, that’s an even better deal than when I got Fairy Tail. Props to your self control!
I would celebrate this as well…except that I expect this may simply be a glimpse into my future, albeit with fewer textbooks and more manga
As for reading, while I still haven’t had much time available I DID receive a motivation booster - I decided to start attending some free, volunteer-run Japanese classes at the local community center.
Other friends of mine have been going for a while, but I was resisting because I really didn’t want to give up my Saturday mornings…but I’ve really been having trouble focusing/keeping on top of studying, so time to resort to external forces!
Anyway, I went on Saturday to sign up/have my first class, and after the introductory stuff, the teacher had me read a passage from one of her textbooks to do the comprehension questions and see where I was at.
The motivation was multi-layered, because:
A.) I looked at some of the words and went “Hey wait, why is this in hiragana, I know this in kanji (and would be able to read it)”
B.) The words that WERE in kanji I think I knew in their entirety!
C.) When I finished reading (which went very smoothly!) and started the questions, the teacher was surprised that I was answering most of them without needing to really re-read anything.
Honestly, I think I kinda needed this, because when things got busy last month it wasn’t just my reading that fell off, it was my wanikani/bunpro schedule too (I’ve been on vacation mode to avoid burying myself). So that’s gotta be my priority for a day or two yet, to get those off vacation mode and back to cycling.
But by GOD I’m gonna get back on this horse.
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I have a confession to make. . . I may have succumbed to Book Off mania over the weekend. A friend asked me to look for something for them in my local store, so I went in, blacked out, and when I came to I was standing outside with a new manga in my hands 
It was the first volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which has been on my TBR list for awhile now. Seeing the pile of them in @Kelsy’s post made me remember that I didn’t own any of them yet, and the art is very pretty. (@Ayara012 sorry if this makes you more tempted to buy it as well!).
In terms of reading, I did manage to get a few chapters of Apothecary Diaries vol 5 done this week. Plus the readings for Kiki book club.
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Dangerous perhaps to introduce this in this thread, but have you heard of the concept of Tsundoku? Rather than shaming people for buying and not reading a lot of books, I personally like the positivity behind its usage as well which amounts to buying them for later and the joy that springs from having them there.
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At least it was just one volume! I think we all know how perilous book off can be, really.
Look I’m safe from Atelier until I’m next at a book off… Then all bets are off.
It really is pretty, and I keep seeing drawings of what I’m presuming are two of the wizards from the series on Tumblr…
@Reporterdem You’ll never guess what @Neon_Kitsune mentioned previously
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Ooooh I didn’t realize the 170 volumes wasn’t including the novels. Yeah that sounds pretty not doable.
I’m so tempted to flag your post lol. You’re secretly a dealer and you’re trying to take us all down with you! Don’t listen everyone! Buy books=bad!
On another note, I finished よつばと16 yesterday. I also decided to drop 本好き again because I just don’t enjoy reading it right now. It’s still too hard, even though I feel like it shouldn’t be. I could finish multiple other books in the time it would take me to read. I’ll continue focusing on Nancy Drew and Kino no Tabi for my novels.
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Yeah, the Manga will be enough of a stretch goal
How are you finding Kino no Tabi? I struggled through the first one a few years back and haven’t felt ready to re-tackle it yet but it’s on the TBR pile
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English, seeing as the JP cinema comic is above my level the novels are sure to be even worse. Someday, however, I do want to read it in Japanese too.
Meanwhile… I’ve been trying to get a replacement for the book that’s missing the ending. It’s a misprint and it’s way past the return date for where I bought it, so I’ve mailed the publisher. Apparently I first ended up at the UK part of the publisher when I had to be at the US part and they can’t just forward it within the company so I had to go to them myself. Sure, okay, seems a bit roundabout but mailed the US one instead. And there I somehow ended up at the Christian part of the publisher (the book is not religious in any way). They sent me a bible replacement request form… which I filled out with the details of the book anyway, since it seems to have the fields I’d expect, and just crossed out everywhere it said ‘bible’ and replaced it with ‘book’
So, either I’m going to get ghosted now, OR I’m going to receive a replacement for the book, OR I’m going to receive a bible. Anyone wanna bet on which one it’ll be ?
And all this in order to FINALLY finish reading a book series I started two years ago. A for effort, I guess?
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This seems like a great approach! I tried reading flying witch again straight after the first time, and it was just kind of tedious. I think I’ll enjoy it more if I’ve had some distance from the plot. Thank you for telling me your routine!
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love love loooove this series! Though I’ve only read like the first four maybe? And it was in English. But the art and world are absolutely delightful, it just scratches that itch in my brain that childrens fantasy like The Last Unicorn, Rupert Bear, Howls Moving Castle and other whimsical and adventurous series have put there.
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It’s 三洋堂。I live in the mountains 人口は4万人ぐらい. Maybe that’s why?
Manga is usally 100円 or 200円. 50円 is cheaper than usual.
Once I bought manga in the City [at 三洋堂]for the highway bus home - 630円 びっくり
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I’m on the second book. (only like 6% in atm) I found the first book to not be too difficult. Some chapters were definitely substantially more difficult than others, but a good bit of the first book was a part of the anime, so I also had that prior knowledge to help me out. I watched the original anime many many times growing up.
It’s worth noting that I didn’t finish the first book very quickly though. It looks like it took me from December 10th, 2024 to January 31st, 2025.
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キノの旅 also was my first novel! Im currently at Volume 11 and I love it mainly because its really easy and has a giant amount of variety while sitting at a pretty much constant N2-N1 difficulty (at least later ones) which is perfect for beginners. Tbf, it wasn’t “really easy” from the beginning of course, but after 11 Voumes I really start to appreciate the conistency of the grammar and narrative voices combined with the digestible and contained chapters. I think it is thanks to this that I can read it pretty much “fluent” now although I have only been studying japanese for like 1.5 Years (which feels really rewarding, but I think It really is because of how well written it is rather than personal skill, which is why I recommend it).
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I also really find that some books are just written in a more straightforward way that I understand better. Particularly “newer” books. I’ve read a couple of books now (albeit translations) that are from the 30s and 40s (Nancy Drew being one of them) and they definitely feel old in the same way they do reading them in English. Like they instead of calling a car a jalopy they say 愛車, which can’t be common in modern japanese I’m sure. Heck it could even be made up for the sake of the book for all I know.
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I watched the original anime just before starting reading book 1 but that was my first time coming across it. Only recently watched the newer version.
I really struggled with the first book reading it across about 4-5 weeks but was reading about 3-6 pages across an hour or 2 at a time a few times a day (several hours most days - granted my understanding was bitty, my grammar knowledge was pretty poor and I was looking up almost every unknown word ).
I really want to re-read it but I’m worried about it being too difficult even now though my understanding is a lot better.
It’s one of the series that is recommended for breaking into native content. That and Otsuichi’s Zoo short story book.
Just a pity my understanding level was no where near where it should have been to start reading 
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But the joy of a full bookshelf!
Oh man, that’s an extremely entertaining toss-up. I’ll put my money on…hm, receiving a bible, I think.
I see I see… Children’s fantasy and whimsy, you say… Interesting…
At least when it comes to book-off by me (尼崎市, a bit west of 大阪 but technically in 兵庫県), there’s usually a sort of scale to the prices.
There will be a section with copies that are essentially pristine - those will either be nearly original cost (450円, 400円) - and ones that are in realllly nice condition - those will be like 300円ish.
But then there’s also a section for ones that have a little more wear and tear - a dent or scratches on the cover, discoloring on the spine or the page edges, stuff like that. Those are the ones that are usually 100円. And like, I say more wear and tear, but…they’re still in REALLY good condition. I remember being straight up shocked by the fact that there were books in truly amazing condition for essentially a buck.
It…may be part of why I’m so weak to book off I can’t imagine finding books in such good condition for such goods prices back home, let alone the set deals they do.
I do think things like this add flavor to the writing, at least in English, so I would assume it’s the same in Japanese - but it also makes things harder to tackle for us newcomers
As for making things up for the sake of the book, that’s definitely a thing. I haven’t read it myself, but I saw some discussion a while back about how the Japanese translation of the Murderbot Diaries series played around with making up a pronoun for the Murderbot to use, since Japanese pronouns are so often connected to gender and in the English Murderbot specifically only ever refers to itself as “it,” never “he” or “she.”
Anyway, my update - not a LOT to share because I’ve still had some class prep to tackle (the semester will be ending soon which will hopefully give me more free time to work with), BUT I managed to catch up on my wk/bunpro two days ago and get in a teeny tiny bit of 傷モノの花嫁 between classes. Hoping to tackle a little more today 
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