Yeah, this is good advice. I’m trying to only add words for now that seem very useful (or would soon have come up in the N3/N2 vocab decks anyway)
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I was curious about 神楽殿 from here
この日にはぱりっとした巫女装束を着て、真っ赤な口紅を塗りじゃらじゃらした頭飾りまでつけて、
神楽 殿 に立ち聴衆の前に出て、お祖母ちゃんに仕込まれた舞いを舞う。火事で意味が失われたという、二人が対になった舞いだ。
and found a nice blurb about it here. The article goes into more detail, but the first two paragraphs are the gist.
神社の境内には様々な建築物を見ることができますが、その中に「神楽殿（かぐらでん）」というものがあります。
神楽とは日本の神道の神事で神に奉納するための歌舞です。神楽の語源は「神座（かむくら・かみくら）」からきており、「神の宿るところ」という意味です。ここに神を降ろし、人々の穢れを祓い、巫女による神がかりで人々と交流する神事でここで舞が舞われます。これが神楽で、この神楽を舞う建物が神楽殿です。
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We’re past the second reading milestone now. How’s it going for everyone? Anything particularly interesting, funny, confusing, exciting, etc.? Near the end of the segment, I laughed when Yotsuha wanted to
...
have her sister fund a trip to Tokyo by mass-producing 巫女の口嚙み酒.
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I missed noting this in the last section, but here’s an interesting piece regarding ムー, such as in
男子高校生の趣味って『ムー』とかじゃないの!?
[EDIT: I hit the consecutive post limit haha, so I’m tacking this new message onto this previous one.]
I swam on ahead in the reading. I thought to maybe take notes of things that stood out to me and post them at the appropriate time according to the schedule, but I’ve kind of lost track 
Mitsuha’s a real character! I’ll keep going and so will effectively drop out of the book club, but I didn’t want to just disappear, so this message. Super Cub and this have helped me a lot to figure out my own pacing and how to better learn from reading, so here’s a testimonial for everyone who participated–thank you, and good luck on your journey!
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Just as an update, I am finished with this first block and currently on vacation without my computer, so no reading the ebook.
By the way, is a vocab deck for this book still planned @Asher?
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I wonder why the author uses スマフォ instead of スマホ?
Are both common? Is this a regional thing?
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My guess is that it was just the choice of the author to use スマフォ. Technically, スマフォ is more correct since it is short for スマートフォン and not スマートホン, but because ホ is easier to say than フォ, スマホ is more common!
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I’m a little late to the party but I like the movie so I’m tempted to buy this too - maybe it will be difficult to follow along at the same speed as this group as I’m WK 21. I’ll have a go
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Yup! I’ll try to get it up as soon as possible with the first few chapters at the bare minimum 
.
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Hi all,
I’m trying to catch up on the reading too. I saw this quite late and am probably about 3 weeks behind in the schedule, but I enjoy working my way through the novel.
Just wanted to comment and say that I really love the book club ideas and am also looking forward to the vocab list for this! 
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Is there a reason the author always writes 拭う in its “connective stem form” as ぬぐい without kanji?
As in “俺は汗をぬぐい、…”.
Even the Mac IME seems to prefer the hiragana only version.
Finally finished chapter two (this book will probably keep me company through the rest of the year).
As my current Japanese level is not advanced enough to really understand the novel (mostly due to lack of vocabulary and difficulty with slang, probably), I have obtained an English version of the novel as well, and I’m now following this procedure:
- Take a block of text (5-10 sentences)
- Read it in Japanese without looking anything up
- Read it again, while looking up words and adding select ones to my Bunpro vocab reviews (mostly based on whether they’re already part of the Bunpro JLPT decks)
- Read the English translation to cross-check my understanding/interpretation of the passage I just read
- Repeat
Maybe this is a light form of cheating, but it certainly has helped me enjoy the novel a bit more at my current proficiency, and also feel more secure in approaching new sections.
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Definitely not cheating. Increasing comprehensibility is always a good thing, especially as you’re trying to puzzle it out on your own before checking. You’re working a lot harder than most people by doing what you’re doing!
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I also see ぬぐう a lot more often IRL than 拭う. No idea why, but I’d just file it under “it is the way it is”. The kanji itself is taught quite late in school, but the word is relatively common, so perhaps that’s why hiragana is preferred. That’s just a wild guess though.
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Finished the book today (a week ahead of schedule).
Since I already knew the story from the movie, I couldn’t help but picture all the scenes from it while reading. Honestly, I was a bit let down that the book was almost a straight 1-to-1 copy of the film.
Maybe because of that, I didn’t read every single sentence super carefully and sometimes just skipped over the parts that were unclear.
Still, it ended up being really good practice for speeding up my reading! I think I will re-watch the movie now to practice some listening.
The way they used ‘俺’ vs ‘私’ really made it easier to figure out who was narrating each part. I wonder how translations of the book handle this.
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Honestly, I was a bit let down that the book was almost a straight 1-to-1 copy of the film.
Usually it’s the other way around; book purists complaining about the movie being different 
If you have the 角川つばさ文庫 edition, you can check the type of some novels on the last page. Just in case you want to pick up another one and want to check prior to reading it. I’ve also read すずめの戸締まり and it too is identical to the movie.
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Well, in this case instead of animation adapting a novel, the novelization was written based on a completed scenario, and apparently it only took 2 months.
I’m curious about the opinions of all the readers, does the novel stand on its own two feet as a result.
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