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Xythar posted:How many of you guys have actually read these books in Japanese? I've read a lot of Light Novels in Japanese; most of them are utter dogshit, but unfortunately, I have a really bad case of the "Gotta finish it!"(if there's a legit name for this, it escapes me) disease. Fortunately, a lot of the LN's I've read were so lovely, they actually started curing me from this stupid habit little by little. The best / least crappy LN series I've read and could be considered finished were:
I've read some other novels that could be considered good, but I'm unsure if they're considered bona-fide Novels or LN's (Shiki, LOGH, the Sekai/of the Stars series are the ones that pop-up to mind right now). The three series I've sincerely disliked the most were:
And my question is: Why are most Japanese young adult literature / LN writers so hell-bent about setting up a harem? I suppose it's about the "Oh, look I'm a chick magnet" type of escapism / fantasy, but they almost always portray the main character as someone who either can barely look after himself or, you know, an aggressively dull flesh brick with the personality to match. e: vvvvv I guess at the end of the day, I want a more down-to-earth version of School Days to happen to a harem protagonist.  vvvvv
Wark Say fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 02:41
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The same reason Bella in Twilight is a blank slate. So you can imagine yourself as them easier. Harems are the next logical step. Everyone's tastes are different so cover all the bases. The reader is bound to like one of them.
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Sep 26, 2014 02:45
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Wark Say posted:I've read a lot of Light Novels in Japanese; most of them are utter dogshit, but unfortunately, I have a really bad case of the "Gotta finish it!"(if there's a legit name for this, it escapes me) disease. Fortunately, a lot of the LN's I've read were so lovely, they actually started curing me from this stupid habit little by little. Bile fascination?. I don't really care which shows are LN adaptations, because we already got an adaptation of Kino's Journey.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:07
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Wark Say posted:[*]The Twelve Motherfucking Kingdoms (which released its last volume last year)
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Sep 26, 2014 03:09
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Wark Say posted:I've read a lot of Light Novels in Japanese; most of them are utter dogshit, but unfortunately, I have a really bad case of the "Gotta finish it!"(if there's a legit name for this, it escapes me) disease. Fortunately, a lot of the LN's I've read were so lovely, they actually started curing me from this stupid habit little by little. I think you're thinking of sunk cost fallacy. Strange Quark fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 03:13
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Nate RFB posted:Wait, what? Last I heard the she released a collection of short stories back in like 2009. Did a new main story entry come out finally after like 13 years? It's the one volume with 4 short stories, actually. Strange Quark posted:I think you're thinking of sunk cost fallacy. That does indeed sound like my problem! Thanks, lady with the best SMT-related avatar! Also shame on you, unpronounceable!  e: I do not live in Japan, Schneider. I do travel to Japan fairly often for work-related reasons, though. The Classic Literature Club novels (of which Hyouka is the first volume) are fairly entertaining. The same person who got me that also got me the Morimi novels (Tatami Galaxy and The Eccentric Family) and From the New World. I should probably stick with his recommendations, I suppose. 
Wark Say fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 03:24
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Wark Say posted:And my question is: Why are most Japanese young adult literature / LN writers so hell-bent about setting up a harem? I suppose it's about the "Oh, look I'm a chick magnet" type of escapism / fantasy, but they almost always portray the main character as someone who either can barely look after himself or, you know, an aggressively dull flesh brick with the personality to match. Are you in Japan? There are light novels that aren't made for the otaku market, aren't there? Twelve Kingdoms and Banner of the Stars are pretty sane. Someone correct me on this, but Hyouka was more of an actual mystery novel because it didn't have illustrations or cute girls on the cover. (yet people keep saying it's a light novel) To answer the question: because there's a market for it. The art is also a draw, and arguably even more than the writing.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:25
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Schneider Heim posted:Someone correct me on this, but Hyouka was more of an actual mystery novel because it didn't have illustrations or cute girls on the cover. (yet people keep saying it's a light novel) Hyouka is a weird case, because it started out being published on the same label as Suzumiya Haruhi, but after Yonezawa (the author) published his regular novel Sayonara Yousei at another publishing house, Kadokawa apparently decided to publish the 3rd book (and rerelase 1-2) on another label as "regular" novels. This kind of thing happens every now and then. Sakuraba's A Lollypop or A Bullet was initially released as a light novel with moe illustrations, but it got such a good reputation that it was eventually rereleased as a "proper" novel with all illustrations pulled.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:45
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Wark Say posted:
These are all legitimately really good series and a reminder that there are some jewels in there, as well as the aforementioned Hyouka and Morimi stuff, I guess. Wark Say posted:The three series I've sincerely disliked the most were: From the first little bit I heard about each of these series I'd kind of hoped to like them, but as soon as you look a little deeper they're poo poo. I don't really mind series with endless sperging about settings, or overpowered protagonists, but Mahouka takes the Gary Stu thing to a whole new level, combined with uncomfortable right wing politics. Horizon Has a big cast of unique characters, but there's just so much poo poo piled into the backstory that it's impossible to keep track of what's going on. Plus the fact that each volume weighs 500 pounds. I didn't expect IS to be great, but I was hoping for some fun powered suit mecha action and maybe some amusing national stereotype characters, but it's just endless harem bullshit of the lowest level, and I'm pretty sure the MC is the worst one ever created.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:58
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All right, I'm confused. Are we still talking about the quality of the writing, or just plot/characters/setting in general? FMP has really stiff and unpleasant prose, so I gave up on the series after finishing the first book. Mahouka's first volume, in all its tedious verbiage, was actually less painful to get through.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:20
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Horizon is about tossing literally everything some guy can think of at a wall and seeing what sticks, only the wall is made of glue and the objects thrown are all made of feces. In short- a huge stinking, nonsensical mess.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:23
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I tried reading the premise of Horizon and I think my eyes glazed over about halfway through.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:30
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I should read the Kino's Journey LNs.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:31
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darkgray posted:All right, I'm confused. Are we still talking about the quality of the writing, or just plot/characters/setting in general? FMP has really stiff and unpleasant prose, so I gave up on the series after finishing the first book. Mahouka's first volume, in all its tedious verbiage, was actually less painful to get through. A lot of my love for FMP did come from the KyoAni seasons, but the books are mostly okay, if a bit on the dull side, since everything is presented very matter-of-factly. Which, taking into account that most of the people on the protagonist's side are military types (or obsessed with pop-culture portrayals of military types), I felt it kinda worked. Also, there's no part of Mahouka that can be considered "less painful" than anything within those lists I made except maybe Horizon. In actual season-related questions, is anybody going to make a thread for Gundam Reconquista? Zorak is usually the dude who does the Gundam'ing around these parts, correct?
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Sep 26, 2014 04:46
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Fate/Zero was also a series of light novels. Shame on you for forgetting.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:48
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If people are reading light novels and they don't read any actual Japanese lit then they should fix that asap, tia.
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Sep 26, 2014 05:00
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Wark Say posted:A lot of my love for FMP did come from the KyoAni seasons, but the books are mostly okay, if a bit on the dull side, since everything is presented very matter-of-factly. Which, taking into account that most of the people on the protagonist's side are military types (or obsessed with pop-culture portrayals of military types), I felt it kinda worked. Can't they just use the dedicated Gundam thread for that?
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Sep 26, 2014 05:15
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Srice posted:If people are reading light novels and they don't read any actual Japanese lit then they should fix that asap, tia. Listen, I've got a copy of Battle Royale, but I gotta finish Journey to the West first!
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Sep 26, 2014 05:21
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Hard Boiled Wonderland and Wind Up Bird were pretty good. For some reason I can't remember anything about Kafka on the Shore.
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Sep 26, 2014 05:33
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Wark Say posted:The best / least crappy LN series I've read and could be considered finished were: Wark Say posted:It's the one volume with 4 short stories, actually. As far as I'm aware, Ono has always maintained that she would like to resume writing Twelve Kingdoms novels at some point, at the very least to finish Taiki's story. If she's stated otherwise more recently, it would be really sad, but good to know. e: Nate, because I know you like to keep up with this stuff as well, the two short stories you were referring to were combined with two others and released in a single volume last year. The first two have complete but unfortunately quite rough fan translations, with the third in progress and the fourth not yet begun. runawayturtles fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 05:44
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Re-reading the synopses reminded me of some of the similarities in Murakami's and ABe's work.
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Sep 26, 2014 05:45
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Phobophilia posted:Hard Boiled Wonderland and Wind Up Bird were pretty good. For some reason I can't remember anything about Kafka on the Shore. Kafka on the Shore was a great read! The chapter about Johnny Walker and the cats left a very... interesting impression, to say the least. The Nakata sections were some of my favorites. also IQ84 owns, read it
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Sep 26, 2014 05:55
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I've only read some of the translations but Ryohgo Narita's stuff is really good and most of his stuff is pretty fan-service free, with Durarara excluded (which probably explains why it's his most popular series).
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Sep 26, 2014 05:57
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Phobophilia posted:Re-reading the synopses reminded me of some of the similarities in Murakami's and ABe's work. Yeah, it even mentions Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World on the DVD box for Haibane Renmei. It's funny they both feature a mysterious Town, with many singular things in it i.e. a Clock Tower, a Wall, an Old Building, but jeez the themes and moods couldn't be more different. As far as Murakami goes, I loved Norwegian Wood and really liked both Wind-up Bird Chronicles and Hard Boiled Wonderland (etc) , the first I read was 1Q84, and while I liked the first 2/3s a lot I felt it stumbled at the end, still glad to have read it though.
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Sep 26, 2014 06:00
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I don't know about the Horizon LN but the Horizon anime was actually really awesome. And it was awesome partly precisely because the volumes are so loving huge, the huge cast of unique characters (and yet each of them gets chance to shine at least a little bit) and really detailed setting (and it's certainly not easy to keep track of what's going on, but it's definitely not impossible) were the things I liked the most. There was also freaking amazing soundtrack (that matched the scenes really well), stellar voice acting and really well animated and directed action scenes (holy poo poo those action scenes). The whole show was well directed, really (the entire 12th episode of the second season, for example, was just loving phenomenal in terms of... well, everything). Again, I don't know about the Horizon LN, maybe it's a real slog to get through those 500 pounds, but if we're talking about the anime then writing Horizon in the same list as IS and Mahouka (let alone calling it "a huge stinking, nonsensical mess") is ridiculous, it's not even the case of "nowhere near as bad as the other two", it's simply not bad at all.
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Sep 26, 2014 07:37
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I just looked up this "Horizon" thing on Wikipedia and the "plot" section of the article is truly a thing of beauty. Never before have I seen a paragraph where every sentence made me go "woah, wait, hold on a second, what the gently caress?" quite as strong as that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_in_the_Middle_of_Nowhere Thank you goons, for revealing this to me and allowing me to be shocked and amazed for a few seconds
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Sep 26, 2014 08:00
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ninjewtsu posted:I just looked up this "Horizon" thing on Wikipedia and the "plot" section of the article is truly a thing of beauty. Never before have I seen a paragraph where every sentence made me go "woah, wait, hold on a second, what the gently caress?" quite as strong as that. Holy gently caress, THAT'S what it's about? I thought it was just a mecha thing.
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Sep 26, 2014 08:02
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DiabloCthulhu posted:I don't know about the Horizon LN but the Horizon anime was actually really awesome. And it was awesome partly precisely because the volumes are so loving huge, the huge cast of unique characters (and yet each of them gets chance to shine at least a little bit) and really detailed setting (and it's certainly not easy to keep track of what's going on, but it's definitely not impossible) were the things I liked the most. There was also freaking amazing soundtrack (that matched the scenes really well), stellar voice acting and really well animated and directed action scenes (holy poo poo those action scenes). The whole show was well directed, really (the entire 12th episode of the second season, for example, was just loving phenomenal in terms of... well, everything). Again, I don't know about the Horizon LN, maybe it's a real slog to get through those 500 pounds, but if we're talking about the anime then writing Horizon in the same list as IS and Mahouka (let alone calling it "a huge stinking, nonsensical mess") is ridiculous, it's not even the case of "nowhere near as bad as the other two", it's simply not bad at all. The Horizon anime is one of my guilty pleasures for many of the same reasons (and once you manage to figure out what the setting is, it's kind of interesting), but I think saying it "isn't bad at all" is more than a bit of a stretch. It is aggressively anime (though strangely not a harem as far as I know), fairly derivative, and trying to edit 500 pounds of text on paper to something vaguely coherent. But it does do some things I appreciate, like having the large cast and on top of that having said large cast neither always win nor always job out. The second season even has a more or less gimmick side character have a pivotal role. Also the leader of "Spain" was cool. It's still pretty bad though, but it's like a quarter in a pile of garbage. vvvv He also spends almost the entire second season naked for no apparent reason, and nobody really pays it any mind past the first couple episodes. And he's voiced by Jun Fukuyama. chumbler fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 08:04
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Waffleman_ posted:Holy gently caress, THAT'S what it's about? I thought it was just a mecha thing. I made a brief adventure to the characters section and what I found was basically incomprehensible. So apparently the main character is a high schooler, only ever cried once in his entire life, is DECLARED VICEROY OF THE CITYSHIP THAT THE ENTIRETY OF THE NATIVE POPULATION OF JAPAN NOW RESIDES IN, gains access to 1/4th the energy supplies of the entire ship, and he uses this to make people go super saiyan. And now if he is ever unhappy ever again for any split second, in the entire rest of his life, he will immediately drop dead. This is awe inspiring. I don't think I can handle all of this. It's like everything that was magical about Valvrave, but somehow even more ridiculous. ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 08:09
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Waffleman_ posted:I thought it was just a mecha thing. chumbler posted:I think saying it "isn't bad at all" is more than a bit of a stretch. DiabloCthulhu fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 08:36
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I remember the first season of Horizon that I watched, and in retrospect it strikes me as basically a weirder and more intricate Nasuverse, which is impressive because the Nasuverse is aggressively incomprehensible. And likewise, you're mostly into it for the creative fight scenes.
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Sep 26, 2014 08:48
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SyntheticPolygon posted:I've only read some of the translations but Ryohgo Narita's stuff is really good and most of his stuff is pretty fan-service free, with Durarara excluded (which probably explains why it's his most popular series). yea he definitely makes up for having no fanservice in his other works with Durarara ----------------
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Sep 26, 2014 13:18
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Horizon makes the opposite of sense. Much like Mahouka, it's only interesting as a literary freak show where you gawk at everything it does wrong.
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Sep 26, 2014 15:49
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So, this became the Goon Novel Recommendation Thread. I'm partly okay with that. I do read a lot of Japanese literature because, while I was studying Japanese, I always felt that my reading comprehension was my weakest point, so that's why I started picking up as many novels as I could. Bless my teacher's heart, because the first thing she recommended me to read was precisely the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I still hope someday somebody decides to commission a project similar to Blue Literature so we can get an adaptation of one or more of Murakami's works. Wind-Up and Dance Dance Dance are my favorites, though Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84 could also be good.Waffleman_ posted:Fate/Zero was also a series of light novels. In all honesty, Fate/Zero was good as a novel but I feel that the anime blows it out of the water, even if it did amp up a few of the more cringe-worthy moments. Pureauthor posted:Can't they just use the dedicated Gundam thread for that? I just checked, and there's a Gundam build fighters thread, so it's possible that we'll get an independent Reconquista thread.
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Sep 26, 2014 21:24
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First episode of Terra Formars is up on CR, it's pretty much exactly as expected including obnoxious censoring.
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Sep 26, 2014 23:16
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Wark Say posted:
Tonan no Tsubasa being a driving force for my efforts to learn written Japanese I have to ask: Is it as awesome as I assume a book about Queen Kyou must be?
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Sep 27, 2014 01:25
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Terra Formars was pretty great for a first episode. Wisely started off fresh some arc or set of arcs into the manga, I don't remember, throwing us into things but giving enough of a briefer to those who don't know the manga or even skipped the OAV. It's SNK e: Worldwide opinion seems to be "wtf censorship overload". Personal opinion is that it doesn't bother me much. Ghosts n Gopniks fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Sep 27, 2014 |
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Sep 27, 2014 01:30
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nevermind
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Sep 27, 2014 01:50
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Ferretts posted:Tonan no Tsubasa being a driving force for my efforts to learn written Japanese I have to ask: Is it as awesome as I assume a book about Queen Kyou must be? Let me put it this way (If you can tolerate a bit of bombast and odd metaphors): It's a Behemoth song in written form. It is loving amazing, is what I'm trying to say. Wark Say fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Sep 27, 2014 |
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Sep 27, 2014 02:03
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Ferretts posted:Tonan no Tsubasa being a driving force for my efforts to learn written Japanese I have to ask: Is it as awesome as I assume a book about Queen Kyou must be? I'd hate to derail your studies and all, but it's also possible to read it in English...
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Sep 27, 2014 06:08
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