Specs
Reviews
(4.08/5)Involves a bit of Japanese Folklore characters
entertainment - The story is about a student called Hibiki, who recently moved to another city, where her aunt lives, due to her parents moving abroad to work. One her first day, after arrival, she decides to go exploring the neighborhood. That's when se finds an old bookstore. The place seems empty at first glance but then she meets the other characters within the book. The story is divided in 4 main chapters, where in each chapter she meets one entity within the Japanese folklore, while keeping her life as a school student.
language learning - The book definitely holds values for language learners. It has a level with difficulty concerning the folklore characters, but the majority of the words are related to slice of life event, nothing to fantastical, mystical or scifi. Sometimes their name and description are a bit difficult to understand, specially when one doesn't have the previous knowledge, a quick google/Wikipedia search can solve that, thou. Every word that has Kanji has furigana to help with the reading but not every common word are written in Kanji, which might be interesting for beginners and less intimidating. The grammar is simple and the sentences are short without flourishing language. When reading this volume, I was around level 29 - 30 in Wanikani. There weren't many kanjis that I haven't learned yet but quite some words that were new.
overall - It's an interesting reading and gives a good boost on one self-confidence, when one realizes the book is aimed for natives. I'd recommend it to those who are interesting in learning a bit of Japanese folklore, and overall reading training.
Cute and entertaining story, lovely characters and small vocabulary challenges
Entertainment: I was a little worried before starting the book and when you start reading full books you prerty much have to go with children's books and they can be either dull or boring or too childish but I was very pleasantly surprised with ひびき's story ! It is entertaining and the story keeps evolving quickly so that you want to keep on reading. At one point I was quite moved and the story got emotional and that was unexpected, well written and refreshing! What I really enjoy in that the book is divided 4 narrative "arcs", each with new plots and characters, and the chapters are pretty short making it easy to have small reading sessions without being overwhelmed even if it's the first book you read. The great thing too is that the story revolves around Japanese folklore and creatures which makes it even more interesting!
Language learning: Overall the vocabulary and grammar used throughout the book is not too challenging and a N3 level should allow you to go through it without struggling too much. There's a few challenges though, the first one being the mentions of Japanese folklore ghosts stories and entities which could sometimes make it harder to follow along. And the second one is the use (quite often) of "childish" alternative versions of 擬声語 and 擬音語 that would not appear in dictionaries or even in Google searches. Some examples could be the use of ぴょこたん (instead of ぴょこぴょこ), とんとこ (to mean とんとん, or ぽむん etc etc... if you are like me and want to check the meaning of all the words you do not know you can lose quite some time and these ones !
Overall: I would definitely recommend this one for your first or second book as you'll still learn a lot of basic and common words and verbs, grammar is easy and sentences are short. You might stumble upon some specific vocabulary here and there but nothing too bad or preventing global comprehension. While doing that you'll be entertained and will learn about traditional Japanese ghosts stories and creatures, you'll get attached to the characters and will be able to enjoy small reading sessions!
Pretty entertaining supernatural story, with some good side characters.
The story follows Hibiki, an introverted bookworm, who discovers a mysterious bookshop and it’s owner, Reiji, who enlists her as his (temporary) disciple. Through this, she learns about the supernatural, friendships, happiness and most importantly, about herself.
I would say this is a great first or second novel as everything was pretty straightforward and mostly consisted of dialogue. There are a few explanations of the ghosts that may throw a beginner off, but overall a lot of the same vocabulary is used throughout the book.
The characters were all surprisingly enjoyable, and at times, quite funny, especially Chi-chan. The story was half decent for a children’s book as it has some dark themes and also an interesting back story reveal at the end. Would recomend if you want some easy reading!
Like reading an anime
Entertainment
Despite this not being an anime light novel but a children's book, reading it felt like watching a low stakes shoujo slice of life anime. Not the romance ones, but the school life ones (like Yura Yura, Kamichu, etc). Mostly due to common tropes, such as a handsome god-like guy, a tsundere-like school girl that calls the main character by her full name all the time despite becoming friends (東堂ひびき this 東堂ひびき that), etc.
Honestly I thought this wouldn't be for me, just from looking at the cover, but with the Japanese folklore part, it turned out to be interesting enough that reading it wasn't a drag.
Language learning
There aren't many descriptions of the scenes and places, the text is mostly conversations and the main character's inner thoughts on what's happening. Everything has furigana, the grammar isn't that advanced, and for me it was a good mix of new vocabulary while also being able to read a whole page without searching anything. I think most of the vocabulary I had to look up were onomatopeia, and on that note there is A LOT. If you want to up your onomatopeia game, this is a good book for it.