Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

Comments

[geraineon]

Halfway through Goodbye, My Princess. Wow, what a breath of fresh air (wrt to translation quality)!

[halfcactus]

Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! That translation healed my brain lol

[aurumcalendula]

That's great to hear!

[duckprintspress]

Oh, it's early this Wednesday!

I'm still deep in Korean fandom, I finished Lout of Count's Family vol. 4 and now I'm reading the novel.

For Chinese stuff, I plan to start actually reading a novel in Chinese in September (I'm gonna read 我和我对家/I Ship My Rival x Me by Pepa as my first actual book in Chinese), but in the meantime I had some time in my usual study block so I'm trying to get through 破云/Breaking through the Clouds manhua vol. 1 by Huai Shang. I've read this manhua before and I've read the book, so it's really just study practice. All the long mysteries I've read in DuChinese that mean I've been introduced to a fair amount of "police procedural" vocabulary is really coming in handy right now, lmao.

[halfcactus]

ISMM was also the first cnovel I finished raw so godspeed and enjoy!!!

[duckprintspress]

thank youuuu! That's very reassuring to read lol. I've read the manhua but not a fantranslation, so it's also a first read for me, but the language seems fairly basic and the sub-chapters are really short so I'm optimistic...

[halfcactus]

Yeah it's super short, the hard part is the internet slang and WYZ's terminally online brain haha.

[duckprintspress]

ooof yeah, I'm gonna have to rely on having read the manhua for most of that, I know a little internet slang but not a ton.

[geraineon]

I kept trying to read the Lout of Count's Family but the tl quality is somehow *worse* than ORV and I could not. =(

I wish the TL is better.

All the best with reading in CN! Jiayou

[duckprintspress]

ugh, that's really frustrating. I'm reading the official English translation and it reads fairly well imo.

[geraineon]

Huh, maybe the one I read wasn't the official tl then... I found the tl in the wild, labelled as the official tl.

[duckprintspress]

I suppose it could have been a pirated version? Idk. There are only 4 volumes out in English. or well, 5 as of yesterday. with one to go I believe.

[larryhammer]

Still bounding through Gourmet of Another World, with just over a hundred chapters to go. Things got a little wobbly for a stretch, during a side-quest where the MC completely outclassed anyone local but we still had to sit through multiple rounds of local guys attempting to suppress him only to discover they aren't actually hot stuff. Given the MC was already even more of an overpowered munchkin than Sun Wukong (this is a canonical observation by the Queen Mother of the West), that arc was kinda boring tbh. But eventually, after doing the time-honored tactic of East Asian creators in a bind and stealing taking inspiration from Journey to the West, the story got back on track, and we're barrelling down-slope into the final scenario, aiming for an apocalyptic confrontation of multiverse proportions. As one does. (If you're the MC of a xianxia.)

[geraineon]

I guess that is a common issue with these type of uh, battle shounen? Power levels over 9000. Glad to hear it's back on track for you.

[larryhammer]

I think we've revealed the highest power levels, anyway, so there's no more ultimate ranks to achieve. And we're cooking again, which is always where this book is best.

[halfcactus]

Neither Chinese nor a novel, but I just finished a f/f manhwa about post-apocalyptic Seoul where everyone lived in an underground base. The story beats reminded me of a mix of Wandering Earth, Little Mushroom, and Snowpiercer, but with more eugenics since all the survivors are handpicked "elites". Inexplicably men went extinct so the only way to repopulate was to wake up a cryogenically frozen human. I found the characters and relationships interesting (the FL is rightfully resented by the community since she's sleeping with the director and getting special treatment) but the worldbuilding and timeline confused me and made me curious about the novel. It was really short (< 40 chapters) and the art was great so for all its strangeness I don't regret reading it!

[headstone]

That sounds awesome—what's it called? (I imagine it's probably untranslated into English, sadly...)

[halfcactus]

It's called The Iron Inside! The webtoon has an official English translation on Manta, but the novel does not. ;__; I'm hoping to see more works like this in translation! It really stands out for being short and self-contained and concept-driven. AND I'm such a fan of the art style hehe

Webtoon screencaps

[geraineon]

That's an interesting mix!

and eh, close enough XD east asian media /handwave handwave/

How's the translation quality?

[halfcactus]

Better than the last three manhua I tried to read I didn't really notice anything off about the translation so I guess... pretty good? :P

[aurumcalendula]

I caught up on a bunch of baihe fan translations!

I don't have a ton of thoughts on The Moon Above These Lands, since I'm only three chapters in, but I'm liking it and am curious about how the plot will unfold.

I'm really enjoying seeing the various schemes unfold in Begging the Heaven in Vain (the translator decided that was more fitting than their earlier 'Seeking Immortality in Vain'). The romance is very slowburn in this one imho, but the plot is engaging enough that I don't mind.

I love that the system seems to be starting to reluctantly ship Luo Qingci and Ruan Li in Dragon Subjugation Incantation, and I'm really enjoying all the mutual pining stuff that complicated by Lu Qingci's disguise!

To Embers We Return continues to be really good! I'm enjoying both Bian Jin and Shen Ni's mutual pining  and UST as well as the plot developments w/r/t  the Black Box and hints about Qin Wushang.

[geraineon]

I'm sure I've said it before, but I am in awe at the number of novels you are following updates for!

[aurumcalendula]

I think I'm kinda at my max at the moment, tbh.

[forestofglory]

Ancestors and Anxiety is really interesting actually!

[geraineon]

Love the title. What is it about?

[forestofglory]

It's about the early history of the concept of rebirth in China. It helps that its related to some of the stuff I read about as translation background so I feel like I have a bit more context