Now that the AIR Bookclub is reaching it’s end, we’d like to hear your feedback! You can tell us how it felt being a part of the Bookclub, or you can give us your constructive criticism over how it was organised. The Bookclubs are still very much a learning process for us who are conducting them, so we want to learn from you guys what we did right and wrong, so we can improve with each successive Bookclub. So please, give us your honest thoughts!
Firstly, allow me to give my compliments. I think this bookclub did fairly well. As a reader, it definitely gave me the opportunity to think about and discuss numerous things about AIR; things that I would not have even thought about had I read it alone.
As a member of the podcast, it allowed me to vent my thoughts on it in a more real-time environment, which can, at many times, be more productive than simply talking about it on the forum.
As a listener of the podcast, it did serve as a culmination of things. The guys who participated in the podcasts gave a pretty good discussion that helped tie up some loose ends (well, I’m still waiting out on the AIR podcast hehehe), and they were able to link the forum discussion with their thoughts and others’ thoughts.
Now for complaints. Honestly, my biggest complaint with the bookclub was with the delays. Being somebody who followed the bookclub religiously (by not starting a route until the designated period starts), it kind of threw me off at times. I guess, primarily, it was the Misuzu route delay. I was pretty hyped to know what would happen next, but the change in pacing kind of disappointed me. It also came at an inconvenient time in that, because of the delay, I had to rush reading summer a bit, but I guess that’s more a personal issue.
I can accept that there will be problems with scheduling, especially for the podcast members, but my suggestion is to not let the podcast delays affect the bookclub schedule? Like, you could release the podcast a week later, but still start the route on time… Actually I do remember a time where the podcast was released almost a week after it was recorded, and I don’t think anybody had a problem with that.
The next complaint I have is not with the management, but rather, more with the community. There was so much excitement and activity during the Common portion of the bookclub. However, that activity died out as soon as the routes started. I’m just wondering why the community acted that way. Did they lose interest? Did they not have time to keep up? Or was the bookclub progressing too slowly for their interest to keep up? I honestly don’t quite know.
Last is an issue that I’m a bit on the fence about: pacing. Was 2 weeks per route too fast? Was it too slow? Or was it just right? I’m honestly a bit on the fence with this issue. Admittedly, for 2 out of the 6 routes, two weeks was perfect for me. I was busy with other things, and those things left me with just the right amount of time to read the scheduled routes. However, if I was left to read it of my own timing, I would have finished it within the first month, simply because I wasn’t busy during the first month.
If, for the next bookclub, the pacing was shortened to a week, for instance, I don’t know if I would be able to keep up with the pacing. What if a long route just so happens to come in at the same time that I have many things to do? Admittedly, there can be ways around this (like pre-reading parts of the next route if I am left with extra time), so it’s a bit of a minor issue.
I guess finally, I would like to thank everybody for helping me gain this sort of experience from reading AIR.
Firstly, thanks to the main podcast crew: @Aspirety, @Bizkitdoh, @Bowiie, @LinkThinks, and @Iotheria. It was really great to both listen and participate in the podcast, and even the pre and post podcast shenanigans were enjoyable XD
Thanks as well to the people who were bored helpful enough to discuss the numerous things about AIR with me during the bookclub. Specifically @EisenKoubu, @NotKyon, @Misuzu, @Yerian and @Takafumi. And hey, @Aspirety and @Bowiie too!
Thanks to the people who contributed artwork, too. Props to @Akito, @Ekalina and @chesca (even tho you disappeared after week one) for their regular, and pretty great, artworks 
Now we can all walk towards The End of Infinity together~
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I wanted to join but I was in an awkward place of “read Air recently enough to not want to re-read but not recently enough to be able to recall smaller events to discuss”. It did seem fun and I hope I can join future ones. Anyway, I have a suggestion and that’s for future book clubs, instead of making each route 2 weeks maybe change the length depending on route? I don’t think this is an issue in Air but say if you do Clannad, Some routes can be really long, while others quick.
The podcasts were fun to listen to and helped me notice a few things I had missed (or maybe forgot) from my own read-through a couple months ago.
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I was also in that awkward place where I just finished reading Air a few months ago, and didn’t want to reread it so soon, so I wasn’t a huge part of the discussions. It didn’t help that I only joined Kaza after the whole thing started, so I couldn’t find a good place to come in, but that’s more on my end than anyone else’s, so don’t worry about that.
It was fun reading other people’s thoughts, though, so even if I didn’t participate much this time around, I enjoyed it, and hope to be a part of the next one!
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I think it would be a good idea for all podcast participants to try and speak a bit faster. Considering the average length of a Kaza podcast, even a slight speed-up would save a lot of time. Same amount of information in a shorter time span. Not saying you should try to be rap-battle-fast or anything (which is kinda hard to pull off anyway xD) - after all, what you say should remain understandable even for non-native speakers.
Just speaking for myself here. Air is actually my least favorite Key work, so it was really just a preference and motivation thing (despite this being my first read of the VN). Even though I listened to the podcasts and read the posts, I stopped posting after the common route part.
The bookclub felt relatively well done to me. This is the first time I’ve experienced something like it though, so I don’t have anything to really draw from other than this. It’s not quite done yet, though. (There’s still the next podcast and the community art thing.)
I did want to put together a voice clip for the AIR podcast, but I’d rather wait to see how others use it for now. I think it’s a cool idea though and I’d really like to see it again.
I’ve got an idea though. Why not use variable length routes? (This is partially in response to the pacing problem @Pepe brought up.) For example, if we know a certain route to be pretty short just assign it a week. If we know another route to be pretty long, give it three weeks. I think two weeks worked pretty well here though. I was mostly late because of myself. xP (Sorry!)
Another idea, which could be considered useful for the above, would be to have a central Bookclub topic that links to each of the routes and can double as a general feedback / questions topic about the bookclub itself. I completely forgot about the Haruko and Sora character discussions when we were focusing on Misuzu/AIR, for example. A central place that ties the discussions together (and is pinned) would be great. Not just for during the bookclub but for after the bookclub is over as well, for anybody who would like to go through it. If you were to do the variable-length route thing you could also use the central topic to allow forum members to discuss alternative scheduling or initial scheduling before the bookclub begins.
I had similar issues with other routes. Although Summer turned out to be the most convenient route for me to read actually. xP
Overall I’m looking forward to participating in future bookclubs with you guys! (And maybe next time I’ll be able to post on time and contribute artwork regularly. xP)
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This is actually a very good idea. Directing people to the different topics for the bookclub was a bit hectic, so it would be nice to have one central location to lead everyone to the appropriate topics.
That said, we are currently in the process of preparing pages on the blog to serve as archives for all the Bookclubs we’ve done. I’ll get that finished once the AIR Bookclub is over!
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I hope I’m not late. I just want to say that the book club, basing my experience in the common route, had been really fun. I got to discuss Air in a deeper level and meet a bunch of artists with the same enthusiasm as I have in drawing stuff. I’m one of those who backed out after the common route and I apologize for that.
A suggestion. It’s time-consuming but if possible, you could make videos especially on events like this. Something like a PV or interviews and stuff to promote the event and each route. You could try it out on the podcasts too like inserting lots of screenshots of the game or the anime. I’m more of a visual person so seeing people leap out from the screen is more enjoyable for me than listening.
This topic is now unpinned. It will no longer appear at the top of its category.
This marks the conclusion of the AIR Commemoration Week. If you have any more feedback, don’t be afraid to share it!
Sorry I really kinda dropped out of this for Summer and AIR. Makes me pretty upset.
Podcasts probably do need to be shorter. It’ll be hard, since there isnt very much fluff anymore. But even I, who really loves listening to the podcasts, am discouraged to listen when they are around two hours long. Maybe fewer people? We could do fewer full-timers and more “guests” so that more people get to be a part of it who want to.
Bookclub is one of my favorite things we do though, so in terms of feedback, it was still tons of fun. Absolutely cannot wait for CLANNAD. Some of the CLANNAD routes should definitely not take more than a week. We probably shouldnt do a “Common Route” week, since CLANNAD common varies almost completely for each route.
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