This isn’t the first light novel I’ve finished (actually, I haven’t finished this one yet, I still have the atogaki to go), but it went a lot more smoothly than my first experiences. The first one I read was Grimgar. If you don’t know that one, it’s an isekai light novel. Oh boy, the number of times I had to look up “chainmail” in Japanese The second one I read, Gamers, was at least set in the modern day, so that one went smoother.
Those were the first books I read in Japanese. I figured manga would be harder than light novels, because in a manga, I wouldn’t be able to select the words to look them up. Two things I didn’t account for were that the Kindle dictionary functionality is no good because it can’t “unconjugate” conjugated verbs, so most of the time, trying to look up a verb was futile.
The other was that copying words to paste them into Jisho quickly came up against the DRM copy limits of the Kindle software. After that was triggered, I had to get around it by doing a search within the book for a word I wanted to look up, which didn’t trigger the copy protection. At that point, the word would be in the search bar and I could freely copy it out. That was a huge pain
After reading those, I started reading manga, and then stuck to that for a long time. I had found the WaniKani book clubs, and joined the Takagi-san club, and Nichijou club, which were the first clubs I joined, and the first manga I read, along with 結婚しても愛してる, which had a completed club, because it seemed way too cute (and it was!).
Unlike the light novels I had read, which only included furigana for a word the first time it was used, Takagi-san used furigana all the time, which made it much easier. I honestly don’t remember if the other two did as well. And of course, the discussion threads made it easier and more fun. At the time, I think I mostly lurked, but I loved seeing the discussions on each chapter.
Holy cow, looking back at those book club threads, that was over a year ago. I’ve been reading stuff in Japanese for over a year Back when I first started checking out the new beta Japanese course in Duolingo, having gained an interest after finding myself knowing what certain words meant in anime from hearing them over and over, I never would’ve imagined I would actually reach this point!
Anyway, this is my first time diving back into a light novel since I first started reading. It’s much easier now with more knowledge of kanji, and more grammar knowledge from reading as part of other book clubs. And of course, it’s even easier with the help of my lovely fellow book club members filling out the vocabulary sheet and answering questions. In conclusion, I’m feeling pretty good
With that said, in this chapter, the specialized vocabulary came back with a vengeance! I found myself more than once looking up a Japanese word, only to be faced with an English word that I then also had to look up How many of you were able to recognize ロサンゼルス as Los Angeles without looking it up? Because I sure wasn’t!
As for the story,
It was pretty obvious from the chapter title, but that didn’t make it any easier. Hanabi realizing she likes Yamato made it hit even harder Still, it was really hearwarming to see the three kids recognize and appreciate the influence they’ve had on each other, and Aiko and Saki had on them, as well all the great things they’ve experienced since meeting each other.