Final Results
A massive thank you to everyone who participated despite the untimeliness of the readathon/holiday collision 
Before every readathon I get a wave of imposter syndrome where I convince myself that no one will participate because reading is for boring nerds, and then every single time I’m met with a massive group of incredibly inspirational readers who remind me that it’s actually totally fine and normal to read until brain go boom. THANK YOU for being here, whether you stop in at every event or just once in a while. It’s way more fun to read alongside you 
The Summer Solstice event earlier this year was the most-participated event ever, with 47 finishers, and followed by a robust Autumn Equinox roster of 40 finishers. Forty-plus people on a tiny corner of the internet, clearing schedules for an entire day to just read together, sharing panels and excerpts and snack photos and travel photos, it really feels like a family event 
Well, yes, that’s all very nice. Except the Winter Solstice had 52 finishers, so we actually managed to set a record this past weekend 
What do you mean FIFTY-TWO people happened to squeeze 24 hours out of busy family and work and life schedules to decipher kanji with internet strangers?? And we can’t have a record number of participants without setting some reading records as well, of course.
Results!! Here are the raw numbers from each readathon from the past year, chronologically:
| Event | Finishers | Time | Pages | Charas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter '24 |
22 | 137:26:00 | 4632 | 252.3k |
 Spring '25 |
32 | 164:29:00 | 8204 | 161.8k |
 Summer '25 |
47 | 251:50:00 | 11607 | 151.6k |
 Autumn '25 |
40 | 213:11:00 | 7396 | 555.4k |
| Winter '25 |
52 | 295:25:00 | 11076 | 817.7k |
Beating the goal by a little
Beating the goal BY A LOT
Where we usually do well in primarily one category, in this event we crushed expectations across all contingents of time, pages, and characters. I’m so proud and reverent of everyone this winter solstice 
Regarding per-reader averages, I truthfully expected this event to be near the bottom of the rankings. Even though the raw numbers were so high, they were spread across the largest number of participants yet and would almost assuredly translate to lower numbers per person. Except not at all! Our numbers were so impressive that the math continued to favor us, ranking us second behind the longtime first-place holdout: last winter’s event 
We’ll get you someday…
 |
Event | Avg. Time | Avg. Pages | Avg. Charas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Winter '24 |
6:10:00 | 210 | 11.4k |
 |
 Winter '25 |
5:54:00 | 213 | 15.7k |
 |
Summer '25 |
5:21:00 | 247 | 3.2k |
| Autumn '25 |
5:20:00 | 185 | 13.9k |
Now, usually, I’d use the space under our rankings to do shoutouts for users who made big progress or hit big numbers. But, if it’s okay, I’d like to pause the usual shoutout section and instead share a few of the moments from this readathon that made it so obvious to me why reading with you all is such a privilege and is so inspiring:
Holiday cheer!!
This was yet another fantastic weekend reading with the WK forum community, thank you so much for joining me and for helping each other find joy in the process of improving. Wishing a beautiful holiday season to everyone here 
May your new year’s resolutions be exciting and self-forgiving and include something about reading more Japanese in 2026 
The next readathon will take place on Saturday, March 21, 2026!
Hope to see you then!! 
