Counter argument: this is how I feel too, and it was the idea behind “I prefer the 18 week schedule, the 15 week schedule is too fast for me”, however it didn’t get any vote.
Counter argument: I think a more important factor is the storyline. As far as I remember, there are different “arcs” in this story, and it might be annoying to have one week where we read two chapters, one finishes an arc and the other chapter starts a new one. I feel like finishing an arc in the same week would feel better. That being said, I don’t remember where do the arcs start and stop, but I’m thinking that there is a chance that the person that has made the playlist took it into account, while I definitely did not since I only looked at character count.
Another counter argument is that it might be nice to push people a bit outside of their comfort zone and make them read a bit more than they otherwise would, and then the week after that they can relax a bit with a short week. As the two long weeks are not consecutive, this would make sense.
I finished week 1 reading yesterday. It took me about 1,5 hours total. I found the names of the characters a bit challenging to remember. Other than that, there were obviously many words that I was not familiar with, but I feel like I understood what was going on with just the vocabulary lookups.
I’d like to ask everyone: what level of comprehension do you aim for when reading Japanese? I feel like I usually move on to the next sentence if I can roughly understand what is going on, even if I don’t get the nuances. I’m wondering if I should aim for a better comprehension.
Another question: do you make Anki cards while reading this book? I was showing this book to my Japanese friend, and she said that some of the vocabulary was a bit obsolete and not really used nowadays. I wonder if I’m going to memorize a bunch of unnatural vocabulary if I make Anki cards of the words I don’t know.
It depends on if you’re making anki cards for the purpose of reading or speaking. Learning the words in this book will help you read other books like it (from this era or set in this era). There are however some words that you are unlikely to need to bring out in conversation, and if your main goal is words for speaking I’d just skip anki for this one.
Personally, yes I try to understand everything and do a lot of lookup and sometimes Internet searches. However I do zero Anki cards. If a word is not obscure, then it’ll come back and eventually I will remember.
That being said, I am nowhere near fluent yet so I can’t tell you exactly if that’s a valid strategy or not, ask me again in a decade or two xD
These might not work for anyone else, but some strategies I use for names if that helps.
For names I try to create some connection to make them easier to remember. Here are two common names in this book and two tricks I used. Also I keep the names and readings handy at the top of a document I use for notes for this book.
For the name 壮太郎, the 太郎 (tarou) part was easy enough because this is pretty common. 壮 (sou) is a part of the kanji 装 which is also pronounced sou and is in the word 変装 (hensou) disguise, a common word in this book. That helps you with all three names with 壮 plus 変装.
The hardest name for me in these early chapters to remember was 羽柴 (Hashiba). Ha from 羽 is OK but I had no connection with 柴. Anyway, I thought about what it rhymes with and basically remember that it rhymes with the familiar Toshiba.
A bit funny perhaps but helps me personally
extensive vs intensive reading
This is called extensive reading and has some great advantages including getting more exposure to the language and strengthening the connections with the language you already have, making your existing knowledge more fluent.
Intensive reading (lots of lookups and aiming for more complete understanding) is also helpful and helps to achieve more nuanced knowledge.
I spend some time reading extensively, and some time reading intensively. I read something intensively if it is a) interesting at that slower pace and b) the extra understanding or learning I get from it is satisfying.
This is an interesting topic and very personal, so perhaps try both out and see how you like it for different books or even different stages of learning
For this book, because my goals are related to modern Japanese, I read it mostly extensively.
anki
I’m biased towards not using Anki, so consider that first…
This is always a risk even with reading modern books. I think it’s important (if communication is a goal) to pay attention to the context of words and if they are used in speech in a situation that you are in, try them out or ask a native.
Personally the only words I’m glad I learned from Anki were on pre-curated lists and super common eg from Genki. But I lean towards learning my vocab naturally over time anyway, I’m not in a rush.
YES!
It’s what I was gonna say. It’s the actual same Kanji as Shiba Inu, as well…
I’m very grateful for the “characters” list that you made, Mitrac… I’ve had it gotten as I’ve tried to read Week 1.
I think getting through it with the level of comprehension you’re in the mood for at the moment is the way to go.
I quit doing anki lately, because it broke me
I’m trying to let the “natural repetition” of what I’m exposed to in day to day life/study be my SRS (caveat: I think it gets learned more slowly when I never see words again in a very long time)
how did I miss that. Thank you 
