Oh gosh, here we go xD
I totally stopped reading around July with so many book clubs in which I wasn’t as interested as I could be. And also after finishing one series (why is it so hard to switch when I finish reading/watching/playing something, whyyy). I started reading again recently and I plan to continue doing that along with getting other things together I don’t have much trouble selecting manga that’s good for my level right now, which feels sooo good. Honestly, I didn’t think that I would get this far in a year.
I have plans to read some manga series now, probably play games like Ace Attorney in Japanese and continue my endless way /o/
I didn’t read much variety, since most of them are mangas with 10+ volumes and going But maybe I can recommend something depending on what you enjoy reading.
Also, I recently checked a few pages of Bakaramon and it seemed very accessible for the Beginner Book Club. Maybe for future suggestions
With my lack of skill, I didn’t set any goal other than “read” back in February. I suppose I managed that to a degree.
Starting off at a grammar level that was technically too low to bother with reading. And my vocab knowledge suddenly felt extremely underdeveloped when trying to pick up my first book, compared to the games I played.
In my situation of starting as a scrub: reading something I read before in English. If I had been wholly dependant on my Japanese to understand even the rudimentary plot, I think it would have been too punishing an endeavour.
And as I mentioned in my last post: actually picking something I liked. Something like TangoRisto and Satori Reader are incredibly useful. But they’re also completely useless if I find the material too boring to actually spend significant time reading.
Th-That question is far too hard, after reading soooo many things! It’s not like I read just two visual novels and about five chapters of one manga in ten-ish moths, or anything.
One the whole: it has been quite an experience to notice my own progress in terms of comprehension, ease of reading, and reading speed. It’s a world of difference from where I was a year ago.
I’m excited to keep the ball rolling in 2020! Starting fresh on January 1st, 7AM, right, @Naphthalene?
I’m currently at 16/24, but I’ll probably have time to finish a few more before the end of the year (hopefully SAO 6…which is really long + a few others I’m halfway through, mostly the book club books I’ve fallen behind on).
And I didn’t set a goal for manga, but I ended up reading a pretty decent amount of volumes anyway.
I think the main stuff that has kept me from reading more is just having to study other stuff, which also actually should have higher priority.
Floflo helped a lot with being able to read faster due to not having to look up as much stuff.
Best books were Re:zero and SAO, because they’re more my kind of thing than most of the other books I read (and in the case of SAO, the books also did a lot better than the anime when it comes to showing things like fears and insecurities for the characters, actually just conveying personality in general, and they also had some extra foreshadowing and wordbuilding that makes some stuff make more sense)
Worst book was 時をかける少女.
Best Manga were 不可解なぼくのすべてを and やがて君になる.
I can’t really decide on any worst manga in particular.
It was amazing!! I went way beyond my starting out goals. To be fair, there was no where this year could have gone but up since I read my first Japanese book in December of last year. This was a great first year of reading Japanese books!
I was never consistent in reading this year but that’s to be expected. I had a few months where I’d read a bunch of books. Then a couple where I read pretty much 0. But that’s just how I am and I’m still on track for finishing my ultimate goal of 30 books. I’d like to finish it off before my winter trip but I don’t have much time left. If I get another one in before 2020 that would be cool but I’m not really expecting much.
My favorite book is hard to say but I really loved 秋の牢獄, かがみの孤城, the first book of the 本好きの下剋上 series, and the second book of the 守り人 series.
My least favorite that I finished was 働く男 because I really don’t know anything about him, his acting, his music, or whatever else he does so it was hard to care. Honestly I got through the first half the book and kind of skimmed the rest because it was just his notes about specific songs that he wrote/sang.
The books that I abandoned were 夜は短し歩けよ乙女, シュミじゃないんだ, and 愚者のエンドロール. Two because I had a hard time understanding what they were saying and I just couldn’t power though it/care enough, and one because I didn’t like the characters. Not necessarily in that order.
Oh and manga was great. Didn’t have a particular goal but I think I read quite a bit. Was able to finish two series: Otomen and Wandering Son.
Other than books, I’ve probably completed around 9 games in Japanese (World of FF, KH3, FFX, Hakuoki Kyoto Winds, 999, Ace Attorney Trilogy, and recently Virtue’s Last Reward) and am in the middle of playing a lot more (.hack//gu, Altelier Rorona, Tokyo Xanadu, Recettear, X-2, AI: The Somnium Files etc.) I’ve also watched several anime/J Dramas (Carol and Tuesday, Violet Evergarden, Ossan’s Love, 民王, etc.)
This really has been such an great year in terms of me being to able understand native material and probably the most fulfilled I’ve felt overall since learning Japanese.
Here’s to 2020 being even better!
(Except I’m going to try to work on my non-passive skill of Speaking. I’ll never stop reading though. )
Oh also wanted to do a quick shout out to @Naphthalene, thanks so much for making/maintaining this thread and being willing to continue to do it in the new year!
It was great to have somewhere to post and read other people’s posts, thoughts, struggles, etc. For the months where I didn’t read a lot, I still kept coming back to this thread to keep the spark burning so I really appreciate it!
And great job everyone! Even if you didn’t make your goal this year, there’s always next year! And I hope this thread inspires more people to join as well!
I only read a few books, but my favorite was definitely コンビニ人間, which was the first Japanese book I really enjoyed. Least favorite was definitely 時をかける少女.
For manga, my favorites were 放浪息子 and やがて君になる (even if I still have two volumes left). Oh and ご注文はうさぎですか. That manga is so funny and I read 5 volumes of it this year. I didn’t really read any bad manga, but 聲の形 was a letdown. Definitely didn’t meet my expectations.
I think this was a pretty good year for me and reading. I managed to go well over my goal too
As a side goal worth mentioning, I managed to finish the main 狼と香辛料 series + the epilogue, and it was a consistently good series from start to finish. There are still a bunch of volumes of side stories to keep me alive though, thankfully (one even came out last week, I think). Even after those, I still have some other stuff from the author (支倉凍砂) to read. After that… well, let’s not think about that.
Something not so great also worth mentioning, I kinda fell behind on the Re:Zero club. I think it started with me wanting to do other stuff (like play games or read other books) instead of Re:Zero and now I’m just way behind. Sorry
Time to double the goal for next year.
Yeah, just kidding. I’ll probably keep it the same.
Oh, is that date already … …
Well, I did better than I thought just a couple of months ago, when I simply put down my book with no clear intention on coming back to reading regularly.
I’m still finishing コンビニ人間, but I can already say it is my favorite book by far this year, though maybe not a huge statement, considering my other readings were the １０分で読める 伝記 series and ペンギン・ハイウェイ, which midway through lost all my interest.
In any case the feeling I got lately from reading is a really good one. I feel I can finally read books that interest me with enough comfort (thanks to the Kindle that is ) and with that the concern about the “right” difficulty for my level is much less present now, which has brought the upside of me finally focusing in finding recommendations and appealing material more than anything else.
Hand in hand with the later, dropping all the SRS routines I had brought a significant amount of time back to my days and removed the distraction of been worry about picking new words for reviewing while reading or watching content. For the same reason I love how people here focus on reading and providing interest comments on the books the have went through mostly, leaving most of the “appropiate for my level” question to other threads.
I hope I can provide similar comments now that I expect to keep a healthy reading habit. …
Something unexpected also helped a lot in making a return to reading, that is my daily commuting. I’ve been spending more time in the subway / trains lately, which suddenly turned into 1 hour reading moments during the week.
This has been such a nice addition to my weekly routine, that now looking for a new job, I’m thinking positively about the ones that include a similar ride (as compared to driving there).
Oh, I see. I think I’ve heard of all of those. Well, I bookmarked your post just in case anyway
As long as we do not mention any specific timezone, that’s a promise I can keep.
Same, actually Like @jprspereira I’ve been focusing on just a few series though (Aria, 魔法使いの嫁, 宝石の国, 放浪息子 and いぬやしゃ plus some book club ones like girls last tour or flying witch).
Nice!
I’ve seen it on the bookmeter of some people. I’m definitely curious about that one, as well as かがみの孤城.
I love both of those! I only read otomen in French though, and only the few volumes that were published at the time. Maybe I should try to read it in Japanese. Also, I’m only halfway through 放浪息子; I should probably finish it some day .
100% this. Making this thread was a spur of the moment thing, but I’m glad I did! And I’m sure glad so many of you have joined! It definitely helped me through a phase where I had very low motivation to keep reading.
Oh really? Why not? I personally loved it, despite feeling like the ending was too short; I really wanted to see more. (That being said, I still forgot to mention that manga in my earlier list, so I guess the impression it left was short lived :p)
I’m kinda doing the same, going pretty much start-and-stop, letting a few weeks go by and then catch up in one sitting. That does not make me very active in the threads, though, which is a shame.
Those are one of the reasons why I love paper books. They are way more convenient to carry around
Alright, I guess I should also post my thoughts now.
It went way better than I had thought! I have read 30 books so far, for an original goal of 12. I’m hoping to turn that into 32 before the end of the year. There have been a few moments when reading wasn’t really an option; times when work was rough and didn’t leave me with the brain capacity to read. But somehow I persisted through and here we are. I feel my numbers are quite inflated by the number of light novels I have been reading lately. I wouldn’t say those are easy to read from a beginner or even intermediate language learner, but as soon as you pass that threshold, you can just read them even in a braindead state.
Things that helped… well, this very thread, I guess. Also the book clubs. I said it before, but it bears repeating, I love the community we have on WK.
Favorite book this year: I really liked 君の膵臓をたべたい, 紅霞後宮物語 (first volume) and the ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 series.
Honorable mention to the first volume of the 青春ブタ野郎 series, which was quite interesting despite its title; too bad the rest of the series didn’t get to the same level. In fact, I have just given up reading volume 5 halfway through. I may get back to it at some point, but life is too short to bother with things I don’t enjoy. Also honorable mention to 新世界より which was great overall, but missed the favorite spot for being slow at times.
Favorite manga: probably 放浪息子, although I have a bit of conflicting feelings about it. It hurts real good, except when it just plain hurts.
Favorite other media: well, if we only count reading (and that’s how I intended the question), I’m only left with yahoo news and the like. So, no.
Least favorite books: hands down エクサスケールの少女. I’ve already complained many times about this book in this exact thread, so I won’t do it again. There was also わが子が輝くキラリ技30―0歳から6歳まで, a non-fiction book about child raising. It wasn’t horrible, but about half the advice was obvious stuff, and I disagreed with half of the remaining.
Maybe this was intended, but I hated pretty much all the characters. Even if you’re supposed to like them at the end, it doesn’t make up for me hating all the characters for 5 or so volumes. Honestly, the only volume I really liked was volume 6.
I’ve read 11 books (10 in Japanese, one on Japan), ranging from 136 to 560 pages, and a couple of manga. That’s 5 more than last year, and I’m planning to finish another on until the end of the year. May was especially productive, I’ve managed to finish 4 books in a relatively short time. I didn’t read much at all from July to October, though.
I don’t know how much I improved, but I think my vocabulary proficiency increased a lot. On the other hand, I also got kinda lazy. I used to look up almost every unknown word but because I don’t read much on my computer anymore, I’m often too lazy nowadays and only look up the stuff that feels important or words I encounter recurrently. But I guess that’s a healthy process, though I’ll have to be careful not to get too comfortable.
Being able to read even more difficult books (looking at you, ジブリの教科書１９) at a decent pace without roadblocks made me more confident overall. On the other hand, we’ve been reading a book on Japanese history in one of my classes recently which uses a lot of specialized vocabulary and scholarly language. That’s definitely still a challenge. I’ve come a long way, but still have a long way to go!
The one I enjoyed most is 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん (Saga no Gabai Baachan), one of the funniest and most heartfelt books I’ve read in my life. Read it, read it, read it!
The books on Ghibli by Hirokatsu Kihara also deserve to be mentioned! Very witty and personal, but also super informative. Really compelling to read for a Ghibli nerd like me.
As for manga, I loved 水域 by the Mushishi mangaka. Just beautiful in every way!
3. Ambitions for 2020
I’m pretty satisfied with the 2019 yields and let’s face it: Since I have many more hobbies, I’ll never only read books. So 12 books per year is already a decent number for me (before I started reading Japanese books, I was down to 1-3 books per year for a looong time, so that’s already a big improvement).
So for 2020 I want to:
read more manga (so much good stuff out there that doesn’t get made into anime)
My 2019: I completely missed my goal. I didn’t have any easy access to books or time to set it up (my amazon account that doesn’t let me order Japanese books from my country) and the past half year has been busy… Now that I got to level 60 and have a friend who I set up a book exchange with (I sent english books, they sent japanese books) next year I plan on focusing on reading instead of wanikani. This means I should at least be able to read 1 hour a day let’s see if I can manage in 2020!
So my goal for 2020 would be to read 20 books at least!
I can see many people here who shared their thoughts and journeys through the books, so I want to go through the books more like that in 2020 as well!
I’ve been very motivated lately and have started on reviews again, and with a fresh start I find it easier to push myself to read daily so I can check of them boxes! =D
I have read more than I’ve checked of in my post, once I fell off I forgot to mark when I did get around to it.
Didn’t quite read as many books as I wanted to, but I also ended up doing a lot more things outside of work (mostly judo and running). I was definitely still slacking, so I only have a minor excuse. Now that I know about the local library card, I’m going to try a lot harder to ditch some of my more wasteful habits (Reddit and social media) and replace them with reading, a decidedly better use of my time.
Huge shoutout to the book clubs for helping me get started! (Even if I wasn’t super consistent in participating and jumped ship after two books )
Since I’m reading manga more quickly now I think I’m going to have to place orders on Amazon more frequently. I placed an order a few days ago and it only included (gasp) 5 volumes of manga. Not the 11 or whatever I was originally planning to get. Hopefully I like the new series I’m trying (only buying two volumes of it to start) so I can buy a bunch more next time.
Or maybe I should actually read some of the books I own.
Can’t wait to actually join this thread in 2020 since I started reading manga a few months ago. I’ve been lurking for awhile but maybe I’ll actually post things now.
I don’t have much trouble selecting manga that’s good for my level right now, which feels sooo good. Honestly, I didn’t think that I would get this far in a year.
But maybe I can recommend something depending on what you enjoy reading.
It’s not like I read just two visual novels and about five chapters of one manga in ten-ish moths, or anything.
I’ll never stop reading though. 
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