I am also grateful that there are more books to fill the void.
Thank you for the information! I will do my best to read without fear. 
5 Likes
This month, my usual reading time has been gutted in half by work, so I got really confused when I saw my bookmeter stats:
Virtually no difference with last month!
Looking deeper into it, here’s what I found:
- one book was read over time with a book club, so it’s not really like I read it this month.
- three books are ebooks. Now, that’s interesting, since I haven’t been reading ebooks during my usual reading time, but whenever I had 5 minutes free here and there throughout the day. That’s crazy, now that I think about it. Before that, I would usually
aimlessly browse the forumlook at compelling Japanese learning resources
Anyway, those ebooks saved my stats.
That being said, I don’t know what will happen from now on. They are indeed convenient but I still like physical books better…
16 Likes
I haven’t been making a good push on this, so I am here to reassert this goal. To make it more concrete, I will say: I want to read at least one chapter of each of these manga today; I want to finish one volume of one of these by tomorrow; if the volume finished doesn’t complete a series, I also want to finish a series by the end of the day Friday.
Oh, let’s do check boxes, because otherwise I will forget again.
6/2 goal (one chapter):
[*] ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 (am toward the beginning of volume 14 of 14)
[*] 毒姫 (am toward the beginning of volume 4 of 5)
[*] プラネテス (am toward the beginning of volume 2 of 4)
[*] 飛べない魔女 (am toward the beginning of volume 3 of 3)
6/3 goal (one volume)
[*] ヨコハマ買い出し紀行
6/5 goal (one series)
[*] ヨコハマ買い出し紀行
10 Likes
Your checkboxes are much more useful than mine. Here’s mine:
Read if I feel like it
Read if I feel like it
Read if I feel like it
11 Likes
Those are excellent goals.
9 Likes
Well, I finally finished 鹿の王 1 and you were right about that! The style of the author is definitely recognizable. It has also the advantage of featuring adult protagonists, including one who is (technically?) a father. Also ユナ is adorable; I loved the berry incident.
Still, it took some mental power to go through the book. I flew through the first part in one sitting, I was riveted to my seat, I was involved and bam, change of character. Also, how about we learn about the history of the people of said characters? Why not. Also political tensions. Woohoo… I don’t care, give me back the superhuman survivor. Eventually it got good when they started tracking the character from the first part, when suddenly change of characters. How about we learn about raising deers, now? That sounds like good fun. Actually, that’s sincere. I would not do that for a living, but that kind of connection to nature sounds very appealing, especially right now, but I digress.
Anyway, it was a very good book, and I loved it (despite the frustration I just vented). I will definitely buy the rest of the series. And a trip to BookOff sound imminent, considering I have now finished all my non-book club physical books. (I did go overboard, buying ahem 10 ebooks in the past few days, but let’s not think too much about that)
7 Likes
Glad to hear you liked the book! And yes, I totally feel your complaints, and that will not go away - at times I’m digging through a chapter, everything is very exciting, and then we get to learn more about politics, which is somehow a drag. (Or maybe it is just harder to understand for me and thus feels more like a drag.) Also, the political tensions are unfortunately rather important to the whole story, so you will learn more about them as you go… And I found the relation to the situation right now really surreal, especially the event in the salt mine and what happens in the first part of book 2.
I really like all the protagonists, initially I was a big fan of our superhuman survivor, but then I was enchanted by Doctor Sherlock Holmes 
Now it’s a good balance between the two. Also, of course, the girl! I had a good laugh when she started talking, because reading dialect is nothing compared to that 
When she just started talking I did not understand anything, but later it got better.
3 Likes
Manga: two volumes up on goal pace. I finished ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 (
), so I’m going to look at what I need to do next to get down to six series. (If I can ever manage that maybe from then on I won’t tend to so many rambling lists.)
List for for my own organization
- マダム・ジョーカー (18/23, ongoing)
- ヒカルの碁 (17/23)
- 彼氏彼女の事情 (5/21)
- 毒姫 (4/5)
- ヴィンランド・サガ (3/23, ongoing)
- 月刊少女野崎くん (3/12, ongoing)
- 飛べない魔女 (3/3)
- プラネテス (2/4)
- 赤髪の白雪姫 (2/22, ongoing)
And then book club manga: 美少女戦士セーラームーン, ゆるキャン△ (between volumes), and whoops I started アオハライド.
Re: マダム・ジョーカー, I panicked to see I was at 18 of 21, but it turned out I just hadn’t bought 22 or 23 yet, and when I went to get them it turns out 24 is going to be released in July, HOORAY. I honestly don’t expect anyone here would enjoy this manga, but oh man it is just so specifically for me feeling and I love it so much. Thank you, world (/名香智子), I accept this manga gift. 
Okay, six series, book clubs don’t count–I need to finish 飛べない魔女 and 毒姫, that’ll get me to seven, and then プラネテス is short, too, but I don’t want to rush that one. I’m rarely in the mood for 彼氏彼女の事情 or 赤髪の白雪姫–maybe I should pause on one or both of them. … Ah, I forget because I haven’t finished the first volume yet so it’s not in bookmeter, but I’m also in the middle of the first 約束のネバーランド, crap. I’m already planning that when I eventually finish ヒカルの碁 I’ll start ハイキュー (oh dear so many volumes), and whenever there is a long-term series spot open I’ll start Aria.
This is unrelated to my planning, but I just checked and my anki deck has 1,920 cards tagged manga (and I’ve been reading seven months or thereabouts?), so clearly all this enjoyable manga reading is also having a good effect on vocabulary acquisition, yay.
Novel: I’m enjoying ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖! It does feel pretty episodic, at least to the point I’ve reached, and I kind of wish I’d finished ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 before starting it because too much episodic-feeling novel reading makes me weirdly impatient, but it’s good! <3
7 Likes
Comments? A review? 
2 Likes
I put one on bookmeter! But if you don’t want my error-ridden Japanese, I’ll say here that I thought it was wonderful, loved reading it, and am sad that it’s over. Writing this reminded me that I wanted to see what else the author has written, and this was in his biography on mangaupdates: “His work also usually has a rather laid-back, nostalgic feel with undertones of mystery; there are frequent stretches with little or no dialogue. Many of his works are also notable for their strong, independent female protagonists.” This is all accurate to ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 and how I felt about it. <3
11 Likes
私立秘密組織の名前はなんだ。何のためのリストなんだ。読めば、命の保証はできますか。今募集中ですか。
7 Likes
I don’t have the mental capacity right now to respond to this in style, so I’m just gonna give it a: 
5 Likes
Got the 2020 update!
12 Likes
HAPPY NEW YE-
6 Likes
Meanwhile, I got the 2019 and 2021 
6 Likes
On bookmeter, I try to make myself review as much as possible, because my day-to-day includes hardly any Japanese output. Even short reviews are something! For novels I make myself do it every time, and with manga I’ve settled on making myself do it for the first volume and the last volume, at the very least. Since this is all to keep track of my reading and how I felt about it, I was thinking of putting something in the in-between volumes to note an impression even if I’m not up for words. I see a lot of reviews with stars for that, but I overthink stars, lol, and it would just stress me out. I was thinking instead I would use a system that only measures a volume against the last one, as in, I would only have to ask myself the question, did I like this as much as the last one, or more, or less? And I have some symbols to show that, but then I want to explain that in my profile (ugh words) and, again, I just don’t actively use Japanese like this very much and it’s unfortunate, please advise.
Draft
漫画について、最初の巻と最後の巻はちゃんと言葉でレビューする。他の巻は評価が以下のような感じです。
(前回より少しは好き)
(前回と同じで好き)
(前回は今回より少しは好き)
1 Like
I must say I’ve always been impressed by your reviews Sometimes I try to write one myself but most of the time I‘m too lazy to think about something. Maybe I should write a review more often 
For your manga reviews, I would not make things too complicated with the symbols and everything. I really like your descriptions in the brackets, and I think if I wanted to do such reviews, I would just use that text for each review. And if I felt like it, I could easily add another sentence, and if not, not. 
(Now I feel a bit bad because I destroyed your review system! Sorry…)
2 Likes
Thank you! I can never think of anything to say, but I feel like if I stop making myself do it every time (for novels) I’ll stop doing it at all. It’s nice that you can see other people’s reviews for the same book and think, oh yeah, I liked that part, too, or oh, no, that is not how I felt about that, etc.
No destroying occurred–thanks for the feedback! I think you’re underestimating how much I don’t want to use words, though. 
2 Likes
Your review system looks great to me! Im terrified of producing output, probably more so since I havent been to classes and have only once (when i was just starting) spoken Japanese to someone… Maybe in the future with more confidence and speed I can write reviews as well
2 Likes
Thank you! Also, I relate to that way more than I’d like, and I did take classes… Just getting myself to put anything in Japanese here was a struggle.
2 Likes