I just finished the 6th and last volume of Red Data Girl, and, well, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the rest of the series. I had a great time up to volume 5, which has some closure to. Then volume 6 comes in, but it felt more like a bunch of loosely connected short stories that are trying to tie all the remaining loose ends… While I do often wish authors would just write a bit longer so that we know what happens to the characters after everything is said and done, that book didn’t really feel like it was bringing much (at least from my point of view). Now I understand better why the anime adaptation stopped at volume 5.
That being said, volume 6 could have been the start of something more (season 2? ) and the author even said that there might be more in the future (well, technically there was, since she wrote a spin off set in the same universe…). I don’t have much hope though.
I’ll probably check more books from in the near future. I have my eyes on 西の善き魔女 in particular.
Volume 1 of 西の善き魔女 was not available when I went to the library last Friday, so I didn’t know what to read. I just used the マイン strategy and checked every books starting from the top left. I did not do like マイン and read everything on the way, though, just the back of the book. I found 私が作家になった理由 quite early (the author is named 阿刀田). It’s an autobiography slightly focusing on why he became an author (mostly randomly). Of note, he held マイン’s dream job for a while (working at the national library, checking all new publications to give them their numerical classification; it was interesting to hear how he dealt with subject he had no clue about too).
Overall, it turns out he had a mildly interesting life and a nice writing style. I may read some of his stuff at some point in the future?
Anyway, that made me reach my target for non-light novels for the year, so I am free now
As soon as I was done, I rushed to Booklive and checked some stuff. My 積読 is back up to 20+…
Thanks to the Read every day challenges, I just hit my goal for the year. I put it fairly modestly because I wasn’t reading Japanese at the start of the year, and I wasn’t studying either.
So reading 1 book/volume (of manga) each month seemed like a reasonable goal and I’m so happy to finish it with almost 2,5 months left. I didn’t really read for the first quarter of the year either, nor much in August and September, so this is mostly reading from 4,5 months.
I have read 9 manga and 3 books. I’m leading the Orange book club, and I’m participating in 3 more clubs (still behind on one since I barely read in August and September).
By the end of the year, I’m on track to definitely finish one more book, 4 manga volumes, and most likely my first VN. And those are the planned ones. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to catch up with Loopers, and it will be that which decides if I’ll have time for any more. Everything I listed here are book clubs I am participating in (or will be) that are scheduled to finish before the end of the year.
Beyond that I also got back into WK, and now I’m level 49 and aiming to get to level 60 by the end of the year.
Without this thread though, I don’t know if I’d gotten back to studying WK when I was, nor if I would have realized that getting back to reading was perfect to do when the Spring challenge started in April. Hopefully, I can set more ambitious goals for next year. For now I’m gonna bask in this, and enjoy hitting the original goal with just manga too.
tadoku.app has just opened signups for its next tadoku contest round. This will be a ‘short’ round, running from November 1st to the 15th. I always like the short rounds as they give me an incentive to do a brief ‘sprint’ of increasing the amount I’m reading.
Honzuki 8-11, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 1-2, SAO Progressive 1, Spice & Wolf
笑わない数学者、詩的私的ジャック (book 3 and 4 in the Saikawa & Moe series)
わたしの幸せな結婚 1-6
夜が明けたら、いちばんに君に会いにいく 上下 (Reading this gave me a gift I never expected: the ability to appreciate the sky regardless of weather. Sunny, cloudy, rainy - no day are the exact same, but they’re all interesting.)
Things are getting busy with exams and stuff, but hopefully I can get through Honzuki 12 and 13 too before next year comes around. Now then, if I were to continue the trend of doubling the number of books with each passing year… oh dear The murimuri meter is going through the roof.
Btw, Naphthalene almost reaching 100 000 pages inspired me so much I added my own little countdown in my book tracker spreadsheet
Does anyone here follow Bungo Stray Dogs or tried reading it?
I recently picked up volume 1 and have to say it’s pretty darn difficult with all of the kanji combinations and archaic speech patterns. If not for furigana I would’ve been totally lost
I completely tanked my reading goal for the month, but for a nice reason. Close family members that I haven’t been able to see (in person) for 3 years due to covid are visiting for a month and a half! I’m really happy about it
I probably won’t be able to reach 100 活字 books this year, but *shrug* I guess. I did it last year anyway. I have reached my goal of 12 “proper” books for the year, and I am at 99/100 manga.
There’s really nothing preventing you from doing so. You are already ahead of where I was 3 years after I started reading books.
By the way, your tracker is only removing the pages from 2022. If you are aiming to read 100000 pages in a year, now that would be a challenge
I think @icefang97 was reading it, but they haven’t been around in a while.
Ah, thank you! No, I haven’t seen the thread yet. I also didn’t know there are Bungou Stray Dogs LNs
I finished vol 1 yesterday and even though the ending was quite good and I started getting used to the archaic language, I think I’ll bench it for now until I’m fluent enough for it not to be a chore. That being said, I did learn a lot of extremely useful words like 闇市
It would probably help if I were familiar with more of the titular 文豪 than just 太宰, 谷崎 and 江戸川
Nafu~! Thanks for the words of encouragement I’m looking forward to see where I’ll be the next few years in terms of progress. Senpais like you inspire me
Ah, the labels were unclear. I hope it didn’t look like I’ve read 14 322 pages just during 2022
And yes, my tracker is but a simple subtract thingie. But I like it :3
aaah goodness gracious
What if we did it collectively as a One Year ChallengeTM! But 100 000 pages is probably too low if we have a quite a number of people joining One milestone for each “big round number” ie 50 000, 100 000, 200 000, etc… how does that sound? One million pages, let’s gooo!
By the way I looked at my Bookmeter to figure out how many pages I’ve read so far, and I noticed that my count of books per author currently looks like this:
Now I’m afraid to finish another book because it might ruin that beautiful row of numbers
) and the author even said that there might be more in the future (well, technically there was, since she wrote a spin off set in the same universe…). I don’t have much hope though.
Seems like Kadokawa is having a 50% off sale too.
I’m looking forward to see where I’ll be the next few years in terms of progress. Senpais like you inspire me 
