Care to share some of those top finds with the rest of us?
2 Likes
Absolutely!
- サマータイムレンダ (all 13 volumes) - the one that kicked this pace off (originally I only had a goal of 52 until I encountered this series and found that I could easily put away one per day if it really caught my interest). It’s actually my favorite series I’ve read to date. Got a very good anime earlier this year that I fansubbed privately just because I love it so much. Full of 和歌山弁 (a very comfy subspecies of 関西弁).
- ダンダダン (all 7 volumes so far) - Caught up with this one recently and just have to sing its praises whenever I get the chance. I gushed about it in a recent reading report so I won’t rehash all the good points but it’s very very nice. Even if fightboys manga isn’t your typical speed I highly recommend giving it a try.
- スクール人魚 (all 5 volumes) - If I say it reminds me of 伊藤潤二 you’ll be disappointed so I won’t say that – but it is pretty interesting and pretty spooky. Almost an anthology format about hunting mermaids to grant wishes and all the ways it can go wrong.
- 東京卍リベンジャーズ (all 30 volumes so far) - I didn’t believe the hype for a while but it’s actually great. Despite the edgy name and premise it has a lot of good moments of heroism and kindness.
- 光が死んだ夏 - (both 2 volumes so far) - They really need to release this faster. It’s a really interesting horror/coming of age story. Beautiful art and interesting questions about existence and human relations. Has some BL aspects which is not usually my style but it works well so maybe even if it’s not your style you’ll like it too.
- 青年少女よ、春を貪れ。 (all 5 volumes) - Mystery tragedy about untangling the past and coming to terms with repressed grief and regret. I feel like if I explain what makes it good it’ll lessen the experience. Highly recommended.
- 税金で買った本 (3 out of 5 so far) - One of those “job manga” titles, this one about working at a library. If you love books you will probably love this series.
-
鬼獄の夜 (all 14 volumes) - Modern horror fantasy based on Japanese mythology. Kind of campy at times and not for the faint of heart but I couldn’t put it down.
恋獄の都市 (all 5 volumes) - I don’t know if I can call it good per se, it’s got some rough edges and feels like it ended too quickly, but it’s another one of those series that hooked me and kept me going until the end, which is pretty important when you’re trying to read one per day. - 呪術廻戦 (17 out of 21 so far) - You’ve probably heard about this one too but it’s great. Another one where the pages fly by.
- 戦隊大失格 (5 out of 8 so far) - A fun twist/subversion on the sentai formula. What happens when the rangers prevent the invaders from leaving earth so they can build a whole media empire around the weekly Wednesday battle.
- 珈琲をしづかに - I’ve talked about this series in this very thread haha. It’s a short but sweet coming of age story with a pretty mature approach to romance and some coffee facts for good measure.
-
チェンソーマン (10 out of 12 so far, will likely be caught up by the end of the night) - Yeah, everyone knows chainsawman. I read vol. 1 in January and genuinely did not get what was so good about it. Last week I was convinced to read vol. 2 and did a complete turnaround. It’s really something special. Finished vol. 10 moments ago for my 365th of the year, by the way, so my goal is officially complete.
There were a few more where I read the whole series and was left unsatisfied, or long-running series that I didn’t discover this year, plus a LOT of one-volume samples that never went anywhere, but those were the standouts I think.
20 Likes
I watched the サマータイムレンダ anime very recently and really enjoyed it. Perhaps I’ll read it in a year or two to compare, but certainly too soon to read now.
Seems like you read a lot of action and horror, which isn’t really my thing. I watch the occasional action anime, but don’t read action manga. My preferred genres in manga are mostly slice of life and comedy, sometimes romance, drama, fantasy, and sci-fi.
2 Likes
I was tempted to shoot for the same goal early in the year but ended up stopping because of the opposite problem: too many things I care about with infeasibly large page counts per volume 
. I felt like having it in mind was pushing me too much towards the quickfire ones and stopped.
7 Likes
Honestly I’ll read pretty much anything haha. For action manga I generally prefer stuff that also has strong emotional moments, which means a lot of them don’t stick. I think that’s part of why I bounced off chainsawman at first…the action was flashy but the real core wasn’t evident yet. It was only in the second volume that it paid off and I realized there was something else hidden in there.
But yeah, taste is super subjective and the most important thing for this goal was to find stuff that really hooked me. It’s a daily struggle to find that next high
5 Likes
This is hella inspiring to read. I’m hoping to hit 50 this year, but I hope I can do something similar in the years to come!
2 Likes
Well… if you get into JoJo there are over 135 volumes and counting if you include spin off manga as well.
3 Likes
Same . Probably half of that yes, but not 300-400. I also kind of like to read other stuff like news articles, light novels, etc. Wish light novels had more pictures 
.
1 Like
A couple of years ago I read the first 3 volumes with a WK book club, but I’m not sure I’ll get back to it.
(Also, it’s not even half the total… Even if I had read that on top of the 100 manga I read this year, I still would not make it to 300+ )
Speaking of which, barring any last minute problem, I should be able to finish 100 活字 book for the year. I’m at 97 with 3 books underway 
(The latest volume of ハメフラ, 30% through 火花, and halfway through 人間失格… none of those books is exciting me at the moment, but I don’t see how I would not finish them by year end if I just keep on grinding)
I guess my goal next year is to stop caring about numbers and just focus on finding stuff I enjoy reading.
12 Likes
That’s awesome, congratulations! 
Also, I could do this goal again if I had the time and energy, too. There are so many manga I want to read. 
4 Likes
Six months on, and this seems to have flipped around as amazon shipping costs appear to have risen quite a lot, so to the UK cdjapan is now cheaper again. Shame they don’t have the same range of stock 
kinokuniya would I think be cheaper again if you can hit the “just below 2kg” sweet spot, but if you misjudge it and go just over 2kg it would be the worst value of the lot.
5 Likes
Will there be a 2023 challenge? If so, count me in. 365 volumes might not be my goal as I still have a lot of grammar to read but maybe a volume/week might be doable.
3 Likes
I assume so.
This might also be the time to check if @Naphthalene is still up for the bit of organizing needed to turn this over to 2023. If not, I’m sure the main post can also be made into a wiki to facilitate historical records of previous tables. 
Thanks for organizing, Naphthalene!
3 Likes
I recently managed to finish 20 (non-manga) books this year
I had not set a goal for this year but I think it’s still a nice achievement and I’m very happy with it.
And speaking of achievements: Early this month, I realized that I could maybe manage to set a new monthly reading record (my record at the time was at a bit more than 700 pages per month).
What can I say: Today I reached 1000 pages read this month
It took me over 92 hours, though… so there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.
21 Likes
And done! I did like 火花 in the end and 人間失格 err was a mood, I guess.
ハメフラ was the most disappointing. More than a year waiting, and we just get some side plot focusing on new characters (well, introduced towards the end of last volume… although one was foreshadowed as early as volume 5)
Anyway, I have a round number to show (and possibly time for a 101st 活字 book, but we’ll see)
15 Likes
Yes, I’ll archive the table around the ~5th of January to give people enough time to make their final edits. I may start the new table around the same time.
10 Likes
So, my goal was 18 books for the year and I ended up only reading 14.
But… that is over double the 6 books I read in 2021. Plus, as the year went on, I mentally revised my goal to the more achievable one of finishing at least one book per month. And I accomplished that one!
I successfully finished one book for each month of the year, with two finished in January and May.
Overall, this year found my enthusiasm for reading Japanese taking a severe nosedive towards the end of the year, mainly because I started getting overwhelmed with book club reading that was not keeping my interest. I started to feel like reading was a chore, like homework that I needed to finish. My solution to this has been to focus on the books that I am interested in and indefinitely postpone books that make me want to quit reading altogether.
Not sure what I should set for a goal in 2023… Maybe the same goal I set this year: 18, allowing for one book each month, plus an extra 6 books spread throughout the year. I would be happy to see my total number of books read increase slightly, even if I don’t see my reading speed increasing too much or expect the amount of time I spend reading each day to change drastically. I would love to read as many books as all of you, but maybe I just don’t have the same amount of patience or motivation. Either way, I want to keep reading a bit everyday and avoid burnout. That’s my biggest goal for 2023.
以上です。よいお年を！
22 Likes
Big shoutout to people who read コンビニ人間! I bought it on my little trip to Little Tokyo in Germany and I love it. It feels super nostalgic!
16 Likes
2022
So I did end up reading my goal of 12 books/manga (combined goal) with just manga. I ended up reading 13 manga volumes. And 4 books. And 40% of a short VN that as a learner is still taking masses and masses of time. xD
I’m very happy about that. Especially since I read 2 things total in 2021, and it turns out 14 in 2020. So I’ve improved on my strongest year yet (2020).
2023
My plans for 2023 is as follows:
- 2 books
- 16 manga volumes
- 2 VNs
And really it is the VNs keeping the other numbers low. I think I’m probably spending the first half of 2023 mostly reading VNs, so I couldn’t set very high goals in the other categories. And while it looks like I’m going backwards in number of books read, in a way I’m not. Because two of the books for 2022 were ask graded readers (aka 5 booklets all collected together; so I read two of those or 10 booklets all together). Also, I might be reading my first proper novel for adults rather than LN or children’s book. ^^
Anyway, I hope I can hit my goals, and if what I read changes, I don’t mind so much. The only things that I am sure will happen next year is that I will finish reading Loopers (since I’m 40% into it), and I will finish Orange (the last two volumes). Exactly what else I finish is up in the air. ^^
18 Likes
2022 didn’t have as much reading in it as I wanted, but more than expected considering things. I’m very glad I kept up the reading habit even at a reduced pace. 9 out of the 15 novels I read were part of my chosen priority list for 2022.
- 伯爵と妖精 (29)
- 伯爵と妖精 (30)
- 伯爵と妖精 (31)
- 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語１ ～始まりは渾身の右ストレート～
- ミステリークロック
- 伯爵と妖精 (32)
- 薬屋のひとりごと
- 冷たい密室と博士たち
- 獣の奏者 4
- TUGUMI
- 予知夢
- 君の名は
- 聖女の魔力は万能 1
- 硝子の塔の殺人
- 青桐
I also read some manga:
からかい上手の高木さん 17
ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 3
鋼の錬金術師 4-7
ダンジョン飯 3, 4
デスノート 1
ヤマトナデシコ七変化 1, 2
遊☆戯☆王 1
のだめカンタービレ 6
仁 1
魔王城でおやすみ 7-12
And I did 113 (!!) read-alouds with (cough) friends.
Reading for the first time:
ダンジョン飯 1, 2 w/ rodan–I finished the last bit of v2 on my own
蟲師 1 w/ rodan–I finished this on my own
ノラガミ 1 w/ Bri–we read half of v2 but weren’t having fun with it
plus assorted manga via rodan w/ same
plus a couple random things w/ Bri
Reading for the second time:
7SEEDS 25-35 + 外伝 w/ Bri–we finished it!!
ふしぎの国のバード 6, 7 w/ rodan
ハイキュー 3, 4, 5 w/ Bri and Becchan
ミステリと言う勿れ 1 w/ Bri–we’re mid-v2
伯爵と妖精 1 (2/3 through) w/ Bri and rodan
22 Likes