Went with ダンジョン飯 instead and boooi, 翼獅子 
is terrifying That’s straight up horror territory for me.
I’m also glad I finally got to see the image here. I was starting to wonder if I had missed it.
She is still my favorite character too. 翼獅子 don’t you dare
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Phew, finished Bakemonogatari a while back. After getting over the terrible Mayoi chapter, it wasn’t too bad. It was pretty long at almost twice the character count of a typical LN. The bigger size is deceiving. Will prob later finish the 下巻 as I have it physical also.
Started OREGAIRU. Oddly enough, I don’t know what it is but I’m slightly annoyed I how I’m just completely lost what some dialogue is saying. Maybe it’s the slang or something… Feel like some pages are harder than Monogatari 
. It does have an unusually large vocab count, as well…
Also still reading some Galileo and AYNIK on the side, really need to wrap these up.
Love these official translations on the cover where the author didn’t even bother checking if it makes sense grammatically.
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Damn, this looks really interesting. Yoshi is the man. Sadly Bookwalker won’t sell it outside Japan and cdjapan only has it as a backorder (which I hear can be pretty sketchy with costs and taxes. Oh well, maybe I’ll get to buy it in Japan one day 
.
I assume you play/used to play? Haven’t touched it in years, but all the boss battles and music were so memorable. The endgame grind killed it a bit for me. I really would have liked to do the more challenging content but there seemed to be quite little reward for a lot of work (not to mention gearing up and keeping a regular group).
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Are you saying you don’t like when the main character is a pedo? (Or did you have a different reason for hating it?)
Yeah, that was a bit uncomfortable 
. Well, I guess it was a pretty minor part of the otherwise OK sub-plot. The banter between them was overall pretty fun.
I like Mayoi and her banter with Araragi based on the anime, but he is such a creep.
Second Season is my favorite because Araragi plays a less important role (at least that’s how it is in the anime, no idea in the LN).
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I never really played the game much, only for a few hours once. I’m not really a MMO player, but I’m a big Final Fantasy fan and XIV’s development history is particularly intriguing. I’ve always admired Yoshida, so although I’m not intimately familiar with the game itself, the book is still plenty interesting.
I think it’s worth reading for many reasons. Of couse players of the game will get most out of it, but the unusual development history makes for a nice story itself.
Maybe I’ll try Final Fantasy XIV again one day. I heard you can solo a large part of the game at this point. Though it’s always a bit intimidating to get into a game that was fed with new content and features over so many years.
In other news, I’m on the final sport for the first volume of 香君 and it gets damn good. I think I might like it more than 鹿の王 (which I liked quite a bit). Uehashi’s books definitely are similar in many regards. But the themes itself feels so fresh that I can’t really find a fault with that – I can’t think of other fantasy books that tread similar grounds.
While 鹿の王’s central theme was a disease/pandemic, in 香君 its agriculture and a type of crop – and in extension the complex workings of nature itself. It’s very fascinating and (as always) mixes some supernatural elements with a lot of well-researched real elements.
Of all Uehashi books, I think 香君 is best at combining the main theme with the politics. There’s a very direct and palpable connection here while the actual cast of characters is much smaller. At least the ones actively participating in the story.
Book one is basically about fleshing out the world and introducing the conflict, but the actual objective of the story only becomes clear toward the end of book 1. I suspect book 2 will be about finding a solution to the (probably escalating) conflict, but we’ll see.
So far there haven’t been any action scenes on the book except for maybe in the very beginning and I must say, I like that. It’s more like reading a mystery book where it’s more about figuring at what’s actually going on – much like the ホッサル parts 鹿の王, except that there are no other parts.
I usually read books for the character drama or general atmosphere rather than the world building, but here it’s definitely the world building (and the central mystery) that keeps me going. (The book still does have pretty interesting characters.)
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That’s good, because I felt like the politics in 獣の奏者 and 狐笛のかなた were the weakest parts. I’ve yet to read 鹿の王, but the way both you and Nicole talk about it makes me worry that it’ll be overwhelming (in terms of both content and length). Would you say 香君 is more approachable than 鹿の王?
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It’s half points back on Amazon right now, so I decided to buy it. Not sure when I’ll get to it though!
I have to be careful to set proper expectations. I loved かがみの孤城, but I can’t expect all her books to be as good.
Which of her books do you have on your radar next? ツナグ appears to be the most popular after かがみの孤城 based on Bookmeter.
Also, looking through a list of her books, apparently she did a collaboration with CLAMP, which is so odd. It’s called ハケンアニメ.
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I think other’s have said this, but 22k/hr is fast. The only way I could comprehend that as not fast for a learner, would be if you are reading something that is very kana heavy (just because the words are longer!) or a graded reader way below your level.
Lots of ~N1 readers that I’ve spoken to are around 7-15k/hr; depending on what they are reading. I know one guy who scored >160/180 recently as reading at 15-25k range. N2 readers seem to be around half N1 pace when reading similar level materials (I seem to be between 3-7k depending on the book).
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Since I last posted, I’ve finished ボッコちゃん and the first book of ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ.
I tried watching the first two episodes of the ようこそ anime… and it sucks. Skips a lot of dialogue, reorders things, etc. Apart from some ‘teenage boy’ talk the book is pretty pretty good, I guess it’s the mix of suspense/mystery that keeps me reading. Pretty tricky read though, it’s one of ‘those books’ where the author decided to use kanji for everything.
Moved on to the second book and an easier LN (28 on natively) at the same time – with an even longer name: 異世界でチート能力を手にした俺は、現実世界をも無双する ~レベルアップは人生を変えた~ Seriously, what’s with these names… a beginner might as well go round reading book titles for practice! Thankfully I didn’t break the table’s formatting 
異世界でチート能力 is leagues easier. It’s my first 異世界 / fantasy book and it isn’t proving difficult, so perhaps it’s a good first book in that genre.
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You can use a VPN to buy it (I recommend Tunnelbear; it gives you 500 MB per month for free), and then you can download and read it without VPN. (But I’m not sure whether you can read it in the browser without VPN; you will at least need a VPN to open it, that’s for sure.)
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So far 香君 is more approachable than 鹿の王, but more complex than the first half of 獣の奏者. Though 鹿の王 wasn’t so bad, either, once you get used to the many names and stakes. The plot starts to branch in he last part of 香君 book one, so I’m curious about the direction it’s gonna take from here. So far it doesn’t revolve much about court politics and internal power struggles – the parts I cared about least in 獣の奏者.
As for ツナグ, I thought I might read it next, but then I found out it’s (one of her many) collection of short stories, so I’m not sure anymore. I may go for ハケンアニメ which has been positively received from within the anime industry (the recent live-action adaption, too) or 凍りのくじら. I just wish her books weren’t all so damn long. She also wrote a sequel to ハケンアニメ recently (I think it’s a sequel).
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I just finished the first volume and I have to say it was an amazing time. Very relaxing read, low stakes even if there are some hints at a darker part. Also, well, there are some very smartly dressed men doing gentlemanly things.
Why, hello there
And also, I have to say I spent way too long looking at this page compared to the amount of text (or lack thereof)
12 out of 10, I need to find volume 2.
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I recommend ProtonVPN, their free plan has a Japan endpoint, and it doesn’t have a 500mb limit.
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Done with 香君 上!
It was really good! The last chapter was a bit of a surprise, switching from the mostly expositional part to actual action after (minor spoiler) a timeskip of 3 or so years.
So I guess the story will be more focused on the actual events from now on, or more specifically on the measures to stop the ongoing famine.
The plot is interesting for several reasons.
The protagonist belongs to the empire that uses a rice crop called オアレ稲 as a means to control their vassal states. オアレ稲 is a very productive and robost plant, but it effectively changes the soil in a wide area in a way that other grains can’t grow anymore. At the same time only the empire knows the way to make the オアレ稲 seed sprout and how to mix the fertilizer. Without that fertilizer, the オアレ稲’s grains will become poisonous.
So the story from this point on will probably be about (a) finding ways to grow other crops even as the オアレ稲 has contaminated most of the soil and (b) doing it behind the back of the empire that clearly doesn’t want the people to become independent by growing their own crops.
It’s a story that’s interesting on several levels and the characters are directly involved in these events, so that’s another plus.
I’ll probably take a short break before tackling the second volume. I kinda want something short after reading several long books in a row. I already bought a couple of candidates, but after my vacation I’ll probably continue with the 2nd volume before I forget who all those people are.
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I’ve read 百合の間に挟まれたわたしが、勢いで二股してしまった話 その2 and it was pretty cool (which I’m not going to elaborate much on why because 1. It’s the second book in the series and I already commented on the first at some point and 2. It’s a yuri harem light novel and if you want to read something like that this is one of the like two options that actually exist) but aside from liking the book itself one thing I found neat was that this was the first time I’ve seen an attempt at writing a Swedish word in katakana in a light novel
I also got a reply from the author when I wrote about that (along with some stuff about liking the book and how the author seems to be pretty active on twitter) on twitter, so I guess that’s cool too.
Other than that I also read the light novel 妹はカノジョにできないのに and that was considerably less fun to read because the synopsis makes it sound like a light romcom but having actually read the book over half the book is just sad stuff and the character that seems like she’s going to be the most important “love interest” is barely in the book and I’m not exactly a huge fan of being tricked like that because it feels a lot like they’re just trying to make the book seem like something it’s not just to get more people to read it. The 40-ish % of the book that wasn’t that was somewhat ok though and I’d probably have been more positive towards it if the blurb, cover etc. was more honest
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I’m trying the best I can to figure out what Swedish word that is supposed to be, but I can’t even guess. I hope it is just that I don’t have the context and I’d be able to figure it out if I had that… Please tell me what it is. 
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From context, probably “Lyckat” (but it’s written from the perspective of a Japanese person that doesn’t know what the other character is saying, so I don’t know if it’s necessarily the most accurate rendition possible)
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That’s awesome! Congratulations! 
Sounds very encouraging actually. Might be worth reaching out to other authors as well and commenting on their work.
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No wonder I couldn’t figure it out at all. 
I’d probably do リュッカツ, not quite sure what I would pick for the t-sound actually. 
Did they mean it as “success” or sarcastic “well done ”? 
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