Reaching the end of July, it’s time to review my recent progress.
SRS Rᴇᴠɪᴇᴡs
iKnow
I’m continuing to do my daily reviews, which is typically about five to 15 cards, without doing lessons. Although I’d like to start adding words for kanji I recently learned in WaniKani, it’s a bit cumbersome to do so, and I’m lazy, so I haven’t.
WaniKani
For a number of weeks, my WaniKani reviews were getting worse and worse. I’d be spending longer and longer on reviews, and would routinely score below 50%, sometimes below 30%.
I kept at it until my apprentice dropped to about 70. I intended to let it drop to 50 and keep it there for a while, but as my number of reviews when went down each day, my percentage correct slowly went back up again. Once I was routinely getting about 60 to 80% correct, I started doing vocabulary lessons. That’s pushed my apprentice back up to around 100, so I’m cutting back on lessons (still plan to do at least one per day) to keep it from going over 100.
Vɪᴅᴇᴏ Wᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ
My “watch all of Sailormoon” is progressing slowly, as I’ve just watched some of the live action series, and haven’t progressed too far in the anime.
For shows watched with subtitles, I did watch through Bunny Drop recently, and am working through Non Non Biyori Repeat.
Bᴏᴏᴋ Rᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ
魔女の宅急便
I’ve been just barely falling behind in 「魔女の宅急便」, but I think my latest method’s working out for me, and I’m back on track.
I’m reading in Japanese as well as the 2020 English release, with the 2003 English release handy for comparison. I read a paragraph in Japanese, then the same paragraphing in the 2020 English release. This lets me instantly catch anything I missed from the Japanese.
Next, I read the following paragraph in the 2020 English release, then read it in Japanese. This makes it a lot easier to understand everything (outside of vocabulary I need to look up).
I don’t now if this method of reading through will be harmful in the long run, but I do know that I won’t be able to use it for the rest of the books in the series. I know someone will arrange to continue the book club going for book two and beyond, so I’ll be able to be able to read “without cheating” then. For now, my goals are to keep up pace, and to finish a book.
Mᴀɴɢᴀ Rᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ
AQUA
I’ve just about finished volume two.
This series randomly jumps between “this is so easy to read” type scenes and “what exactly are Akatsuki and Aika talking about?” type scenes. I’m looking forward to continuing with the series.
GALS!
I’m still on track to shelf this series after I (eventually) finish the first volume.
I like the series (having read it in English and watched the anime), but there’s just too much dialogue for me and I don’t have the stamina to follow through it all.
GOSICK
Another I’ll shelf after finishing the first volume, as I’m only barely following along. Some scenes the dialogue becomes too heavy for me to follow.
I’ve wanted to check out the anime for some time, but it’s only available on Blu-ray in the US, and I don’t have a Blu-ray player. Although now that the DVD player in my computer recently died, maybe I should consider replacing it with a DVD/Blu-ray player… If I watch the series with English subtitles, it should become easier to re-read volume 1.
アオハライド
It’s been a while since I last read, as the book club reading pace is two months per volume. I need to see where I left off, because I think there’s just one week left for the current volume!
I’m still waiting to reach the part where the anime left off, because that’s going to test me on how much of this being an easy series to read is based on my advance knowledge of what’s going on.
レンタルおにいちゃん
This is the first of the easy series I’m reading to be finished. (よつばと！ is just about there, but I expect volume 15 to release by the end of the year.)
After an amazing final volume, I expected I’d miss reading the series, but the book club for it begins in a couple of weeks, so…
Aside from that, it feels good to “complete” a series.
ハヤテのごとく！
I started reading volume 1 on something of a whim, but I’ve been wanting to read the manga for some time now.
…however, I may need to shelf this series for a bit longer if they keep putting in so much dialogue! Some pages it’s exhausting just to make it through a single page!
美少女戦士セーラームーン
I’m still keeping up with one chapter per week!
I’m going through a story arc I have no advance knowledge of (never seen in the anime or read in English), which makes the current story arc the most difficult yet for me to follow.
異国迷路のクロワーゼ
I’ve been trudging along slowly with this one. The slow speed is probably due to knowing the series is so short.
I do feel like I’ll have to re-watch the anime after, just because I remember liking it so much.
三ツ星カラーズ
I’m down to just two more chapters left, then it’s waiting for the next volume to come out soon.
If I get a Blu-ray drive to replace the deceased DVD drive in my computer, I may just have to look into getting the anime for this series (which isn’t available on DVD here in the US).
魔女の宅急便
I’d started out so slow on reading this, but have really picked up speed in the past week.
Most of the kanji I know (about 85%), so the lack of furigana hasn’t been slowing me down. Between reading this and last year having read「となりのトトロ」, I’m going to have to start thinking about which Studio Ghibli movie I want to read through next.
Even though the kanji use (versus hiragana) differs between the cinema manga and the movie subtitle scripts, I’ll probably run the movie scripts through my WaniKani kanji analysis to which is the next best choice for me to read. I’d really like to read 「耳をすませば」‐wait, isn’t that one based on a manga? Yup, sure enough. Well, there’s another item for my wish list!
Gʀᴀᴍᴍᴀʀ
I haven’t made any real progress on grammar, but at the moment I don’t mind. I do want to get back to watching CureDolly videos daily soon, though!
Good on you!
