Extensive listening challenge 👂 (2022)

rodan · January 9, 2022, 6:45pm

Inspired by the extensive reading challenge, here is the extensive listening challenge!

This is a place to make goals related to listening comprehension. If we practice listening more now, we’ll be able to understand more later, right? You decide what the medium is (anime, dramas, podcasts, etc) and what your subtitle method is (native language, Japanese, none at all).

Feel free to use this thread to introduce yourself and your goals, to discuss what you’re watching and listening to, and to describe any particular difficulties or triumphs when it comes to Japanese listening comprehension. Giving or requesting recommendations for material is also encouraged. There are also other threads about listening material on the forums, with a recent one being here.

Spoilers welcome so long as you tag them.

Super long discussions could go in one of these

like this.

Previous thread: 2021

rodan · January 9, 2022, 6:46pm

Extensive listening, 2022 edition!

Copy the Sample Username section and edit in your information. You can have goals for each type of listening, a single type, or anywhere in between.

Read me

Your goals can be for what time period you’d like
- Some ideas for that column: Yearly Goal, 6-Month Goal, Overall Goal
If you’d like:
- move lines around to fit your priorities
- delete lines if you aren’t using them
- change counters (episodes, hours, etc) to reflect your goals
- make text (like your username) into links
For your current recommendation, please only put a title
- If you’d like to add a reason or review, post it in the thread and then link to it in the table
- Change your recommendation as often as you’d like
Please keep the tables in the post alphabetical by username
Please don’t edit the sample table
Audiobooks could go here or in the extended reading challenge

Sample table with sample entries

Sample Username

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Dramas	1 / 5 series	English	ケイゾク 2: SPEC	5 / 10	(something you liked)	Jul 1
Anime	4 / 50 episodes	Japanese	海月姫	10 / 11	(perhaps with a link)	Jul 1
Podcasts	3 / 10 episodes	None	ひいきびいき	12 / 280	(or link to review)	Jul 1
Movies	0 / 5 movies	Spanish	ジブリ	千と千尋の神隠し		Jul 1
Audiobooks	1 / 12 books	With text	容疑者Xの献身	52%		Jul 1
Variety shows	0 / 30 episodes	Japanese	月曜から夜ふかし	0 / ?		Jul 1
Drama CDs	10 / 18 CDs		三千世界の鴉を殺し	2 / 10		Jul 1
Anything	80 / 500 minutes	None	Random Youtube	N/A		Jul 1

Belerith

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Dramas	0 / 5 series	none/JP	Cherry Magic	1/12	夫のちんぽが入らない	Jan 17
Anime	4 / 50 episodes	none/JP	Yu Yu Hakusho	27 / 112	Yu Yu Hakusho	Jan 17
Movies	0 / 5 movies	none/JP				Jan 10
Anything	0 / 500 minutes	none/JP	Youtube	N/A		Jan 10

Daisoujou

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Shows	Minimum 1 episode per day	JP when available, otherwise none	からかい上手の高木さん	1 season	-	Jan 14
Movies	^ Or a movie!	JP when available, otherwise none	-	-	-	Jan 14

emiri_learns_jp

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Podcasts	~15 mins/day	none/Japanese		169/2730 minutes	Thinking in Japanese	Jan 18
Anime	20 episodes	none/Japanese	アグレッシブ烈子	1/20		Jan 18
Movies	3 movies	none/Japanese		0/3		Jan 10
Games/Visual Novels	120 minutes	none/Japanese		0/120		Jan 10
YouTube	100 minutes	none/Japanese	Comprehensible Japanese	0/100		Jan 10

pocketcat

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current recommendation	Last updated
Shows	9/400hrs	JP if available	最愛	密告はうたう	Jan 18
Movies	2/400hrs	JP if available	マスカレードホテル		Jan 18
YouTube	6/400hrs	unlikely			Jan 18
Audiobook	4/400hrs	No	謎解きはディナーの後で	コーヒーが冷めないうちに	Jan 18

rodan

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current recommendation	Last updated
Shows	0 / 0	limited	ウルトラマン A	怪奇大作戦	Jan 9
Movies	1 / 0	limited	仄暗い水の底から	怪談	Jan 15
Wrestling	2 / 0	None	World Wonder Ring Stardom		Jan 18
other?	0 / 0	limited	?		Jan 9

RysingDragon

Main goal: 2-3 hours per week
Currently watching movie(s): Brother Bear
Future planned movies: Brother Bear 2, Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch, Lion King
Finished movies:
Currently watching anime: Ranma 1/2
Future planned anime: Accel World, Erased, Zombieland Saga, Noragami, Yuru camp
Finished anime:
Youtubers I’m currently into: Nekomata Okayu, Inugami Korone, Robocco, まるん Marun, きのぴよさんの動画

Yearly goal	This year	This month	This week	Last updated
150	1/150	1	1	Jan 11

Thud

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Anime	0 / 10	Japanese	古見さんは、コミュ症です	7 / 12	-	Jan 11
Drama	0 / 1	Japanese	TBD	-	-	Jan 11
Movies	0 / 1	Japanese	TBD	-	-	Jan 11

valkow

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Dramas	1 / 20 series	None	リバース	5 / 10	最愛	Jan 10
Variety shows	10 / 250 episodes	Depends	VS嵐			Jan 10
Audiobooks	0 / 12 books	None	鍵のかかった部屋	~33%	魔女の宅急便	Jan 10
Anime	1 / 0 series	None	からかい上手の高木さん 2	3 / 12		Jan 10

ToAruNoKON

Medium	Goal	Subtitles	Current focus	Current progress	Current recommendation	Last updated
Anime	55 / 400 episodes	none	プリンセスコネクト一期	7 / 12	大正処女御伽話	Jan 17
Youtube	25 / 10000 minutes	depends	-	-	全力回避フラグちゃん!	Jan 18

Feedback welcome at any time.

rodan · January 9, 2022, 6:55pm

@valkow made the previous thread but asked me to make it for 2022 instead, which I’ve done via flagrant copying.

I found the thread quite useful last year as a way to motivate weaning off of subtitles while watching stuff, and I found it fun in the same way to the reading thread to post updates on movies and shows and stuff and see what other people were listening to and/or watching!

It can be as goal-oriented or as relaxed as you make it - I’m personally avoiding specific numbers this year and condensed the different strands of things into a few categories with a general “JP subtitles if possible, then no subtitles, then English subtitles but vaguely try to avoid looking at them” prioritization I had trouble fitting into one line in the chart.

I’ll go ahead and tag anyone who had a page in the last thread (it was pretty quiet):
@ekg @Miraigajettolab @nemuitanuki @Scylie

And @Mods, would you please make the second post in this thread a wiki? Thank you!

ekg · January 9, 2022, 7:05pm

I guess, I from the beginning thought of it as 1 year goals for me! XD My bad. Glad to be back and I can add my stuff once you’ve got a Wiki post open for us! ^^

At the moment I’m still moving through my targets at the pace I thought of as I thought it was 1 (year from my making my goal ^^’, but I probably will drop some goals that I’m less interested in and just add some new ones! )

emiri_learns_jp · January 9, 2022, 7:07pm

This is a great idea! Thanks for setting this up for the year. Count me in!

Quick question: do we just add our table of goals in our own reply or are we editing on giant shared table?

I’m still new here and doing my best to figure it all out

ekg · January 9, 2022, 7:11pm

We’ll let the mods create a Wiki-page that all can add their stats to!

Edit: But right night they’re all asleep so don’t wait up. It’s still Sunday both here and in the US. ^^

emiri_learns_jp · January 9, 2022, 7:18pm

そうですが、分かりました。ありがとうございます！

pocketcat · January 9, 2022, 7:41pm

I’m keen to join this as well. My broad goal for the year is 400 hours of listening. I mostly get practice via audiobooks, movies, dramas, and youtube. I technically also get listening practice through conversation but I count those hours separately.

Currently I’m trying to finish these shows:
ソロモンの偽証 (a good level for me, I only pause occasionally to make sense of something)
桜の塔 (quite difficult for me. lots of look-ups and pauses to make sense of longer sentences)
うちの娘は彼氏が出来ない (most dialogue is easy but some characters I barely understand)

I need to finish these movies:
マスカレードホテル (I missed so much! I probably need to rewatch what I’ve already seen)
世界から猫が消えたなら (I read the book and liked it well enough. It’s pretty slow and honestly not a ton of dialogue)

Also listening to the audiobook for 君の膵臓を食べたい and finally I watch a lot of random youtube but I recently was introduced to ゆる言語学ラジオ and I love it although it’s quite challenging.

I’ll add myself for the table once it’s wiki-ified.

Hantsuki · January 9, 2022, 8:20pm

Oh, what a great idea! I’ve been meaning to watch the second season of Hanzawa. Maybe I’ll use this as an excuse!

I also thought about trying to watch the finale of 進撃の巨人 but I wish I could’ve watched it live with Japanese subtitles! I did record it so maybe I’ll watch it once without support and a second time with English subtitles for clarification.

Anyway, looking forward to updating the Wiki!

Daisoujou · January 9, 2022, 8:26pm

I’ll join here too, to keep me doing at least a little listening each day. While my reading has made pretty good progress, I’m still struggling through the transition beyond learner stuff for listening (Nihongo con Teppei and the like). Too many of the words I “know” are only known if I can look at the kanji and spend a moment, and I can’t always process stuff at real conversational speed. I’m working on it a bit, but I find it more tiring and frustrating than working through written words, since I can take those at my own speed. So I’m just going to aim for at least making sure I watch an episode of something each day, probably usually with subtitles. What I really want to watch, and hope I do more of later in the year, are (often non-animated) Japanese films. Big movie fan. But I’d mostly get those from the Criterion Channel, and not only do they not provide the Japanese subs I probably need at the moment, they usually hardcode in English that I have to block while watching. I recently tried Ozu’s お早よう and it was a mixed bag, and at least I saw progress, but there was plenty I couldn’t keep up with that made sticking it out to the end a bit of a pain.

Recently I’ve been working though 深夜食堂 to mixed levels of comprehension depending on the episode (early in season 3), and I just started からかい上手の高木さん, which still has its moments, but is one of the most easily comprehensible shows I’ve found. I started reading with それでも歩は寄せてくる, so I guess I owe the creator of both of these a lot of thanks for helping me learn Japanese, haha.

Thaisthetic · January 9, 2022, 10:15pm

I’m not going to be setting up any goals for myself. Most of the time it just leads to me giving up, but I love watching live action films for immersion. I especially love campy horror. Dramas are also of interest. Here are some of my favorites (not in any particular order):

There were previews for each film when I didn’t hide them in the spoiler - now you sadly have to click the links to see what they are. I am sorry about that - but it was taking up so much S P A A A C E

Click here for a LOOOOONG List

The stars are on a scale of 1-5. Since sexual assault is something that shows up in Japanese films a lot I will be putting a on top of the movies that might have them. The “Japaneseness” rating is a measure of how experimental/objectively weird a movie is. Japanese films often tend to be quite difficult to get into for people who are used to western cinema already.

Language difficulty (lower = easier; higher = more difficult):
Japaneseness (lower = less; higher = more): 1/2

‎The Great Yokai War –Guardians– (2021) directed by Takashi Miike • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

The level of Japanese tends to vary depending on several factors. One is age - they speak quite differently in 60’s-70’s movies compared to contemporary films. Also the more a film is focused on one subject, the more jargon there will be. For example, military movies can be really tough if you’ve only studied the most common Japanese words. Yakuza movies are the same. My language ratings are not scientifically proven - they are merely baseless estimates put down by a layman.

Thaisthetic · January 9, 2022, 10:16pm

I fricken posted it by accident. I’m not done sorrryyyy1!!!

Daisoujou · January 9, 2022, 10:19pm

I know you weren’t done, but just want to say, there are some absolutely phenomenal picks in there! Love love love the Obayashi representation. Plus Kore-Eda, Suzuki, Kitano, Shindo, and stuff like Noroi (which honestly might just be my favorite horror movie now, or very close). You’ve been watching a ton of good stuff! A lot of those are on my list to see some day, too (All About Lily Chou-Chou, Linda Linda Linda, etc)

pocketcat · January 9, 2022, 10:26pm

I’ve seen Air Doll and Love Exposure! Love Exposure is actually my all time favorite movie - it’s such a wild ride. You’ll want a on it though, if I remember correctly. I don’t recall if there is sexual assault shown but IIRC that’s why the cult leader cut off her dad’s penis
I also watched some of Suicide Club but out of all the Sono films I watched I liked it the least and didn’t finish it. Have you seen Cold Fish (冷たい熱帯魚) - same director. I really think you’d like it based on this list (also though). 地獄でなぜ悪い (Why Don’t You Play in Hell) is also a really great one. I’m something of a Sono fangirl.

EDIT: I haven’t seen these but they’re on my list and I think you’d also like them. Trailers - to other readers if you don’t like horror do not click.
キャラクター
 殺人鬼を飼う女

Thaisthetic · January 9, 2022, 10:45pm

Air Doll is one of my absolute favorites. Love Exposure is also really high up on that list, it’s just too god damn long! Sono tends to be quite the hit or miss with me most of the time.

Have you seen Cold Fish (冷たい熱帯魚) - same director. I really think you’d like it based on this list (also though).

Ah yes, I’ve seen Cold Fish. It made me feel iffy inside, but it was a good movie. I actually watched キャラクター other day as well. It was pretty interesting, wasn’t super duper mega into it. That other film I’ve actually not heard of.

Daisoujou · January 9, 2022, 10:47pm

I can second that one being great too! Tag is the only one I watched and didn’t really love, but it was still alright. Sono really is an incredible filmmaker. If anyone has nothing better to do (go study Japanese!), while the topic is on Love Exposure, I also adore that film and have a Letterboxd review I wrote talking a bit about its themes that I’m sorta proud of. Or if anyone uses Letterboxd, I haven’t watched movies much recently so I haven’t been using it, but feel free to add me.

Now that that list is complete with rankings, since you seem to consider Gozu, Noroi, and Audition all relatively simple, I love all three of those so maybe I should seek them out for a rewatch…

Thaisthetic · January 9, 2022, 10:48pm

Obayashi is such a gem. I feel like he gets talked about way way way too little in Japanese movie circles. His movies are so beautiful.

I started watching Japanese films extensively about last year and I’ve watched nearly 200 now. It has been a fun ride that I wish to keep on riding. Still haven’t really gotten to the classics that much because I just keep watching whatever looks interesting the moment. It tends to end up being really shitty low budget horrors almost every time and it’s difficult to recommend most of them because they’re bad

pocketcat · January 9, 2022, 10:50pm

4 hours is quite a commitment, I agree. I usually watch normal length movies in 2-3 sittings though and Love Exposure I was glued to the screen the whole time And yeah, while I love his films overall some of his stuff (Suicide Club, Himizu) I just wasn’t that into.

I described it to friends as “It ruined my day, I loved it.”

Good to know - it looked intriguing but sometimes the trailers can be better than the movie I’ll probably watch it eventually regardless.

pocketcat · January 10, 2022, 12:53am

I somehow missed this comment earlier! Yes, Tag is more of an art piece than anything. Kind of in the same vein as Antiporno I’d say. There is actually a really great video essay on YouTube about the women of Sono movies that I’ll look up and link when I get home. It touches on those films in particular (also Guilty of Romance/恋の罪 which I similarly enjoyed but which is pretty outside the horror genre and well into art film territory imo).

EDIT: @Daisoujou read your Letterboxd review and it was dead on. I can never get people to understand why I love it by explaining the plot. The plot isn’t even the part that draws you in!
Also this is the video essay, it’s in English but it mostly nails what I find so appealing about his films. Subversion and messy, complex female characters.

Nemuitanuki · January 10, 2022, 9:48am

Thanks for taggging me! I want to join!!!

I wonder how much anime I watch