Day 21, 21st of January
I think my listening ability has plateaued somewhat, so I’m gonna be listening extensively instead of intesively for now. So time to watch PirpPito episode #7 - #20. They’re all very short, and because I’m very familiar with the source material it’s easy to follow, even when I don’t look at the screen.
January 21 
One episode of MIU404 today. I wish I had had time for more. I did rely on the subtitles less than usual though.
I watched it with English subs early last year and absolutely enjoyed it. You’re inspiring me to rewatch with Japanese subs though.
January 21st!
Today I watched the final three episodes of Cells at Work (english subs).
This was a fun series, and watching it has made me struggle far less with the manga since I’ve picked up more of the vocab, and also now know the contents well enough to muddle through the info boxes that were causing me most of the trouble in the early weeks of the bookclub.
Oh, glad you like it! I was surprised how approachable and fun it is.
And thanks to your post I’ve tried out the Miku Real Japanese podcast. I don’t understand too much (maybe 50% of the gist, and 25% of the details), but what I understood was fun, and I like the atmosphere. And somehow not understanding too much is actually kind of liberating. I didn’t have any podcast for walking outside anymore - the ones I can keep up with I want to fully understand, so I need a dictionary. But with this one… since I can’t possibly understand everything, it feels alright to not even try to look up words, and to get distracted by a crossing or when shopping for a bit without having to repeat. No idea if that makes sense to anyone but me, haha.
(And on the topic of picking things up, MIU404 is really fun! Much too hard for me though, so not part of this challenge & with English subtitles.)
The last three days:
Jan 22, Sun of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 
君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.9-10 (end). MC now has a name.
I don’t know if some comprehension just to string the story is a good idea or not, but I didn’t start reading with so good comprehension either.
So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [6/6]. End of chapter exercise 80/100, however with rewind.
January 22 
Home Post
Easy Japanese 
, episode 1
Sayuri Saying Everyday 
, episode 1
Tried out two podcasts today while out for a walk. I wanted to try the upper beginner ones I’d picked out from Tofugu’s blog post, but I couldn’t quite remember which ones were those since I had subscribed to several at once. Oops…
So I tried Easy Japanese first. That one felt just out of my reach. With a bit more practice, I think I can listen to this one and follow along. Now that I think back to it not even an hour later, I can’t say what the episode was about. I was just barely missing the actual point of each thing talked about. 
I will revisit this one closer to the end of February or so, it felt kinda like +3 or so, which for listening means I had a hard enough time following that I couldn’t really take it in. But it doesn’t feel far out of reach, just beyond my fingertips.
Turns out it was in the intermediate podcast article but among the easier there, so it fits.
Sayuri Saying Everyday however felt just right, like +1. I was skeptical for the first couple of minutes, but then I realized I followed along quite well, and I could recount briefly what the episode was about, although I did miss some things. But not so much I felt truly lost.
So that one feels at just the right level to challenge me. While say, Comprehensible Japanese intermediate feels very easy, I only don’t understand if it is a word I genuinely don’t know.
And turns out, Sayuri Saying Everyday is in fact one of the upper beginner podcasts. So yay.
I’ll also try the other one when I have a chance, which is Let’s Talk in Japanese by Tomo.
My brain feels a bit tired now. 
Third week finished. 
Again, not much changed from last week. Mainly random YouTube videos and a bit of anime.
In contrast to reading I did listen to some stuff on Friday though, yay.
Glad some more people discover Atashinchi. It’s a really nice show. Unfortunately they purged a lot of single episodes from their YT channel a while ago but they do upload frequently.
The 2015 reboot Shin Atashinchi should be findable with subs
Bit of a backlog but not much to report except that I’ve done at least one Teppei every day and constantly listening to Japanese music with some anime mixed in. However two things of interest aside from that:
January 22 
About an hour of かがみの孤城 audiobook while I was otherwise occupied. I tried to listen actively, but I didn’t always succeed. I’m listening to parts I have listened to before, and I keep noticing stuff I had missed, which is good, I suppose. However, I’m definitely nowhere near the stage where I can follow an audiobook without text assistance. I may cave in and follow along with the text at some point, but for now I have plenty to read, and I’m content with just relistening now and then to see whether I have progressed enough to understand more.
January 22nd
Today I only did a tiny bit of listening - Episode 108 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners.
I started watching a show called シャイロックの子供たち (trailer) which seems totally my kind of show, but also painfully difficult because the setting is a bank 
One of the first tense scenes I had to stop and just read the Japanese subs to figure out the details. I generally got that one team was hitting targets and the others weren’t, but the details beyond that were a massive blank beyond what seemed to be an accusation that something wasn’t in the best interest of the customers.
On reading the subs, I figured it out, but geeze…
相場は下がり続けてますよね。
[…]
昨年一年間に投信を買った人はほとんど元本割れしています
[…]
今投信を買えば必ずもうかるという確信があって副支店長はそれを売れとおっしゃっているんですか？
I’m bad with finance terms even in English…
Thanks! Yeah, I found those - and even some the Non-Shin version, although weirdly only for the first few and for a few in the middle (1-12 and 299-318).
Today I tried another Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate, but after the first minute I realized I didn’t feel up to it, so I switched to a Beginner one instead. It was super easy and pretty cute:
The moral of the story is that it’s okay to accept stolen money if it comes from cute animals.
Seen as post of my updates for the last challenge were “listening to N5 listening tests” thought I’d repost over here as well.
I passed N5 and got a reasonable score for listening! Very happy considering my listening level was close to zero when I started the challenge.
Congratulations！ 
January 20
Listened to Teppei for beginners #24.
January 21
Played BU$TAFELLOWS for 1h 45 min and watched a Nier:Automata anime chapter (with subs though).
January 22
Listened to Teppei for beginners #25 and played Tales of Arise for a couple hours (in English, but the voices are JP).
Jan 23, Mon of Week 5 of Winter Q1 2023
I visited MIU404 on Netflix. Has original JP sub without VPN, also other languages (like EN) too. Looks decently difficult, but without pausing, it is enough to understand (though looking at Kanji for some words). (Truthfully, my VPN, ProtonVPN, has expired along with my old credit card; but it can still connect to Japan wtih free tier.)
So-matome N3 Listening Ch.4 [1/6]. Quick identification of appearances.
かがみの孤城 closing [2-3/3] + prologue (end), but this time with text.
I’ve done some more listening/reading with Honzuki vol. 2.
Yesterday I took a break to watch random stuff from my Youtube recommendations.
This dude is super mumbly and I don’t even know the band that well, but I haven’t been to a ビジュアル系 concert in a while (since pre-covid) and wondered if フリ trends had changed. Seems like it hasn’t, at least not for the basics.
And a tutorial to perm eyelashes at home, which was interesting in a scary kind of way. I’m not planning to try this myself but I was curious about how something like this even works.
Congratulations on passing!! 合格おめでとうございます!!
