Well, “common” is relative 
Other than the odd book title, I think it can show up in fantasy settings where the author wants to downplay the modern feeling that ガラス might give – jpdb lists 400 books with 硝子, including Spice & Wolf; and of course it’s more likely in older texts. I think it’s usually furiganaed when I’ve seen it.
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Day 3 of Japanese horror movies!
Last night’s watching was: 着信アリ or “One Missed Call” as the English title. I think this is probably one of the few instances were I think the English title is better, it sounds more foreboding. I’ve heard of this one but never seen it, think I saw the American remake but I hardly remember anything about it, so it was probably like most American remakes of movies - the original is way, way better.
This one was like リング but jacked up on caffeine, instead of a seven day period from curse exposure to death, this one is two, and you get to know the exact date and time as well as your last words. Fun premise, and the movie does make good use of the knowing that you know this but then subverting your expectations.
Definitely the one with the most creepy scenes so far (there was some very cool creepy scenes) and the most violent. I enjoyed this one, it felt a bit more slasher/movie monster-esque and not quite as ‘serious’, but still fun to watch. I have to say I do love this era of Japanese media, the late 90s to early 00s had some really cool horror films and games (and many other medias outside the genre).
The main lead was good too, she felt pretty genuine plus she spoke clearly which my ears very much appreciated. No grumpy ex-husband man in this one since mostly everyone is a uni student, but there was an older guy who acted as the lead’s support character and thankfully he didn’t mumble and talked pretty clear too.
It got pretty whacky near the end though, as each section of the film tried to outdo the previous. It was plot twist after plot twist so it felt like an over encumbered , lopsided plot twist sandwich, but it was still fun to watch if you didn’t think too much and about how things didn’t make much sense anymore.
I feel like I’ve been talking more about how I’ve enjoyed these films so far rather than how much they’ve been helping me listen to Japanese 
I think this is really good listening practice though. Before when I tried to watch things with the sole purpose of learning from listening it felt like I was having a hard time and not really learning much, because I was so focused on trying to learn. I feel since I’m distracted by enjoying the film I’m not concentrating on listening to every word so it goes in and I understand it better.
this feels like I’m just trying to convince myself that I should just watch more movies 
I think this has been the easiest one to understand so far, everyone spoke pretty clear, there was just the one hip cool dude character guy who used a lot of lingo that I didn’t understand.
When you can understand the mumbly guys I’m pretty sure you can say with full confidence that you perfectly understand Japanese.
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Day 5, 5th of January
Decided to re-listen to the Teppei episode (#5) that was a bit confusing before. Went a bit better today, it seems I got confused by him trying to explain something by using different ways to describe it. Still had to use the pause function along with re-listening to passages liberally to understand some things.
Topic was Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. He talked about how Hiragana and Katakana were pretty okay, but Kanji was difficult (using different ways to say “something is difficult”). But for a person that knows Chinese, Kanji would be very easy and that’s something one could be jealous of.
It’s really neat to see how much information I can actually get out of these episodes. Last challenge I was very frustrated all the time and even wanted to not join the listening challenge again, but I’m glad I stuck with it. Even something small like this feels like I’ve overcome a huge mountain.
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original post LINK
オススメの動画 
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Lemon / 米津玄師【日本の歌で日本語を勉強しよう #01】LINK
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【神奈川Vlog】江の島／Kanagawa Enoshima Vlog in Japan LINK
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【日本語会話】特別な気持ちで使い分けよう！「〜とか〜とか」の代わりの3つの表現 LINK
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5 TIPS TO FLUENT JAPANESE | By a teacher / language leaner LINK
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Speak Japanese FLUENTLY after how long? LINK
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Walk around and learn Kanji !! (Kobe) LINK
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Why you can’t understand JAPANESE NATIVE SPEAKERS LINK
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NO KATAKANA BATTLE with YUYU (You will learn lots of VOCAB) LINK
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【Japanese listening】Japanese weird superstition LINK
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Japanese Religion Shintoism / How to visit Shrine LINK
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Life lessons I learned from Sakura. LINK
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Listening in Japanese | Travel around Mt.Fuji !! LINK
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日本の生活で気をつけたほうがいいこと LINK
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【日本語会話】日本人ならこう言う #2 〇〇が好きです → ??? LINK
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Pregnancy/ Early child education with みっちーさん♡ LINK
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【東京Vlog】秋葉原 ／ Akihabara in Japan LINK
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11 ways to say “Thank you” in Japanese | " I’m grateful"/ “I appreciate it” in Japanese LINK
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【JLPT N3文法】ないで / なくて / ずに の用法 LINK
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どうして「ば か」は馬と鹿って書くの？ LINK
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【日本語の単語】運転するときに使う日本語 LINK
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京都駅Vlog／Kyoto station vlog LINK
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@ nihongonomori2013 ゆか先生にインタビュー【日本語の聴解】 LINK
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【日本語の聴解】日本の塾について LINK
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【日本語会話】「世話」と「面倒」を間違って使っていませんか？ LINK
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【JLPT直前対策！】1時間でJLPT N2文法 LINK
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WHY Japanese DON’T SAY “NO” and my opinion about harmony LINK
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(updated if I stumble upon something interesting
)
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Day 4 & 5 - Just an episode of Sakura tips each day while on the bus, since I had less time the last two days… but still managed to squeeze in some anime since the new season is starting…
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January 5th!
Today is my birthday so we went to a Cat Cafe, and listened to Japanese music on the way there are back (~2h total)
When I got home I decided to make an origami cat since it seemed like a fitting thing to make today. It went pretty well other than I misunderstood something right at the start and started with the paper facing the wrong way, so I now have a white cat instead of an orange one. 
I also watched the top 30 novels of 2022 video that @omk3 linked in a previous post - honestly, I didn’t understand a huge amount, but I caught bits of it and noted down a few of the book titles to look up later. One was described as something like ‘Its a mystery the first time you read it, but a horror the second time you read it’ and that sounded intriguing. (Disclaimer: Thats what I THINK he said ) I love when you reread a book knowing the ending and you get to see all the clues you missed the first time
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硝子の塔の殺人 was one of my best reads of 2022. It’s basically an ode to mystery novels. I adored it.
I used to agree with that but feel like I’ve run into enough exceptions I don’t trust it anymore. This one is the first example to come to mind:
I think the style may just be in vogue right now for book covers 
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Today I tried to watch 2 episodes of ばなにゃ:
From the first episode (except the 10 seconds in the beginning, I guess…) this seemed rather understandable, but sadly the second episode was a fair bit harder from the vocab perspective. I didn’t get much there, and I couldn’t find Japanese subtitles. Guess I’ll have to try that again some other time.
Off-Topic
What’s the timestamp/title of that book? That does sound intriguing, especially because I have no idea how that would work.
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So youtube handily suggested me an interview with the author of the new Impulsive Reading Pick (チュベローズで待ってる AGE22 🌺 - Informal Reading Group) and it was a blast. I haven’t laughed so much watching a celebrity interview in Japanese before, usually they feel rather stale to me. The book shop lady’s comment at the end especially killed me 
Also, @valkow, I know you’ve mentioned having a lot going on in your life, so no pressure, but I recall you follow Johnny’s and the book in the club above is written by a Johnny’s member (加藤シゲアキ)
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softlyraining’s listening corner 
January 5th
Today’s listening practice was the film Mrs. Noisy. I had wanted to start watching it earlier in the day, but dinner was kind of late, and then I took a shower, meaning I put it on right before bed…In other words, I’m roughly 15 minutes in.
I find myself using the pauses between lines to compute what it is I just heard. This is usually a sign that the speech too fast for me. 
I’m getting the gist of what’s being said; the challenge is understanding the specifics of each character’s dialogue. I might start the film from the beginning tomorrow, since I’m not that far in and try to listen as closely as I can.
Also, apparently this is based on an actual woman?! I found a video about her when I went to look for a trailer to share. I only just met her character, so I guess I’m in for quite the ride tomorrow.
The trailer for the film:
The video about the real-life Mrs. Noisy:
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Ooh, Shige! I’ve seen his other books around, but I didn’t realize that one is by him as well! I’ll have to hear later if you and the club have a good time reading it. 
He is a likable dude. 
I feel like idols have an unfair advantage over (non-idol) authors when it comes to interviews. Being personable on camera has been Shige’s job since he was 12ish. (Note: I am sure people have different views on this and ALSO this is not true to me for every Johnny’s idol either… but a higher percentage than authors, almost certainly, lol.)
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That one doesn’t read to me as anime-style – the stylization of the woman’s figure leans a little bit that way, but not much, and the rest of the image is not anime like. Maybe the other part of this is that because the current anime art style is so prevalent in Japanese culture aspects of it bleed into other artists’ styles more than would be the case elsewhere?
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It’s fine, it’s a really enjoyable read.
According to my clockify app, I did 1:02:12 of podcast listening yesterday. The same dozen or so episodes on my playlist. Will try to add a new one today. My favourite is Noriko but she’s also the fastest. To be honest I’m not sure if I’m understanding her Japanese or remembering the transcription.
I’ve really no idea if this is making me understand Japanese better, but it’s got to right? I do find myself drifting off, ‘Hmm I wonder what’s for dinner’, and missing bits. Oh well, get to the end of the challenge and I’ll at least understand the majority of a handful of podcasts if nothing else
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It’s at 5:47, the book called 予言の島. (Not that I need any more books to read right now, but I have it on my watch list. If you’re interested in reading it, give me a shout)
And please continue to do so! I’ve been enjoying your write-ups a lot, and all these films get noted down so I can watch them when/if I get the chance!
What kind of book is it? It may not be exactly anime-style, but it still makes me think YA. (Edit: Never mind, I saw it in the covers thread :D)
Ah, so people knew about him I kept seeing references to Johnny’s and had no idea what or who it is supposed to be. Of course, I’m bad with famous people much closer to home, so why would I know any Japanese idols? I tried watching the video by the way, and yes, way above my listening ability. I caught…words. A few of them.
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No, you got that alright. He said that because the second time around you understand the meaning (I think that means that you know in advance what it will lead up to, I guess?), it turns into horror. Very intriguing!
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January 6 
Another day, another top 20 book list for 2022!
While this was a shorter list, it was a much longer video. 
He expands on the books much more, not that I caught all he said of course…
Several books appeared in both lists, and of course many were unique to this list. The previous lists’s number one didn’t make this list at all, but the mystery-turns-horror 予言の島 did!
I can sort of suspect what may be going on just by that mystery turns into horror description, but I may be wrong of course. Would still be fun to read. Maybe a good fit for Halloween?
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Oh great idea! We should nominate it for that club. (And of course we need to read it twice then )
You mean something like the first time around we just see Little Red Riding Hood walk through the forest, but the next time around we already know there is the wolf hiding in the bushes which adds much more to the tension? That would be my expectation at least. Anyway, interested to see how the author pulled it off!
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No, I mean something that totally changes the perception of what had been happening. But it’s been done before, so would these reviewers be impressed by it? Anyway, not saying anything more, in case I spoiler a book I haven’t read and didn’t even know about before yesterday!
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Jan 6, Fri of Week 2 of Winter Q1 2023 
So-matome N3 Listening Ch.1 [4/5]. Just some conversation, I manage to get all correct, but with rewind. Concerning about hunch speed.
Then, 【2022年決定版】今年読んで本当に良かった本Best 20！！ - YouTube which is recommended by Youtube, about book recommendation. I only got to around 12 minutes, though. I might have mentioned somewhere I find it hard to read long books, but audiobooks are probably OK. (Perhaps it’s also the question of my language level.)
Then, latter half episode of 緊急取調室 EP.5. Even one knows police is at least partially dirty, anyway.
Then, 君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.3 [1/2], and a little of JP-CN podcast on Podbean about horoscope.
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