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Started reading big kid NHK. I can comprehend a lot of it but can tell I am gonna be learning a lot of really big words quick with the stories that interest me! I am dropping jpdb to spend my time with reading the things that I enjoy and growing via reading (vocab wise). I didn’t do any MNN today, but I am kind of ahead of where I am supposed to be by now so thats fine. Gonna play more Pheonix Wright later.
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October 17th!
Today I read a chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san, which means I’ve now finished Volume 8!
Today’s chapter was another cute one, in which Nishikata continued to be his own worst enemy 
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16/10 1 page 夜カフェ, went over Tugumi then read further 5 pages, 3 pages 耳をすませば, 2 pages orange
Bit busy yesterday - managed 4 dives with my ears slightly improving. Reading was a bit scrappy overall, but managed more than average of Tugumi.
17/10 5 pages Tugumi (to end chapter 10), read 5.5 more pages, 29 pages orange (to end volume 3).
Today was a half day of diving so had a bit more reading time. I’m catching up well with Tugumi, and now up to date with the Orange book club. Still behind with everything else though!
Tomorrow is a travel day - morning should have some reading time, but based on previous experience the boat and bus rides won’t lend themselves to reading. Also have no idea re internet at the last place we stay, so may not post for a bit, or it may be fine.
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16 & 17 October 2022
Home Post- (16th) Listened to two episodes of a podcast just before bed.
- (17th) Handful of NHK Easy articles
Getting a bit lost in the sauce with CSM, so taking a small break from it to make sure I’m not gliding by on context.
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I ended up being way too tired yesterday to post, and I’m still tired today, ugh. Anyway:
I read やんだと! a series of よつばと! DJs by Hideyoshico. Sensei’s art style is so nice for よつばと! It suits it so well. The story has the same soft, almost somewhat detached feel as their other work I’ve read, イケメン君とさえない君. I really enjoy it. My favorite parts may well be when Yotsuba and Yanda actually get along for once, shortly before they’re back to their usual mode of getting along lol. Also, their dreams are so great.
I also found it on Bookmeter, though I didn’t see the reprinted 上/下 version that I have, only the original individual 1-7. So it kinda looks like I’ve read more books than I have, but it’s still the same content, so. Looking at the covers though, I wish I coulda gotten the individual volumes, but it woulda been so much more expensive…
Some good panels and a sort-of summary:
Very first panel, and what a good Yotsuba face
Look at her little arms, she’s so babie!
(Yanda pinched her cheeks and then poked her nose, and she does not wake up from that, but she does know it’s him and mumbles, やんだめ… it’s so cute. She dreams about Yanda being a like a demon king and kidnapping her dad, and she’s a Hero whose sword is a very tall soft serve ice cream. She saves tou-chan by eating her sword and not letting Yanda have any even when he begs for a bite lmao. Yanda ends up laying down next to her and falling asleep, and Yotsuba half wakes up, assumes it’s her tou-chan, and crawls onto him and falls back asleep, and Yanda dreams that that weight on him is Yoh-san sitting on him while he does his work. When Yotsuba wakes up later and realizes she was sleeping on top of Yanda, she freaks out and ends up kicking him in the face lmao)
I know it’s due to the length of the original DJs that the reprinting got divided up as it did: 1-4 becomes 上 and 5-7 下. The first 4 are overall shorter than the last 3, so with these groupings you end up with two volumes that are roughly the same length, though 下’s still about 1.5x longer lol. And then there’s the そのあとで, which is a separate volume.
But it also means that 上 ends in the perfect place. Part 4 is the one where Yanda’s wondering what he should do about these feelings, and he ends up following Yoh-san around on his errands after happening upon him, even buying a tub of ice cream which just ends up melting when Yoh-san buys himself a popsicle, even following him up the long flight of stairs to that shrine, at which point he starts regretting his life choices lmao it’s way too hot for this. I don’t know how long Yoh-san’s known Yanda’s been following him, but toward the top of the stairs he turns around to face him, and after he asks Yanda what he’s doing and stuff, Yanda vaguely thinks again about what he should do about these feelings, and then:
Man.
In part 3, Yanda had gotten drunk at a work function and Jumbo somehow ended up picking him up and bringing him to Yoh-san’s place. Yanda’s pretty much just passed out, but he does half wake up at some point and drape himself over Yoh-san before passing out again, and Yoh-san and Jumbo are like, “Huh? He mistaking you for someone? He mistaking you for his girlfriend? I never heard anything about him having a girlfriend.” Yanda mumbles, “Koiwai-san,” quietly enough that only Yoh-san hears him, and that’s probably when he starts to suspect, or at least that’s what we think, because… It’s later revealed that after Jumbo left, while Yoh-san was trying to transport Yanda upstairs to sleep there so Yotsuba won’t see him when she wakes up and be loud first thing in the morning, Yanda kissed him, and Yoh-san was like, “Huh? It’s me?” But since he’s weak to alcohol, Yanda remembers absolutely none of this.
Yanda’s definitely aware of his feelings throughout this whole series, he’s liked Yoh-san since they met in college and it’s implied that he’s probably gay, it’s more that he can’t quite admit them to himself yet. Even Yotsuba figures out that he likes her tou-chan, and when she says as much in part 7, Yanda freaks out and runs out, and Yoh-san goes after him, and that’s when Yanda finally admits it.
So there was a part where Yanda came over but Yoh-san was asleep so Yotsuba tried to get him to go home so he wouldn’t be loud and wake her tou-chan up. He refuses to leave, so Yotsuba sticks next to him and keeps her eye on him instead. He manages to shake her when he goes to the restroom, and since she’s not there when he gets out, he goes and checks on Yoh-san, and he kneels next to him and starts to lean down to kiss him, and that’s when Yotsuba appears in the doorway. Yanda holds his finger to his lips and then holds his hands up to show he wasn’t doing anything, and Yotsuba pulls her water gun on him. They end up making a commotion out in the hallway (and, yes, Yanda gets squirted with the gun) and waking Yoh-san up and getting scolded by him. Anyway, Yotsuba knows what a kiss is, it’s a thing that a man and a woman do together, so she knows Yanda had been about to do something bad. Later there’s a little scene where Jumbo’s babysitting her and they’re watching TV. When the couple on screen start making out, she asks Jumbo what they’re doing, and he answers, 魂を吸っている. So it woulda been hilarious if Yotsuba’d seen Yanda and Yoh-san kissing and flew at Yanda to get him to stop stealing her tou-chan’s soul. I don’t think there’s anything else in the series aside from the そのあとで, so I guess I’ll have to write it myself.
I then read the other two of Hideyoshico’s よつばと! DJs that I have, やんだとそのあとで and S&S’s.
Some vocab of note:
居留守を使う (いるすをつかう) [expression, ア五] to pretend to be out
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Oct 17, Mon of Week 4 of Fall 2022 
- Talk to You (physical book of 50 interviews) – 1/50
It doesn’t appear to be hard, only that no Furigana, and looking up Kanji compounds is inconvenient. An interview is quite short as well. A manga author’s 日記 was a harder read language-wise, also troubled a little by handwriting.
Physical books are in some ways less convenient than e-books on Bookwalker; but the variety might be easier to be chosen in some ways (for example, when traveling and passing by a bookstore).
Nonetheless, things like Wikipedia not only have some difficulty language-wise; but also that I can tolerate scrolling less than page-flipping (or page-flipping-like).
- かがみの孤城 (上) 7% => 12% (first chapter til 20%, listened to beginning of 2nd chapter some time before)
This one isn’t particularly troubling, but I just got somewhat tired. Also, I want to look up some words more deeply.
Today I read かがみの孤城 on a tablet, but probably depending on the mood and convenience, for whether tablet or smartphone.
I also took a look at Wikipedia app and daily topics on Android tablet. Anyway, I guess a game-changer for anything would be, how easy to look up in a (decent) dictionary. Otherwise, some workarounds.
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20221017 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 55.88% 
Wagahai-cat observes the many happenings in the bathhouse and listens to the chatter.
Japanese found under the leaves
Meowords
機鋒「きほう」ー Brunt
敷居「しきい」ー Threshold (especially ones on sliding doors)
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October 17
Home Post
Orange 
Have so far read the second half of chapter 11 of Orange. Might read more, but also might not because…
The cutest of cutest of surprises (for you guys) is here:
Reveal
Kiro my new cat:
More pictures here if you wanna see them: https://community.wanikani.com/t/x/55503/6501
So yeah, can’t beat @windupbird in cute mangas, so I decided to add in reality to the fiction.
I hope the wait was worth it, @Zakarius.
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October 17 home post link🏡
Today, I finished the first chapter of ごんぎつね!
Summary
I just finished the part where ごん mischievously threw the fish that the fisherman 兵十 （ひょうじゅう） caught back into the stream (at least I think that’s what happened). An eel, which was in the same basket that the fish were in, wrapped itself around ごん’s neck. The fisherman saw what ごん did, but ごん ran away into a hole and got the eel off.
I can’t help but think that 兵十 is going to do something to get back at ごん…
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Kitten!
Very very cute, impossible not to love
His teeny paw already set to strike the toy down
This is the best 
Best surprise there is
I now understand why you said it might be cheating, but we can let you off, because cat
Looks a bit like @trunklayer… is that you? 
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Home post 
Oct 17
・本好きの下剋上 11 (56% → 60%)
Thank goodness I got some reading done this morning because today was a long Monday. Not a bad one tho :3
During today’s reading session I learned that there’s another word with the reading かえる - it is 孵る which means “to hatch out” of an egg. Never seen that kanji before, but it sure fits having the egg in it.
!! Welcome to the reading challenge, Kiro!
Looks like a mini-Trunklayer 
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I’m looking for one that is better than the picture dictionary I have. I’d love to have the Oxford J-E dictionary, but that one is expensive. I may order on Amazon or go shopping for one. Not sure yet, but I have been looking on Amazon until I can get to a big city bookstore.
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I played some more Monobeno visual novel probably one fourth of chapter 12. Also started playing the Abyss of the Sacrifice visual novel on Switch. It seems like I actually have to solve some puzzles in it, looking forward to that.
For unknown reasons I always start reading new things without finishing anything I started.
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october 17 home post
It’s been a while since I’ve given an update. Today I read a chapter of 極主夫道 and then read some 田中くんはいつもけだるげ. But I’ve decided to drop 田中くんはいつもけだるげ since I’m just not enjoying it… oh well, at least I read enough to give it some gradings on natively
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Home
October 17
ニャンキーズ
29 - 48
This is a really pleasantly easy read but I’m so busy this week. Maybe on Sunday I’ll have time to devote a whole hour to reading or something.
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10月17日
- ルーパーズ (~4800c, finished chapter 13).
I was only going to read a little bit today because I was fairly tired, but the game got quite interesting and had other plans for me 
. Love when that happens, couldn’t say no, and here we are.
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Day 16:
Priority: 
I was feeling very disinterested in my chosen priority. I think I might switch my focus to a different one for a while. How about 
青桐.
Free choice: 
聖女の魔力は万能です 1.
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AWWWWWWWWWWWWW 
Omg so cute 
So smol and soft He is not manga but he is welcome in the thread at any time
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