I read 20 pages of 異世界の名探偵. Fantasy vocab is slowly starting to stick. I did not realize with the title I’d be signing up for churches and kingdoms more so than murder and detective work. Maybe that will change, but I’m 1/3 of the way done and it seems to be tilting heavily towards fantasy more so than mystery.
@MissDagger omg what a cutie 
October 17 
Home Post
I got distracted by other things (fun things this time at least!!) and didn’t end up reading until I was already sleepy so just a few pages of ブルーロック 
it’s just like that sometimes huh
Read my 2 NHK articles for the day. I recommend people read the regular NHK news articles once you start prepping for N2 and above. Its been really nice to see N2/N1 grammar show up and actually having to use it.
Haven’t checked the N1 list yet, but doesn’t most N2 grammar show up a bunch during regular reading as well? 
October 17th (Home Post Link)
Very tired, read chapter 53 to keep the streak but it was a struggle. Good chapter but words were just bouncing off my brain 
I was going through a box of books and found my Tae Kim Grammar Guide copy and remembered I never finished going through this. I did a few pages and the examples make a lot more sense to me now, I might kinda breeze through this and see how much new stuff I can pick up relatively easily, did pages 92-102.
七味「しちみ」ー seven delicious flavors
牛丼「ぎゅうどん」ー beef bowl
I’m running out of bookmarks, help.
I read ch 9 of 夜カフェ, which is about 18 pages. Plus however many pages that was of ch 3 that I reread because I needed to check something.
I picked up 青春サプリ。自分がここにいる理由, though I started with the second story, バレーボールの神様, which is about the Fukui High School boys’ volleyball club. I read the first two sections, or about 9 pages. Why do I find it hilarious that this is a partial-furi book that has some words that always get furigana (like 誰?? Also 選抜 and 監督, among others), yet they still use the alternate form 嚙む instead of the regular 噛む.
I hate that, aside from 一番, numbers are always written in Arabic numerals. It’s a sans-serif font, so the 1s look exactly like ーs. Do you know how long I sat there staring at that の一つだ trying to figure out what it was?? It was only when I looked away for a sec and saw that ２０１１年 that I realized it was a 1 and not a vowel extender.
I don’t know yet if it’s just the author’s stylistic choice or if it’s series-wide formatting but auuuugh. Why are books for younger audiences harder to read than those for older ones. If it ain’t the lack of kanji, it’s something else making it difficult.
I also read ch 264 of ハイキュー!! The very first words out of Tanaka’s mouth to Shimizu, when he literally did not know one single thing about her and all that happened is she’s a pretty girl he happened to accidentally meet eyes with, were “Please marry me!” And here I thought I couldn’t hate this pairing even more. Them becoming canon is just pure male fantasy, misogyny-rooted wish fulfillment. I really wish I could ignore this part of canon, but I keep getting reminded of it.
October 17 
山の霊異記 幻惑の尾根 , start-7%
With about two weeks until the various book clubs start, I couldn’t very well not start a new book, now, could I? I didn’t want to necessarily push myself to finish it in time though, which is one reason why I chose to start 山の霊異記 out of my ever increasing 積読.
This book is one of a series of collections of short stories about strange stories encountered or heard in the mountains. Apparently the author loves mountain climbing, and was excited to write a travelogue when first approached by a publisher, but turns out they were only interested in his ghost stories, so that’s what he writes about - they only take place in various mountains though, and there’s supposed to be a strong emphasis on the natural environment where they take place. These are actually short stories (there are 20 in this book), as opposed to the novellas I’ve been calling short stories so far and that have been taking me many days to finish), so I should be good to stop any time without interrupting the flow.
I’ve only read the first story so far, but if the trend continues, the book will have the flavour of spooky stories recounted around a campfire: open-ended stories that spook you and leave you wondering, with no clear answers provided either way. For example the first story was about a mountain hut that catered to climbers, which always had one room boarded up. (Full brief summary:) Apparently every winter they locked up every door and left because the whole hut would be covered in snow, and every spring they returned to find this one door mysteriously open. One year one of the staff decided to stay back and find out what’s going on. In the middle of winter a friend of his got very worried, and climbed up to the hut to check on him. Two more people followed him - they found him in the hut muttering incoherently staring into space, while the person who had stayed in the hut had vanished without a trace. The friend never recovered his wits and died a few months later. His last words were something like “don’t take him away”. Did something supernatural even happen? Is there a reasonable explanation? We don’t know, and I kind of like this.
@MissDagger: What an adorable new friend you’ve got! Hope you have some great times together! 
softlyraining’s spooky book stack 
October 17th:
名探偵コナン (17% → 24%)
Well, it finally happened: he’s now the Conan that I know him to be. All because he wasn’t aware of his surroundings and let that long-haired ne’er-do-well thwack him over the head. The reveal shot is quite good: he looks adorably perplexed in his now-baggy clothes. 
I had no idea he was in a 6- or 7-year-old’s body. I thought he turned into a 10-year-old based on how he is in the show. Then again, maybe his high school self just acts that age. 
Also, the police take him to receive medical attention and he tries telling them what he witnessed, but they brush it off and say he watches too many detective shows. The police is in shambles and this is why they need a high schooler to solve all their crimes. 
Also also, there was something that caught my eye during the previous reading session. So, Shinichi and Ran get caught up in a murder case, and he’s explaining the set-up of the crime to everyone. There’s a drawing on one of the pages that shows where everyone was sitting, and the victim is drawn…well, you can see below.
Yes, but I guess the more fact based stuff like 基づいて come up more often.
That depends pretty much on the author, I’d say. Generally I see a bunch of N2 grammar in novels and stuff, but by far not everything, in my experience.
(Having said that, JLPT by far did not contain all N2 grammar constructs either 
)
October 17
The usual: read 狼と香辛料 (52% → 55%).
Ohhhh a new fren 
October 18th (Home Post Link)
I took a “nap” and woke up at like 2am, it’s a little weird but I guess I’ll count this reading/study for the 18th instead of another 17th session 
I did another 20ish pages of Tae Kim and then decided to try another chapter of よつばと！(54) looking specifically for examples of things in that section that I wasn’t already comfy with, and didn’t have to wait all that long. I think potential forms are finally clicking after reading about them again and then seeing them used in context.
(Will definitely do more again later but for now I should sleep to try to save what little sleep consistency i have )
Round 2: read イジらないで、長瀞さん chapter 115. I set this up on my RSS feed so I would get notified when new chapters get released officially, so I try to read them when they come up even though they’re a little harder than the level I’m trying to read at currently.
Also did よつばと！ chapter 55, finishing volume 8! More progress.
「おかし！？おかしもらえるの！？」ー slowly but surely, more and more grammar bits are coming apart and working nice in me brain. No longer just a block of completely impenetrable hiragana
山車「だし」ー festival float
縄「なわ」ー rope, cord
一旦「いったん」ー temporarily, for a brief time
休憩「きゅうけい」ー break, rest
お神輿「おみこし」ー portable shrine
お尻「おしり」ー buttocks
よいやさ ー “heave-ho” used to maintain rhythm
視線「しせん」ー line of sight
沢山「たくさん」ー lots, plenty (never seen the kanji before on this one)
筋肉「きんにく」ー muscle
粗末「そまつ」ー crude, rough
観察「きんさつ」ー observation, survey
夢中「むちゅう」ー absorbed in, immersed in
清雅「せいが」ー elegant
素敵「すてき」ー lovely
Oct 18
かがみの孤城 57% → 58% (page 207)
Three pages today. I didn’t manage to read yesterday or the day before. Hopefully things will remain cleared up for the rest of the week at least. Unfortunate timing of a load of events and issues stacked together meant I’ve been super busy for the last two days, lol.
Wifi at the new place seems to work. A long travel day but got some reading in on the ferry. Quite piecemeal though.
18/10 2 pages Tugumi, 13-14 pages 耳をすませば (to end of this week), went back over 3 pages Spy Family plus a bit more, 4 pages 夜カフェ
oooh these sounds very interesting indeed! Another for the to be read pile
Home
October 18
ニャンキーズ
49 - 87
Oct 18, Tue of Week 4 of Fall 2022
About the Wikipedia article, nowadays I do listening-writing quiz on Anki, and I get lazy sometimes; so I went as far as 略字, and now I want to write better.
It appears that Wikipedia is easier to read in web browser than Android app, because of dictionary support, and contextmenu-dictionary reliability. Web browser can access Akebi, while app can access Yomiwa; but it is also how much / well texts can be selected.
20221018 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 56.43% 
Wagahai-cat sees a big, tall man towering over all, with a booming voice and who has a face growing out of his beard. The flames in the furnace blaze and the steam rises… it can be nothing else, the king of demons is in the bathhouse.
So Wagahai-cat runs home.
Japanese found under the leaves
柘榴口「ざくろぐち」ー Low door in bathhouses to prevent hot water cooling (also: 石榴口)
犇めく「ひしめく」ー To crowd; to jostle; to clamour
竈「かま」ー Stove; furnace; kiln (also: 窯)
膳「ぜん」ー Small dining table; serving tray with legs
智慮「ちりょ」ー Foresight; wisdom (also: 知慮)
Forms
茫然 ＝ 呆然「ぼうぜん」(Dumbfounded; blank in amazement)
Could you go into more detail about this particular example? I find this kind of thing really interesting. I’ve already read the first 14 books in English, so you don’t need to explain the characters to me, just what the differences were.
October 18th!
Today I read the 2nd half of Chapter 3 of 耳をすませば.
I also watched an episode of Madoka Magika for listening practise, with Japanese Subs - but had to lean pretty heavily on the subs so it ended up being half listening practise and half reading practise!
