Fascinating stuff, thanks for the insider’s view! So if two people elope, what happens to the family register? Are they erased from their families’ register? Do they start a new one? Or does it never ever happen?
入籍しました sounds so romantic…
I’ve noticed it’s a rather wonky ebook in terms of formatting. Look how some (not all) furigana appears for me.
Trying to select the character to look up in the dictionary results in the app crashing, so I guess it’s an image or there’s something else wrong with it.
@Hantsuki Thank you very much for the detailed explanations! It all matches my expectations, because, Japan but I didn’t know all the details. Great to have a first-hand report on this.
Thanks for the heads-up! Will be on the lookout for any issues.
Busy day so I just read a little わたしの幸せな結婚 (6% → 8%). I was sad to have to stop reading which ironically is a good sign…
Rakuten answer
Hmmm, that’s interesting. I read they’d stopped accepting foreign cards so I assumed that was the reason but maybe it’s just my card that’s the problem? Further investigation might be required.
Oh, I actually have my old Rakuten books in epub format, they were the easiest to get and I own a kobo reader so it was the most convenient, so I was pretty bugged that I couldn’t purchase from them anymore… I was more thinking about other shops I’ve used like BookWalker or EbookJapan where you can only read though their app so dictionary lookups become really cumbersome and I have no way of storing the books in case the shop shuts down.
Thanks for the info!
I just recently set up a Rakuten account and bought my first books with a foreign credit card (beginning of October, there about), so unless that literally changed in the last couple of weeks, then maybe it is your card.
Aria: the masterpiece volume 1 – progress report
Yesterday: read up to page 37
Today: finished Chapter 1. Continued up to page 66
I could dedicate more time to reading today and I managed to read almost 30 pages. Besides, I finished the first chapter which had a nice little twist at the end regarding the company president reveal.
I think that I’ll be able to make the most progress per day during the weekends and due to that I already have a change to my daily routine in mind which I’ll probably implement once December arrives.
Some words of note
知能 (ちのう) intelligence, brains
並み (なみ) same level as, on par with
ほぼ roughly, approximately
制服 (せいふく) uniform
お手並み拝見 (おてなみはいけん) show me your moves! show me what you’ve got
独学 (どくがく) self-education, self-study
mmmmmmm tired but can’t sleep so we do some studying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Read:
からかい上手の高木さん chapter 10, 11
Tae Kim 166 → 183 – lots of casual speech and slang stuff. Most of this I’ve learned through linguistics stuff, and also seen used quite a bit. Ease of articulation is a hell of a drug; human mouth lazy why say many sound when few sound do trick. I hadn’t seen a description なんか as a kind of filler word before, but I think i’d been subconsciously treating it like one instead of trying to figure it out, so that works out
My eyes might be getting worse, I had some real trouble reading the difference between き and さ on some words today. But this did finally motivate me to learn how to use the wildcard search feature on jisho. Lots of words I don’t know have at least one kanji in them that I know, so should help out quite a bit when I don’t have (or can’t read) furigana.
Good Words
烙印「らくいん」ー brand, mark
賭け「かけ」ー bet, wager
雨宿り「あまやどり」ー taking shelter from rain
勢い「いきおい」ー influence, authority (noun!!)
ギャフン ー being argued into silence, speechless
成績「せいせき」ー results, score
範囲外「はんいがい」ー outside the range of, outside the scope of
I knew some of this, but having it tied together neatly with your own personal experience with it was interesting to read! I hadn’t really considered that elopement was straight up “off the 戸籍 with you!”
I feel a lot better knowing that even if I hadn’t de-drmed it it still would have these issues. I was very frustrated for a bit last night thinking I’d have to revert to the proprietary app!
It’s a very odd choice indeed. I wonder if I’ll ever meet a Japanese book publisher and can ask them… There was that publishing blog I came across, maybe they have an email
Like @MissDagger I have purchased from them recently, and in my case only a few days ago.
I’m glad you have your epubs though! I agree, having to use the proprietary apps for the other stores is so limiting, and always leaves open the chance of losing your books one day.
I was going to skip reading today, because I’ve had a super busy weekend and am drained of energy. But I found myself randomly picking up my physical copy of 魔女の宅急便（２）on my bookshelf, and to my surprise, I was able to read the first four pages easily and without using a dictionary at all! (There were only about five words/phrases I didn’t know, but as I spent my childhood ignoring unknown words in the novels I read and eventually learnt them from context, it doesn’t bother me.)
If I have enough time and energy tomorrow I’ll get back to 人間椅子。
I’ve been exhausted for the last week. I ended up not reading yesterday - did stare blankly at Spy Family and 夜カフェ. Today I had the day off apart from a couple of hours from home this morning, so I basically lay around reading.
5/11 14 pages God Bless the Mistaken (week’s reading), 25 pages シャドーハウス (both chapters for this week), 15 pages Orange, 1 page Spy Family.
I need to check as I may have read a bit more of Orange. I’m doing well on some clubs but behind on others, such as Spy Family, which I’m running… lots of dialogue in the last week’s reading which is holding me up.
I may choose to read ahead on シャドーハウス, as this week should give me more reading time but the following 2 weeks are busy. But I should catch up on the rest first.
Yesterday, I almost finished Ch.3 July, so a little bit; then start of the new chapter (month).
Well, a little more of parents’ help; and hiding things from parents.
Read aloud 人間椅子 0-45%
Although I think I understood the gist from the previous reading, I think I don’t understand enough comparing with the book club. Partly because of forgeting early things when focusing on single sentences, and vocabularies, too much? An excuse, whatever.
Used Bookwalker hover to Google Translate to help with pronunciation a little, although I mostly remembered the readings.
That half a book took like 35 minutes. (Truncated silence with Audacity.)
I spent the morning marking all of the books I own on Bookwalker as owned on Natively, so that next time I need to pick something new to read I can see what I already own and sort them by level. It took ages, and I probably annoyed some people by spamming the update feed on Natively But I had a lot of fun looking through everything I own, and ended up doing a lot of unexpected reading as I got distracted by various story summaries on Bookwalker.
In more structured reading though, I read the next chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san, and also finished Volume 2 of Yoru Cafe.
Feels good to have finished a second novel
I’m not planning to continue with Volume 3, because the chapters take me long enough to read that its been a big commitment for me to keep up with the club - but I’m hoping to find another novel with shorter chapters to read soon.
Priority: 青桐. Still feeling feelings about our protagonist recognizing her faults while liking herself including them.
Free choice: 硝子の塔の殺人. From yesterday’s reading, I would’ve said something sad about the latest victim here, but I’ve already read some more today… and… eek.
Extra: ダンジョン飯 4, and finished it. ファリン!!! It was good, @rodan. I also read a bit each of のだめカンタービレ 6 and 遊☆戯☆王 1.
Snatches of: ハリー・ポッターと不死鳥の騎士団. This book is very long. I am very tired of ロン.
Last night our power was out so I did a lot of reading by candlelight. With another manga volume done, I guess my next focus will be… actually, with only two left I can read whichever, lol. Stretch goal for next week: to finish one out of のだめカンタービレ 6 and 遊☆戯☆王 1.
I’m super tired out so snuck in a tiny read from seeing it suggested on the Natively forums. 赤い手袋 | L20 is only about 5 pages long and is good for maybe ~N4 level learners, but honestly I enjoyed reading it. It’s thoughtful piece and not a generic children’s story. The read aloud on youtube is also very nicely done although the accompanying video gave me the heeby jeebies.
Read some more ブルーロック today! Lots of fun new characters being introduced at the moment; one of them was described as a 脳筋バカ and I was like “yeah that sounds like a lot of characters I like” so good times!
Was visiting back home for the last few days, so not much reading. Managed to finish out my copy of Atelier that I’ve had sitting on my shelf for awhile.
Aria: the masterpiece volume 1 – progress report
Yesterday: read up to page 66
Today: finished Chapter 2. Continued up to page 90
Finished Chapter 2 and read almost 30 pages again today. Ultimately, they were cut short by me being too tired to read much more after that アクア・アルタ (Acqua Alta) phenomenon explanation which took me a good 5-10 minutes alone.
On another note: Akari taking along the president in his own mini-gondola when she set out to buy his treats/food that fell victim to the Acqua Alta was a really cute sight!
Some words of note
セリフ speech, words, remarks
いやはや (Oh) dear!, Good gracious
驚く (おどろく) to be surprised
現象 (げんしょう) phenomenon
買いだめ (かいだめ) stocking up on, hoarding
開店休業 (かいてんきゅうぎょう) open, but transacting no business at all
梅雨 (つゆ) rainy season
but I didn’t know all the details. Great to have a first-hand report on this.
November 4
Continued up to page 66
November 5th 
But I had a lot of fun looking through everything I own, and ended up doing a lot of unexpected reading as I got distracted by various story summaries on Bookwalker.
Nov 5 
青桐. 
硝子の塔の殺人. 
ダンジョン飯 4, and finished it. 
I also read a bit each of 
のだめカンタービレ 6 and 
遊☆戯☆王 1.
ハリー・ポッターと不死鳥の騎士団. This book is very long. I am very tired of ロン.
With another manga volume done, I guess my next focus will be… actually, with only two left I can read whichever, lol. Stretch goal for next week: to finish one out of 
so good times!
