Tiny read. I’ve fallen back to reading right before bed, which is a dangerous habit for me. I’m understanding the big picture of things so far (the narrator’s aunt just came over), but the majority of the smaller things are lost on me. If I was doing more look ups and taking more time to pause as I read, I’d likely be getting more. Thus my issue with reading right before bed, at least with something at this level for me. Conan wasn’t a problem in this regard; I just kept reading that far too late into the night.
Day before yesterday, I read another 2 chapters of 不機嫌なモノノケ庵, as well as 3 pages of おばちゃんたちのいるところ.
Yesterday, I read another 3 chapters of 不機嫌なモノノケ庵, finishing vol 1 and starting vol 2. Also SPY×FAMILY mission 15, a.k.a. the long-awaited dodgeball chapter. It was ridiculous. Hilarious. Amazing. I loved it. I also read 11 pages of おばちゃんたちのいるところ, finishing the first story.
Some vocab of note:
火の車 (ひのくるま) [expression] desperate financial situation; dire straits
Today I read through 不機嫌なモノノケ庵の十一ノ怪, getting to about halfway through vol 3. Mojamoja’s so cute ♡ The anime covers at least this much so I knew he would, but I’m glad he came back ♡
It's cute that Abeno really did copy down the Mononokean's note exactly, the cutesy border and drawings and all.
Today I came across the word that BNHA’s Iida Tenya surely got his name from! 韋駄天 (いだてん), referring to a swift-footed guardian deity and also meaning “great runner.”
In non-reading news, I watched 不幸くんはキスするしかない! ep 5-8 (last). I forgot how much I hate the English subs for this. I hadn’t intended to take such a long break from watching this, but since I did, part of me kinda hoped more progress woulda been made on the Japanese subs. Unfortunately not. Anyway, as of the latter half of ep 6, they’re now using given names for each other, but since the subs, for some dumb reason, have been making everyone do so from the beginning, there’s no change. It’s not quite the moving scene it’s supposed to be. Anyway, the show was pretty cute, but I don’t think I’ll be getting the manga.
Some vocab of note:
お暇 (おいとま) [noun, する verb] leaving; going home
躙口 (にじりぐち) [noun] small door which leads into a tea ceremony hut. The first kanji means “edge forward; shuffle;” it’s probably named such because it’s low enough that you have to enter on your knees.
Tae Kim 209 → 220 – expressing amounts of things. Seen most of these before. One that sticks out as pretty common is 過ぎる, I definitely remember looking that up at least a few times, maybe it sticks now.
からかい上手の高木さん chapter 17, one shot, おまけ, 18 – finished volume 2! chapters are going pretty quick and easy. Realistically, each chapter has a topic that consists of like 3 or 4 new important content words, and if you already know those words, the kind of back and forth 西片 and 高木 have is generally pretty similar, so it’s not really pushing any reading difficulty limits for me. After going through 2 full volumes I’d definitely rate this series as considerably easier to read that よつばと！Still enjoying it though, it’s really cute. I think I’ll stick with this series until I catch up to the book club and/or finish Tae Kim, and then read along with the club but move to something harder for my own reading.
Good Words
席替え「せきがえ」ー moving to new seats
肝試し「きもだめし」ー test of courage
I think I’m just ahead of you. If you don’t mind spoilers, I’d suggest that if you start to feel a bit confused, as I did, you take a look at the discussion under spoilers in the week 1 thread, as it makes more sense when you’ve read that!
Yeah, I also peeked at the club’s discussion. It supposedly has started at 7 Nov (two days ago). Anyway, I am thinking of temporarily dropping this one, focusing on かがみの孤城. To me, both have about the same difficulty and not too much effort; however, I don’t think I can keep up with the speed, and I need to focus on one first. Wolf and Spice, on the other hand, felt more complex.
はたらく細胞 Vol.1 Ch.1
Now, I intend to at least finish this volume. In any case, vocabulary learning appears to be simpler than general making-sense-of for other series…
The content is mildly interesting, and the word going a little upside-down. I couldn’t remember this much medical science before…
Finished reading through Junji Ito’s Cat Diary, was pretty nice mix of using horror as a form of comedy. The art was great as well. Difficulty wise it is a bit of an odd one. I had to look up plenty of vocab here and there, but it can be sparse on words as it is about his cats. Little furigana and more stylished font choice make the textboxes a little harder to read at times. A relaxing challenge maybe.
Not sure still what I’m reading next, I have Colorful on my list, but also the choice to read and finish a manga this week so I can start fresh next week. I’ll sleep on it.
Master has a new guest and that only means one thing, lots of conversation.
Japanese found under the leaves
Meowords
昔堅気「むかしかたぎ」ー Old-fashioned way of thinking; the old ways; old-fashioned spirit 膝元「ひざもと」ー Near one’s knee; close at hand; by your side 瓦解「がかい」ー Collapse; downfall
You maybe figured this one out from the context, but this has an endnote saying that お膝元 here is short for 将軍のお膝元, which is a flowery way to refer to 江戸.
Back to 秋の牢獄 today. The story is starting to pick up, and all sorts of weird things are happening. It’s still a relatively easy read, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. I’m very curious where it will go from here.
I had a loose personal policy of not reading multiple books by the same writer for now, in order to read as widely as possible and not settle into one writing style. But now here I am reading a second book by 恒川 光太郎, because how could I say no to another book club? This skews my statistics, so I’m thinking, should I maybe start reading a second book from every author I’ve read so far (well, those I liked), before adding new ones? Not that reading has ever managed to go according to plan for me, but it’s nice to have goals
I started Volume 3 of Flying Witch today, reading Chapter 13. It was a really fun chapter and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next but I have a nasty headache so I thought I’d better stop reading for now. I might try to read the next chapter later if the headache clears up though.
Ahhh, I somehow forgot the reading of 一歳 :'D Thought maybe it was ひととし or something like that
On a random (optometry student) note, during a recent lab we were measuring what kind of (lens) power we’re “supposed to have” in a set of reading glasses. As a young nearsighted person, I don’t need reading glasses, but those extra few + in power were so comfortable, I’m almost longing for some anyway :'D Cheapest solution: just take off my glasses while reading on phone!
I’m too tired and I should go to sleep right about now, so I’ll make it quick:
I don’t have access to Aria at the moment which is why I read pages 86–91 (chapters 32 and 33) in the Learn to Read in Japanese book instead.
I did not read last night. Yesterday I finished winterizing my apartment with what I already had. When I pulled out my electric carpet, it had some white spots that looked suspiciously like mold. I wiped it down before realizing that if I put it on the dani killing setting, it’ll probably get hot enough to kill it.
I finished setting it up last night and then realized that I’m pretty sure those suspicious white spots are old. Like they were on it last year and probably the year before. I got this electric carpet used and it’s pretty old. So I feel confident that it’s fine and I don’t need to worry (although I’ll run it on the dani setting a few times to be safe). Anyway I worked and stressed myself into exhaustion and did not bother reading
Quite a bit of manga-reading today! I read through the end of vol 4 of 不機嫌なモノノケ庵. I don’t remember how far the anime covered (gonna have to rewatch it soon!), but it’s definitely past this. Also, I definitely do not dislike Yahiko any less. He’s so whiny and annoying and self-centered.
Some good panels
Hanae only needed to find the ring, but he caught a tiny crab, too, and shows it off to Abeno as well. I love this dork.
They both thought the other wasn’t a high-schooler, but in opposite directions. Abeno (and Hanae) thought Zenko was younger because she’s so short, while Zenko (and Hanae) thought Abeno was older because she met him while he was dressed in a kimono for his job, which makes him seem older. And then there’s Hanae, who gets insulted as being a 5-year-old, and even sometimes treated like one by the Mononokean (see their note to him in the previous post: “Don’t go with strange youkai!”) (He did end up breaking all four of the rules though lmao) (Also I’m pretty sure he’s neurodivergent, likely ADHD)
Some of the youkai in this series are so cute. There’s Moja, of course; and Manjirou, the eel youkai who wanted Abeno’s help finding the ring lost by the old lady he’d grown attached to before being exorcised back to the Kakuriyo; and Joumatsu (perched atop Hanae’s head above) and Anmo-hime, little bird youkai.
I encountered a character today who uses 手前 as a personal pronoun, which was a first.
TIL that 弁慶の泣き所, “Achilles heel; one’s weak point,” also means “shin.” 弁慶, “strong person; person putting on a brave front,” is so called after the name of a warrior-monk, so I assume that means there’s a similar story about him to Achilles, but with his shin. (Well, 弁慶 itself may also mean “shin,” as Hanae banged his shin and yelled that, though I don’t know how common the abbreviation is as Jisho doesn’t have it listed and すね seems to be the more common word for it.)
I also read vol 9 of 極主夫道. It was great as always.
Some vocab of note:
身から出た錆 (みからでたさび) [expression] suffering the consequences of one’s actions; paying for one’s mistakes; getting one’s just deserts; reaping what one sows
逆鱗に触れる (げきりんにふれる) [expression, 一] to infuriate one’s superior; to incur the anger of one’s boss; to bring a superior’s wrath down upon oneself
More ブルーロック yay!! Never any shortage of fun characters; right now I absolutely love 士道 which is the opposite of surprising lmao. There’s also been some dialect stuff happening, though it’s always reassuring when I’m like “what are they saying??” and 潔 also doesn’t understand It’s not all fun times though, I’m sad about 玲王 which isn’t really new but we’re talking about it again, I hope he regains more confidence in himself But yeah I’m thoroughly invested!
And on a related note, my purchases for the sake of getting the rest of ブルーロック came in
Woooo getting new books is always so exciting!! The nature of it makes it better to buy in bulk so I ended up getting various things Most importantly the rest of ブルーロック that currently exists, plus a side manga about 凪 and 玲王?? also there’s a spinoff light novel with some stuff about 蜂楽 and 潔 and 凪 so that should be fun! I also got a couple other books I’ve had my eye on, plus some チェーンソーマン and 地縛少年花子くん for funsies. I don’t know much about チェーンソーマン but I read some 花子くん a while back (in English) and really liked it so it should be cool to get back to! Plus it just has really pretty art.
And then… I finally got the バディミッションBOND drama cds!! New challenge unlocked lmao. The first two came with scenario books (thank you deluxe edition) so that should help with getting used to the medium and figuring everything out. I’m super excited! I do have to figure out how I want to work with them since they are actually like… cds Not a form of media I encounter very much anymore, it’s honestly really interesting to me that Japan still has such a big market for them. Regardless, they’re very nice and the covers are sparkly and I’m very excited to try them out
Too tired out to read any of the book club books, and I’m done with the current weeks anyways. Read some stuff online (which I don’t usually count) and read some random free first volume off Bookwalker but ended up skimming a ton because I was drowning in the fantasy vocab and I chose something that looked easy, not hard!
softlyraining’s spooky book stack 
おばちゃんたちのいるところ (5% → 6%)
November 9th 
Japanese found under the leaves 
Nov 9 
It’s not all fun times though, 
New challenge unlocked lmao. The first two came with scenario books (thank you deluxe edition) so that should help with getting used to the medium and figuring everything out. I’m super excited! I do have to figure out how I want to work with them since they are actually like… cds 
青桐.
硝子の塔の殺人.
遊☆戯☆王 1.
ミステリと言う勿れ 1. I knew I loved this manga, but I’m enjoying reading it out loud with Bri even more than I expected. 