Smol read, big fruit :3!
I think you are spot on with your statement of how showing up to do your thing every day, even if it might not be fun all the time, still helps you form a habit in the long run. That’s exactly what I’ve learned from doing WK every day too. “Buckets of sand can make a mountain” or however that saying was. This was basically something @jprspereira preached and I took his word for it and I’m so glad I did.
Day 61: November 4
What did I read?: じじ猫くらし
How much did I read?: 40 pages
How long did it take me?: 36 min
Good words:
Last day! I’m gonna do a separate end-of-challenge post a bit later, though, since I still need to set up the home for my new plant 
tonight I don’t have pets, I have plants lol
Success!
No one can stop the CATS 
Aww 
I’m sure she was happy on the inside 
I am loving everyone’s summary/reflection posts, and also the idea of a low key Tanuki Cuteness Brigade book club! 
I also just had to say that I came across this phrase for the first time today: 目の下のクマ !!! In Japanese you don’t have circles under your eyes, you have bears! (so cute) 
I’ll make a proper update one day I swear, took last week off work to try recover my wrists a bit, might take part of this week - so I’m minimising computer & phone usage for a while.
I finished the challenge and for now at least I’m going to keep going… one day I’d like to reach 100 days continuous reading, not sure if now is the time, but I have so many things that I’m excited to read (in particular demon slayer) that reading currently isn’t a chore.
Finished reading Spy x Family volume 1. Probably the toughest thing I have read so far, but made it through. Had to relax my goals a bit as the first two chapters were really too much for me to read in a single reading session. The interview in the last chapter was also a lot of things at once, makes it a bit hard to follow the flow of conversation. That said, it is not impossible and I’d like to continue reading it.
I already ordered some more manga to stimulate myself. In the meanwhile, I’ll start reading from the hero Avan series. I have no experience with this manga at all, but I do follow the anime it is spun off from and I have been meaning to get into DQ more recently. I think it would be a fun new experience, as I haven’t read any shounen manga in Japanese before.
I’m sure that will happen. Finishing my japanese books won’t be that hard I only have probably around ten books and ninety manga volumes (most were free on bookwalker).
But finishing all visual novels on the other hand should be near impossible. There are much longer than a book and imo the average visual novel is way harder than the average book. Not even knowing all grammar in the tobira book is enough to understanding visual novels.
Speaking of visual novels I started to play Island. Compared to the other visual novels I played, this one seems to be pretty easy. While playing I look up all words I don’t know and put them into my anki deck, including the sentences they appeared in the vn.
授乳
月刊少女野崎くん３
かがみの孤城
It figures that I become busy the moment I make loftier goals for myself. 
Despite that, I’m still fitting in reading where I can.
授乳: I started the next short story, 「コイビト」. Right out of the gate, Murata slaps you with a peculiar scenario: a girl making out with a stuffed hamster. Honestly, I really liked the buildup to finding out what exactly ホシオ is. I’m definitely curious to see where this one goes.
月刊少女野崎くん３: Read through a whole chapter of Valentine’s Day shenanigans, starting off with Chiyo eating a chocolate from the box she was going to give to Nozaki. 
かがみの孤城: A new book for my list! I’ve been wanting to read this ever since I bought it in Japan, but it’s thickness was too intimidating. Since a book club for it started up this past weekend, though, I thought I’d take a crack at it. Not too much to say about it yet, though it took me a second to realize that こころ is the name of the protagonist, and not referring to the narrator’s heart/mind/whatever. 
As a side note, I recently found the twitter account for the writer of 夜は猫といっしょ (for those who are fans of the manga). It looks like they have a blog, if you feel like you need more for your fix of cute kitties.
(click for home post)
Finished reading ノルウェイの森 the other week, overall kinda meh. Way outta my depth kanji/vocab-wise but still finished it. I’ll probs read it again next year when I’m at level 60.
Right now I’m reading 新海誠’s first (or one of his earlier?) books, 雲の向こう、約束の場所. I haven’t seen the movie so I’m kinda bored but overall, not too bad so far.
thank youuuuuuuuu. More kittehs to interrupt my twitter feed.
OH NO it’s animated?! This is the best, thanks for sharing!! 
There’s also plushies on the twitter!
OH NO x2
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I need all the cute kitties in my life rn
That gif is so cute omg 
OH NO OH NO OH NO
So soft I was literally just looking at that gif thinking about how much I wanted to pet the kitty and I…I could pet the kitty :o
Read through the prologue and chapter 1 of the Hero Avan series. It was as expected easier to deal with than Spy x Family, vocabulary wise it leans more towards older usage of language. Funny enough I also picked up skyward sword a bit more and was reading a passage of Japanese mythology in tobira, so that bumped off each other quite well. Once again gotta give kids props for dealing with tiny furigana. Although it gets easier to deal with when there’s more space to breathe. Had to refer to a list of the DQ spells, to kinda connect it with what I already know. Avan already comes off as an established character who knows his own strengths and weaknesses, but has never been challenged as much before. I have already met some familiar looking faces here and there, which makes sense considering it is a new story that takes place before Dai begins. Similar to the Dai series, we’re off to a great start.
Will be reading some more of Avan in the coming days. I had put in an order for more manga which arrived today:
Yes it’s easier than the other ones I play, but there are still grammar points used not covered in the tobira book. Also discovered the first n1 grammar point already. But I will play it every day until I finish it and sentence mine the whole visual novel.
Of course I will also finish everything I already started.
Okay my long overdue update, sorry for length, funnily enough this is me trying to be brief >.>
It looks like Demon Slayer volume 1 took me from 2021-10-12 to 2021-11-11
Although I still have lots and lots to revisit, I get all the gist, but small details I’m not 100% confident on. My copy is filed with sticker highlight markers and I even overcame my discomfort of “damaging books” enough that I started keeping pencil notes in the margins.
And I now have volumes 2-10 sitting on my desk waiting =D
@NicoleRauch thanks again so very much, that was the best and exactly the nudge I needed.
@sycamore O. M. G. Tanjiro is the best boy!
paying the farmers for the basket - I was initially was confused by this scene as I thought the images implied he was stealing the basket and slapping the farmers hand - which didn’t seem to fit his character. After actually working through the lines it got a chuckle out of me and I think I’ll never forget it.
worrying about how to mercifully kill his first demon, worrying about the rock not killing it in a single blow and that causing suffering (hope I followed that right), to the point where he waits out the whole night and it “dies of “natural causes”
in chapter 6 after going full power hardcore shounen boy mode and easily dispatching two demons, he prays for their souls.
I’ve slowly going through the anime without subtitles, only remotely doable as I already know the plot from the manga.
I started playing the game and although it’s slow I was able to follow through the tutorial and all of its screens of messages, I thought I might have missed something so tried it in English and actually did worse (one of the phrases around button holding in Japanese was clearer I think?) but at the least gained nothing new.
nice! you have reached true enlightenment in the ways of the best boy.
also - I did not know that there was a demon slayer game! ooooh! And you can switch back and forth between Japanese and English? Very tempting!
Yes!, at least on PS4 and Steam the game included Japanese audio, subtitles, and game ui (menus and stuff).
I’m playing on PS4 and I can just switch my system language back and forth, and I can load my saves to replay scenes in the other language.
Not sure how one switches on Steam, maybe based on PC system language? But the steam games page mentions Japanese ui included.
All the in game dialogue and anime clips so far are voiced and subtitles (if you turn that setting on).
It is a fighting game, they’re not usually my thing but I’ve been trying to find ways to game more in Japanese and this just lined up.
The graphics are super pretty for the breathing moves, but I’m not sure it’s good at telling the story as it’s a bit constrained by the fighting game medium, so it uses lots of optional clips from the anime to fill in the pieces which aren’t sword swinging.
Please don’t buy based on me without watching some reviews, it just came out so is also at an all time price high.
Been reading 無職転生, I’m at the end of volume 6 now. It’s been quite entertaining in general, and not as hard to read as I initially thought.
Words cannot properly convey how mad I am at what happens near the end of the volume though. I (think I) get what the author is trying to do, but the way it was handled made no sense to me. I’m still salty.
Read bit more of 雲の向こう、約束の場所.
Also started reading some of the reading practice thingies on Bunpro. Overall kinda neat, would’ve been nice reading practice back when I first started studying grammar but whatevs.
Woooow, that sounds like a great achievement! One month precisely 
Awww you’re so very welcome 
Speaking of which, here is your vocab deck for Volume 2 
[EDIT: Just realized that the export was incomplete; now it’s fixed]
And if you like, could you ping me once you’re around halfway through Vol. 2 so that I can continue reading a bit ahead of you? I’m currently indulging in some other books (and also JLPT stuff, urgh) but I’d like to continue reading the Demon Slayer at some point.
And his teacher being all like “OMG he’s hopeless” 
Loved that!
