This is getting kinda meta, reading about a light novel in the reading thread rather than reading it
I usually spend about an hour reading and see how far I can get into an article (spoiler: not very far), but this article is HUGE. I think it’d take until the end of this challenge to complete it.
大英帝国 - British Empire, first time seeing this. It amuses me that it’s “Big English Emperor Country”, though saying that, it makes a lot of sense.
Never heard of this before but I just love all the cool sounding names for everything:
神性機巧 - Divine Technique 魔術喰い - Black Magic Eater 剣帝 - Sword Emperor or better yet… The Sword Lord
And my favourite so far: 焼却の魔王 - Demon King of Incineration
I always have a ton of indecision, so there’ll always be some doubts just from reading the first few pages, but I do have a couple books that I’ll be adding to my 読みたい本 list on Bookmeter!
Which are....
I’ve been wanting to read novels lately, and within that 地球星人 and TSUGUMI are my two front runners.
地球星人’s story sounds intriguing (I’m in the mood for drama!), and there are plenty of words I can pick up while reading it seems!
Pretty much the same feeling for TSUGUMI. The story description sounds not as twisted as 地球星人, but there’s the add bonus of it being recognized in the art of storytelling (I want to experience what that means).
If it’s a manga, I’m super into reading 日本人の知らない日本語✨ I live for this type of knowledge!
I could go for literally so many of the others too, but I think the top three for now is best.
If I join, this would be my first bookclub! I’m really excited and curious to see which one gets selected.
I was on the fence about whether or not to reset my count. I didn’t so much read as translate fifteen minutes of episode 1 of 破門. I was only going to do an important exposition sequence because I barely understood it back when I watched it, but then I was just having fun translating.
I was going to give myself a streak of zero, but I suppose I read every line via the subtitles. And looked up so much vocab about construction work. Riveting.
Nah, I kid. I came across a lot of interesting stuff outside of that. ^^ I didn’t really take any notes, but I usually just look through my kotobank and jisho search history for the day to check what I had to look up.
I think I’ll resort to looking more stuff up through the kotobank app. Then I can add words that I look up more than once to my 単語帳.
I just have to say that this little challenge has been good motivation for me so far. I usually dread reading because it’s very mentally taxing and takes hours for me to make much progress, so a more relaxed mindset of ‘I just have to do a little bit so I can keep up my streak’ is a nice change. Cheers to all you other eager readers.
I didn’t have time to write it last night, but the start of the epilogue really was something.
Tried to avoid writing spoilers
Wanted to ask マイン what the heck she was doing. I guess I kinda know the reason why now, but it still felt like she had done a big mistake, a bad move. I’m curious where this will lead. So far, the shinkanchou seems reasonably chill about it? xD I have no read on this guy…
I finished the first volume of 星と旅する. It was strange but still fun to read.
Then I started the second volume of あさこ I really like the manga. Unfortunately I think there are only three volumes published.
6.9.
My bits and pieces of 授乳 the previous days actual ended up being exactly week one of the book club schedule, go figure. I read the part for week 2 yesterday.
More importantly, for myself, I read more of リゼロ17, finally managing to finish chapter 4. This volume has such long parts! For some reason I always find it much harder to find the motivation to start reading long parts than if there’s a lot of breaks.
I also read a bit of 人間失格.
7.9.
Today I read the week 3 part of 授乳. Looking forward to finishing the first short story soon! I also read a few pages of 使ってはいけない日本語, and chapter 3 of キノの旅1, which I’m re reading right now.
Day 7: September 7
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード!
How much did I read?: 4 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 5 min
Man, I’m tiredddd as heck today. Still managed to read 4 pages, and fairly fast? But not a ton of energy left for writing this post I need to stop updating so late tbh, I probably should have gone to bed like an hour ago
Today’s pages were a little bit depressing - it’s a cold, windy winter day in the novel and man did it feel that way. A feeling that was further accentuated by Haru’s memory of the freaking funeral procession… Gotta say, the author does know how to create a mood. Poor sweet baby Makoto “hiding in Haru’s shadow” while they watch the funeral procession just broke my heart a little bit…like I just want to comfort him And then after we get done remembering that, we have a brief and awkward interaction with Aki in which Haru basically overthinks everything he says and does, and concludes that’s he’s saying and doing literally everything “wrong.” Which honestly, what a relatable mood <3
Good words from today (this novel is so full of good words that I want to remember, I love it):
うつむく - to hang one’s head; to look down; to cast one’s eyes downward
嗚咽 (おえつ) - sobbing; weeping; fit of crying (and honestly, what a distressed-looking word, like the kanji just look like sobbing)
蠢く (うごめく) - to wriggle; to squirm; to crawl like a worm (this was written in kana, but I had to include this kanji, I mean look at it. It’s got bugs in it. I really love when kanji look like their meanings, can you tell)
思い当たる (おもいあたる) - to suddenly understand (esp. on basis of experience or memory); to come to mind; to recall (in a flash); to be reminded of; to call to mind; to think of; to strike on; to hit on an answer; to seize the crux of a problem
I read all of chapter 2 in 手紙！ I’ve loved watching true crime TV since I was pretty young with my Dad, so the topic of this books is right up my alley. CRIMES. But this is the first time I’ve seen a story detail what it could feel like to be the relative of a criminal, specifically on the day the incident goes out on the news. The younger brother has to deal with the aftermath of his older brother’s choices while still functioning in society. Wild.
Not typing any spoilers yet, but from the next post I’ll probably start talking about more details (and blurring them).
Today's words:
淀む(よどむ) = literally, to stagnate. But in this context it was figurative, to stutter or hesitate (in saying)
叶う(かなう) = to come true (a wish)
事情聴取(じじょうちょうしゅ) = (police) interview, questioning (a witness, suspect)
一通り(ひととおり) = generally, more or less
渦巻く = literally, to whirl/Eddy. Figuratively, to be all jumbled together (thoughts).
First week in! 
The Sword Lord 
(one week completed yay 
)
But not a ton of energy left for writing this post 
I need to stop updating so late tbh, I probably should have gone to bed like an hour ago
7日目 9月8日
Day 8
The younger brother has to deal with the aftermath of his older brother’s choices while still functioning in society. Wild.