I bought a book recently and got excited and wanted to share it here I also miss this place
The book is in Japanese, but there’s English translations that run alongside (in rather literal English). It’s also mostly just full-page pictures too… but it’s still reading Japanese!
It’s all about Ukiyo-e, but focusing on yokai and ghosts and all that fun stuff.
Picture (it’s kinda hard taking photos of open books)
Also, I’ve been keeping up reading stories on Hukumusume almost daily, I’ve not been reading weekends and sometimes miss a busy day in the week, but thanks to these threads I’ve been keeping up the habit!
I think we were planning to start a new thread/challenge on January 1st!
Meanwhile, there’s me, I still haven’t written the summary post I meant to write for the Fall challenge
I didn’t forget, I’ve just been trying to claw my way out of a stress hole for the entire month of November
I haven’t had the chance to write for a while, I just came back from two busy weeks and a few last hectic days, but I’m back to normalcy again . I’ve been keeping up with NieR: Automata though! What a game, seriously, I’m loving it. I’ve played 27h so far, all in Japanese, and although I’ve most definitely missed nuance here and there, I’m surprisingly able to follow everything just fine. Now, the magic of these games is fully grasping the philosophical questions they raise; I would love to understand everything completely and not miss a thing, but time to time , I’ll get there some day hopefully!
But I’ve missed this thread a lot. I will try to keep posting semi frequently until January. But on a side note, I think I’ve kind of settled for an SRS app, finally, and the winner is Houhou. I just want to stop jumping from one to the other, and I like that Houhou is basically just custom WaniKani. So hopefully I will just put everything in there and that’s it to build my own collection, not changing again every couple of months. My only issue is that it doesn’t allow combinations like “zya” for じゃ , it’s my preferred way over “ja” but it’s a small inconvenience.
But anyways it’s nice to read you guys again I hope everyone’s been doing well!
I continued with the challenge. I even found a way to change the calendar to include a November checklist. Now I have finally finished 天使な小生意気 Vol. 1. Most of the words I didn’t understand but I know the story because I have watched the entire anime and read the entire manga. I also have the English translation of Vol. 1. So I figured it would be no problem to go through the manga. Well, I was right. Now that I’ve finished Vol. 1, I have remembered why I only read this manga once. This was written back in the time when persistent harassment equaled love. Anyway, I have finally finished. I skipped a few days coming down to the end. I got caught up in an English series, The Expanse. However, I remembered that I only had a few pages to read so I decided to finish it today.
I went searching on Bookwalker and there is another sale on. I got over 20 volumes of manga free. Now I am spoiled for choice. What should I read next, a shoujo or shonen? Well, I can decide that tomorrow. Or maybe I should take a few days break and start again in December? It only took me a month or so to read 天使な小生意気 if I exclude the breaks and the times that I only read one page. Well, I will see how I feel tomorrow.
Read through volume 2 of Spy x Family. It was much easier to read compared to volume 1, so something is going well. Despite that it is still wrecking me here and there lol. Anya is still really cute and the star of the manga. This volume ending on quite a cliffhanger, so I gotta continue reading
After finishing this volume I’ll take a break from reading (every day). Oh and I reached 30 volumes read on bookmeter.
Finished volume 8 of 無職転生 earlier this week, and started 9. It’s been much more lighthearted compared to 7. Never thought I would be reading about someone’s quest to cure his boner., but here we are
I’m kinda confused about シルフィ and フィッツ now though, because I could swear that they were talking to each other as separate characters in a short segment of Volume 8, but most of the time it looks as if it’s really just 1 character. The way that other characters are referred to during her short segments kinda gives it away that the writer is trying to pull one on the reader. I just hope it’s not some kind of split personality / body or any other overly convoluted explanation or asspull, which I’ve come to really dislike in a lot of fantasy storytelling.
オトメン is giving me trouble. The dialogue uses longer sentence structures which I have trouble parsing because it involves monologues and soliloquies so the pictures don’t really give a sense of plot. So I am finding myself lost on the plot. I did read a translation of オトメン years ago but I don’t really remember all the plot points. Also, shoujo manga seems to use quite a lot of fancy fonts and decorations which distorts the words a bit so I can’t understand the writing sometimes. For example, the highlighted panel in the picture below. I can’t figure out what is written there.
I believe that says あっ りょーちゃーん. Is there a character named りょー?
There’s a userscript called Jitai that lets you do your WK reviews in a variety of fonts (with the ability to see the plain font by mousing over). I’ve found it super helpful for learning to read unusual fonts!
I’m still reading every day just less than during the challenge. Either way I am super busy the whole month so there won’t be much time for reading. Right now I’m reading [老後に備えて異世界で8万枚の金貨を貯めます and playing the newest mystery horror game in japanese.
Getting pretty close to my goal of 100 days, lately I’ve mostly been reading Demon Slayer the manga and dabbling in the game and anime when I’ve unlocked enough of them by reading ahead in the manga.
Nov 22nd - Demon slayer 2.5 pages
Nov 23rd - Demon slayer 6 pages
Nov 24th - Demon slayer 1.5 - 2 pages
Nov 25th - Demon slayer 8 pages finishing chapter 8 (in 3 days)
Nov 26th - Demon slayer 7 pages (start ch. 9)
Nov 27th - Demon slayer 10 pages (fin ch. 9 in 2 days?)
Nov 28th - Demon slayer 7 pages (start ch. 10)
Nov 29th - Demon slayer 12 pages (fin ch. 10 in 2 days)
Nov 30th - Demon slayer 23 pages (start ch. 11, fin ch. 11, start ch. 12) + demon slayer game
Dec 01st - Demon slayer 1 page + old sentences + lots of demon slayer game
Dec 02nd - Demon slayer 31 pages (fin ch. 12, start ch. 13, fin ch. 13) + demon slayer game
Dec 03rd - Demon slayer 8 pages (start ch. 14) + lots of demon slayer game
This puts me at 94 days, so only 6 to go including today (haven’t counted yet as I haven’t finished reading).
It’s been really fun tracking the number of pages I’ve read as I can see a very clear growth, and the number of grammar points I encounter which I have no idea about has decreased a lot (many of them I won’t be 100% on, but any improvement above 0% is really big).
Sometimes I can go entire days without having to crank open the grammar dictionary, whereas I used to be using it multiple times a page. Still lots and lots of vocab to look up, but still counting this a huge win.
This will be my final update post in this thread as I finished reading through Spy x Family volume 3 today. It’s been just as good as the other two volumes. I read all I wanted to read and met my goals. So it’s time to end the challenge for me and relax the constraints for the rest of the month. I’ll probably still be reading and ordering new stuff, but likely not everyday. The month rest will give me some space to look at my digital collection a bit more and maybe do some more stuff on bookmeter.
This year already far exceeded my expectations when it comes to reading and I’ll be back next year swinging for more.
This manga is more dialogue-heavy than オトメン(乙男). I’ve spent more days reading it but I read less pages. Perhaps, I shouldn’t have complained about not understanding the story. However, even though 会長はメイド様！is harder to read, I can follow the story much easier. It helps that I am currently watching the anime on Blu-ray and I read the English translation of volume 1 recently.
A Long-Delayed Reflection Post
Only a month late, but who’s counting
First, I will start with accomplishments!
With some…bending of the rules () I did keep my streak and read every day!
I didn’t finish High Speed, but I did read 162.5/228 pages, so…71% of the way there xD I don’t mind that I didn’t finish it, though - despite the name, I think this novel is one to savor, rather than rush through. Once I started reading it, I realized that I wanted to take my time and fully enjoy the book, which sometimes meant setting it aside for a bit when I knew I wasn’t in the mindset to enjoy it. I really have enjoyed finding these characters again <3 I love them just as much as I did 8+ years ago when I first met them through the anime :3 I was going to make myself a goal of finishing the book before the start of the next challenge, but then work exploded sooo I don’t think I will make that goal after all. I’ll come back to it for sure
Aside from reading High Speed, I also read 685 pages of manga and finished 5 manga volumes (6 if you count the one I started prior to the challenge)
Overall, I read for a whopping 55 hours over the course of the challenge - not quite as much as I read in the summer challenge, but still 55 hours I wouldn’t have spent reading otherwise
Bonus: I got to enjoy a lot of really cute things I love our Tanuki Cuteness Brigade - I had so much fun sharing cute things and hearing about even more cute things to enjoy Also, PS, I bought that big fluffy bird plushie - 10/10 would buy again (so round big fluffy ball of birb)
One thing that continues to elude me is actually building a habit without the “threat” of the challenge hanging over my head I have read exactly nothing since the end of the challenge, which is not entirely my own fault (thanks, work, love you ), but I just…can’t help but feel a little annoyed by how readily I let it drop.
Some more thoughts related to that
So, something that made me feel a bit guilty - when the challenge was done, I felt a little…relieved? And I don’t really know how to take that? Like, what am I relieved about?
That I don’t have to read every day? (Why are you like this, me, don’t you like reading? )
That I can “let go” of a routine? (Why are none of the changes I try to make ever sustained/sustainable)
That I don’t have to post every day? (Not that there was even an obligation to do that anyway, but I definitely feel pressure from myself to do that sometimes - I do feel like it keeps me on track, so I feel I should, but I, like…don’t want to be kept on track, sometimes, if that even makes sense. I feel like it also might have helped if I’d made my posts a bit shorter/simpler But if I’m posting I want to…you know, say something. …It’s a complex issue lol)
And maybe it’s none of the above, maybe it’s just life (aka work) overwhelming me like freaking always and making me eager to drop everything I can, but even thinking that doesn’t stop me from being annoyed about how easy it is for me to get overwhelmed by stuff. It happens, like…not infrequently. Where I have to let stuff drop, because something has to give and that thing can’t ever be work. I hate that I feel like I’m the only one at work who has this problem to such a degree.
Aaaanyway…enough on that xD
I’m happy I had the opportunity to run this challenge thread :3 You all made this such a fun experience And it was awesome getting to introduce this challenge to more people ^^
thank you for this, this makes me feel better! I think I managed to read the first few days of November and then it just gradually petered out. My Christmas holidays start in 10 days time and I had been hoping to finish the novel that I had started by then, so I could read a new one over Christmas…but as it is I’ve still got 100 pages to go. Can I do 10 per day between now and then? erm, probably not.
As you say, something always has to give and sadly it tends to be reading. For me, I think that’s almost because I do enjoy it - unlike SRS - and also because it’s not going to come back and bite me later (unlike SRS).
One nice update from me though: I tweeted (in japanese) to one of the manga-ka whose works I really love, and they re-tweeted it and replied, and it might have actually been the happiest moment of 2021 for me? Even more so because loads of people replied underneath and no-one said jouzudesune.
Yeah, I feel you. I would think that perhaps because of the nature of these things, a “challenge” being something, well, challenging, takes effort. It comes with a certain mental pressure to keep oneself up to par. This is work, after all, at least I know it is for me. We’re going from something we didn’t do before to something new that is mentally taxing, which is reading everyday. It’s only natural that after two months of work the brain is happy that suddenly the commitment is lifted.
Makes 200% sense. I didn’t feel like posting some days, and I also felt the pressure of writing things for the sake of having something to say, but I just concluded that I just simply had nothing to say many times, so I just made a very short post with what I did and that’s it. And it worked quite well for me ^^ .
Another thing that I understand completely. In my case it’s from having a currently-not-so-healthy brain, and I want to drop everything frequently and retreat to the safe bubble. I think that’s inevitable, but I also think that none of what we’ve already done will be taken from us. Even if you didn’t read anything since the challenge finished, that won’t take away the two full months that you did read. So don’t beat yourself up, you did indeed work a lot (55 hours of just reading alone? That’s impressive). I think it’s also good to chill for a bit .
I think in my case in particular, perhaps it’s the limitation to “reading” that feels just a tiny bit suffocating sometimes. I’m not a particularly avid reader in my day to day life, though I really like reading, especially if it’s something that I have a lot of interest in. Reading everday, for two months, in a foreign language that I don’t have a very solid grasp on yet… yeah that’s work on top of work. I’ve struggled a bit to find something that I would love to read every single day, so many days were just a filler to keep the streak going. But on the other hand, I would absolutely have no issue at all, and I know this for a fact because I do it already, to do anything in Japanese everyday. And what I mean by that is: I could read one day, then listen to podcasts the next, then back to reading the other, then watching a couple episodes of a TV show, then a couple videos on YouTube, then back to reading. And so on.
Now, I don’t want to change the soul of the challenge, especially when most people here are fine with it being exclusively for reading (and I am as well, for the most part!). But I’m wondering, could we make it work somehow… if we made it broader to other media, something like a “Japanese every day challenge - [season] 2022” sort of thing? Where people who wanted to read read, people who wanted to listen to podcasts listened to them, people who wanted to watch anime/TV shows/whatever (always being mindful of not publicly sharing piracy), and so on? So everyone would still make updates like we already do, but they would be of any sorts. I think it would attract more people, more interactions, and more discoveries and sharing.
It’s just a thought though! I’m getting ready for the Winter challenge. I’m interested in knowing what’s you all’s opinion on this though. I would like it myself, but I can definitely see how some wouldn’t like it. Also it’s worth mentioning that it wouldn’t mean to change the focus from reading, everybody would still have their own personal goals which can still focus entirely on reading . It would drift away a bit from being some sort of book club, though.
I like that idea. That way on days that I watch anime, I don’t have to scramble to read something especially if I’m not in the mood and just want to go to bed. It would also mean that I will have more reason to watch some of my anime backlog.
Dec 1st or Jan 1st 
. I’ve been keeping up with NieR: Automata though! What a game, seriously, I’m loving it. I’ve played 27h so far, all in Japanese, and although I’ve most definitely missed nuance here and there, I’m surprisingly able to follow everything just fine. Now, the magic of these games is fully grasping the philosophical questions they raise; I would love to understand everything completely and not miss a thing, but time to time 
, I’ll get there some day hopefully!
, it’s my preferred way over “ja” but it’s a small inconvenience.
I hope everyone’s been doing well!
Also, PS, I bought that big fluffy bird plushie - 10/10 would buy again (so round 
big fluffy ball of birb)
I have read exactly nothing since the end of the challenge, which is not entirely my own fault (thanks, work, love you 
), but I just…can’t help but feel a little annoyed by how readily I let it drop.
)
But if I’m posting I want to…you know, say something. …It’s a complex issue lol)
. It would drift away a bit from being some sort of book club, though.