📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

Its been over 2 weeks now and I can already feel my reading getting faster and my Japanese improving when I daydream random conversations :blush: :sweat_smile:

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I agree. I’m noticing the same thing. I am seeing more how the grammar works, too. I am so happy I joined this challenge! I’m going to have to get the Level 1 sets of Graded Readers soon. :books:

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Yer the grammar for me too👍🏻 Such a great challenge

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Happy birthday and many returns of the day! @Memoria

Though it seems based on my time zone, it’s already a belated birthday greeting?

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Summary Post

Day 19: April 19th
What did I read?: 異刻メモワール
How much did I read?: 144 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 20 min

My intent was to read one chapter but
I ACCIDENTALLY FINISHED IT

So, to explain a little more about this manga, the set-up of the story is basically that a boy named Tomo runs into this…boy-shaped being named Ritsu on his way home from school. Ritsu accidentally takes Tomo back “home” with him to the spirit world, and they can’t figure out how to get him back. So pretty much Tomo’s just hanging out in this weird spirit realm with Ritsu lol, it’s like slice of life meets the spirit world.

I feel like this manga has such a comfy cozy feeling, sprinkled with some casually terrifying things that you somehow still know won’t hurt you for real. It’s such a vibe. It’s weird and it’s lovely and it’s mystical and it’s beautiful. Very Japan. I think Tomo has a really sad backstory - though it hasn’t been told to us explicitly in words, you definitely get some hints about it. He’s just a sad, lonely kid looking for somewhere to be safe. And Ritsu is the sweetest, most cheerful little buddy, I love him, he’s so cute xD I hope he doesn’t have some sort of tragic backstory too, that would break me

Meeting Ritsu :3

This is my favorite panel of him though :joy:


(It’s a long story but they were having a fashion show)

All my emotions in the last chapter :sob: I legit cried, I don’t want to spoil it but man it really sucker-punched me straight in the feels. The author has a really skillful way of telling a story without words - like, you feel what happened before you can even totally articulate what it was. You just, like…you feel it.

This is labeled as “volume 1,” so I assume there will be more and I will absolutely be buying them whenever they come out.

Almost forgot my words
  • 塗 (みどろ) - covered with; stained; smeared
  • 大家さん (おおやさん) - landlord; landlady
  • お連れ (おつれ) - companion; company​
  • 人攫い (ひとさらい) - kidnapper; abductor
  • 私なり (わたしなり) - (in) my own way
  • うなされる - to have a nightmare; to make a noise during a nightmare

I have not seen Spirited Away, so I can’t really comment on that very accurately :sweat_smile: But from the synopsis on Wikipedia I skimmed just now, it does sound like a similar vibe xD


Happy birthday @Memoria! :partying_face: :tada: Might be belated…it’s still Tuesday here lol

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Summary Post

April 19
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun


Yet one more mission. I think I’m reaching the end.

@Memoria Happy birthday!

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I need to try this story. It sounds amazing!

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April 19 - Happy birthday @Memoria :birthday: :partying_face:

I read up to what’s aired so far of Spy x Family anime (first two chapters). I really want to keep reading, but part of what made it easy was skipping over words I didn’t recognize because the anime subtitles were still in my short-term memory, so I knew what was being talked about more or less. Reading further means I have to actually pay attention :stuck_out_tongue:

Gotta read chapter 64 of Haikyuu this week, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to attend the read along on Saturday. I didn’t realize a conference I’m attending runs Thurs - Sat. :sweat:

Meanwhile I shouldn’t forget about this goal…:

Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
2 /10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes

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I have a busy morning tomorrow and wrapped up my main reading for the evening, so figured I may as well post now since I have questions for those with Big Grammar Brains :brain:

I re-read the first half of Case 0, carefully going through sentence by sentence for comprehension. It was rough, but there were actually only 4 sentences that really snagged me - one was the description of the relationship of a victim to the murderer, one was about silkworms, and two were about politics. The two about politics I don’t have full confidence I managed to understand, so am posting them.

So I guess 鬼熊 was previously employed by some dude named 五木田 who is part of the 憲政会 and the newspapers were spreading rumors that like, he hadn’t been caught cause of that connection.

Relevant quote that I struggled my way through, attempt at translation

〈鬼熊はかつて憲政会のために運動したることありたりというわけにて政友会方面においては彼を捕縛するがためかくのごとく時日を遷延する所以のものは県の警察部長始め当局者が彼等を保護するがためなりと称しつつあり〉という見方を紹介した。

かくのごとく == のように according to my dictionary

しつつある == to be in the process of doing s.t.

“Because Onikuma once (sometimes?) campaigned for the Kenseikai, from the point of view of the Seiyuukai, the delaying of his capture is because the head of the prefecture’s police, the top authority, wants to protect him* .” was the opinion laid out.

I can tell I’m glossing over some points here and this sentence sent me topsy turvy so any pointers appreciated. I * marked him in my translation because that’s clearly plural, but I don’t see which subject would be plural?!

and then there was another scandal involving the same politician (五木田) which so far as I could tell wasn’t related to 鬼熊 but just like, he and the party weren’t looking too classy?

Next relevant quote I struggled through, with translation attempt

五木田と対立関係にあったとされる政友会議員の護衛などのため、政友会院外団の大物が現地に駆け付けたともいう

Keeping in mind that Gokita is a member of the 憲政会/kenseikai, my super rough translation is “It is said that top members of the seiyuukai ingai group rushed to guard one of their Diet members from Gokita, with whom he was said to have bad blood.”

I think I got this one, but it was a lot for me to parse so let me know if you know!

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Yes, it’s “them”, here. Specifically, I would say that it refers to 憲政会. Like, arresting him could lead to some bad press/reveals/whatever with respect to that group (since he used to be with them).
That’s a pretty hard sentence, though. I had to look at it a few times, and I’m not even 100% sure :sweat_smile:

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Ahh 彼等 being the 憲政会 makes sense, yes, thank you! I’m glad I’m not alone in finding that sentence rough. I wonder if it’s just because it’s a longer direct quote from a 1920s newspaper that it’s so…much :sweat_smile:

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Aaah! That makes sense, then. I tried (through Aozora bunko) to check a few things from that period, and they always gave me that kind of feeling. I think that I’m just not used to that period’s writing style.

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April 19th (Calendar Post)

Felt too tired today and couldn’t read as much as I wished to.
もし、恋が見えたなら => 78 pages (86 minutes)

Some fun manga panels:

image

No, I swear this is not one of those isekai’d into an RPG game…

だよね~

Second time running into this vocab, quite a fun one:

image

paw pats good insect!

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Hey, what are the odds, same exact word today! Realize now I forgot to mention new words in my post again. First time I’ve ever seen this one, myself.

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I used it in a post a bit ago.

Maybe I’ll start throwing in common phrases to teach people who read my posts. 自分で言うのもなんですが、that may not be a bad idea.

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㋃18-19 – Days 18-19

Whoops, multiday update again? I am painfully more busy than I would like :sweat_smile:

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

4/18
58-71

Also various picture books like 名前(なまえ)のない(ねこ). I considered recommending it for abbc, but the grammar is almost identical page to page, as you’d expect from a book called “The Cat with No Name”

4/19
72-94
Will: You two (JoJo and Speedwagon) stand back, I’ll fight! Hands off the fight to JoJo

Also, I am discovering that my tolerance of JoJo when there are no frogs or Dio is painfully low… I may have to skip Part 3 and return to it when I feel like I can conquer 15 Dio sparse volumes lol

also sampled some pages of the shark field guide that I bought the day before. It’s just as cute inside as it is outside. Wonderfully educational too. I might read it between JoJo Parts…

Ok, so things I can tolerate reading- Dio, frogs, sharks, mini DGio…

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Heck yeah I finished ヒゲとナプキン

Perfect day for it, too. Day 1 of T

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Home

I read Seed 16 of GREEN. It’s hilarious that when Wako fainted, sensei put a dictionary definition for it lmao

(For context, it seems they thought she was gonna get mad—which, she was; she’d received a ticket to use the outdoor bath at the onsen and was trying to find the chance to ask Makoto to go with but she dropped it, and the men picked it up without realizing it was hers and were trying to get her to join them - “We’re the Mikoshi Crew! ‘Man’ or ‘woman’ has nothing to do with it! We’re bound by holy bonds!”—but then she passed out from too much alcohol.)

I also read 壁の穴 ch 31-34.

I’d had designs on reading some 2.43 today, too, but that never ended up happening… I’ll just have to read more tomorrow to make up for it.

Some vocab of note:

忘年会 (ぼうねんかい) [noun] end-of-year party. Another one I learned on WK and then encountered in GREEN soon after! (Though it was more than an hour later this time.)
失神 (しっしん) (also, 失心) [noun] faint; trance; swoon; stupefaction. And here I learn that 神 can also have the meaning of “soul.” Which also makes showing a person’s soul leave their body when they faint or whatever make more sense (though I had understood it by feeling): that’s this word.

Does anyone know of any sites to buy JP-language books that ship to the U.S.? Aside from Amazon, Manga Republic, CDJapan, and Kinokuniya. Because I’m trying to find a book and would really like to get it for less than $38 (total) if possible, and those are the only sites I know and they either don’t have it or it’s expensive (even pre-shipping).

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April 19 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

More VLR ofc! I didn’t play quite as much as I expected (I got my roommate to start playing danganronpa so that was a distraction lmao) but I’m solidly into the last route now! Perhaps I’ll finish in the morning :eyes:

(I also read part of the sample for 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ as part of my chaos move to attempt the advanced book club :joy: so that’s also exciting! The books are on the way, and by the time the club starts it’ll be summer and I should definitely be done with Zero Escape so it’s cool to have at least one new adventure in place :blush:)

Probably late but happy birthday!!! :tada: :tada: :tada: Ahhh that’s so exciting, I hope you have a great time with it! :grin:

Zero Escape cult Zero Escape cult Zero Escape cult

Oooooh that sounds right up my alley, definitely will have to check it out :eyes:

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Exactly half yes and half no
Maybe closer to no lately since I have trouble finding books on Kindle (using the US Store)
But my dictionary app has such good handwriting recognition that it’s kinda like an instantaneous lookup. Does that count?

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