Huh, so I did not know “shounen ai” is just the term in English. That’s nice to know, thank you
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Hmm, I mean ones that stick out is there always needing to be a super femme and a super masc person in a relationship, or the gay (or particularly trans) characters just having misfortune upon misfortune piled upon them. Or just the story always being a coming out story which is fine but I’ve seen that five million times haha. Or sometimes it’s just the kind of language that’s used where I’m like “okay a straight person definitely wrote this lol”. But in fairness, I’m picky enough that most of the things I have read (even those targeted at straight women like free! or given) have been a good fun time 
Nice! Will add it to the list! thanks for the recc!
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Day 20 
三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~81% to 85%
Day 21
三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~85% to 88%, end of 4.2
No time for a proper update (these days are busier than expected), but I still managed to read at least! The story is developing faster now as we’re approaching the end. If I still have some energy, I may try to read some more before the day is over.
No time for fun vocab either, I’ll post all interesting words I’ve been collecting next chance I get.
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Ooh I think I get it now
It’s probably like how I feel about isekai? Eventually you see the same things so many times that you wonder if the writers have run out of creativity, and then you start to notice how xyz trope is kinda fishy anyway
Happiest moment of my life /hj
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I think the thing with tropes is that sometimes you love them (I’m all about detective novel tropes. Like golden era crime solving stories are nothing but tropes and I adore it) but others rub the wrong way (I can’t get into 男向け light novels for this reason I think).
BTW re the BL convo and looking for nontropey and nonadult content: 三角窓の外側は夜 (I think that’s the name - on mobile) is like 80% ghost story and 20% BL tension. It has some err… Suggestive scenes but there’s no actual adult content. PG-13 and most of that is for the ghosts. It’s a manga and a live action movie. Movie is closer to 95% ghost content though.
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Anw my reading thing for today
Gonna go through some Aozora 5-minute reads, make vocab cards, report back
Also I will time myself to see if they actually take 5 minutes for me (probably not)
- 日記帳 江戸川乱歩
Comments: Lol I don’t get how he got the letters here
三月の九日はアルファベットの第九番目のＩ、同じく十二日は第十二番目の、Ｌ
Also man was that an interesting twist! To think that his dead younger brother was in love with a woman set to marry his older brother (the mc) and that the woman loved him back but he didn’t notice it because she used coded stamp positioning even though he coded his dates to spell out “ILOVEYOU”
It took me not 5 minutes but 35 minutes to read. I’m kind of tired (old texts are way harder than I thought they would be) so I’ll stop here.
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That reminds me to look through a post you made a while back listing some I think detective novels you liked
Golden stuff right there, detective novels
Same but for their anime adaptations. Often too many harems with five versions of the same girl who seem to have no wills of their own and insane main characters who are always op compared to everyone else for me lol
Although I do like them a lot or for the first few eps whenever they have an interesting premise
I think there was an anime about that? That came out like a couple seasons ago
I didn’t know there was a manga or a live action movie. The anime was ehhh for me but those might be better. Maybe I’ll try the manga
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April 21st.
My family were still visiting today so it was a lovely, but busy day 
My niece is so adorable.
I’m a little tired out this evening, so I read a few chapters of Shirokuma Cafe.
I’m hoping to tackle the long Yotsuba chapter tomorrow since its Friday and that means I don’t need to go to bed at a reasonable time to get up for work the next morning!
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Which VN is that? How difficult would you say it is?
I started the Clannad VN a while ago but dropped it because it was too hard. Then again, that was a while ago so I should probably give it another chance 
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April 21st 
・薬屋のひとりごと (38% → 40%)
Finished chapter 15. It did a cliffhanger. Maomao’s secret???
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Hah, I did the same thing pretty early on in my studies with Clannad. Need to give that a second look for my curiosity, see how much I’ve improved.
The game is Summer Pockets! Specifically the Reflection Blue edition, a Japan-only version with tons of extra routes. I think as VNs go it’s on the relatively easier side but it definitely pulls out grammar points from all across the spectrum, mid-long sentences in narration at times, and loads of odd words. A texthooker (I can talk more about the setup if you need) would be very useful. I think SP is a little simpler than I remember Clannad’s writing being, and JPDB.io does rank it at 4/10 while Clannad is 5/10, though I have no idea if their automatic difficulty guesses are reliable at all.
The worst thing with SP is they really do not make it easy to get. I had to go to some effort to launch the game as someone not in Japan, and it’s really expensive if you get it the way I’m allowed to talk about getting it on Wanikani 
. Will just leave that as a neutral statement.
This is a lazy update post but I went for a small walk because the weather is good today, so I’m now being tormented with my migraine-adjacent vision disturbances and head pains. Achey joint day today too. I read like 2000 characters. If my health was better I’d be a lot better at Japanese and I’m mad, heh. Will read more later if I’m capable of it.
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I finished the last five pages of “An Alligator in the Yard?” The policeman is panicking when he sees the alligator, while the woman is grabbing her small dog that the gator is wanting to eat. The woman is screaming for the policeman to get the alligator! He grabs the clothes line with a load of clothes on it and ties up the alligator. But the woman is pointing out that now the clothes are on the ground and dirty, and the policeman is embarrassed.
New book tomorrow, number 11.
New Vocabulary:
だいじょうぶ
大丈夫 safe, secure, alright
まわ
お巡り Officer, usually written in kana, which it was in this story
あぶ
危ない dangerous, risky, hazardous, perilous
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三毛猫ホームズ
finished 4.3 today. Almost at the end — just one section left, but I’m too tired to pay attention for 20 more pages today.
I was surprised to see that the “how” of 森崎’s murder was pretty close to what I’d idly imagined. Logistically that way made a lot of sense, but the “why didn’t anybody notice?” part bothered me so I kept dismissing the possibility. Also what I envisioned was more like a 
and that was clearly ridiculous 
I wonder how the next/last chapter will wrap it up.
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April 21st (Day 21)
Decided that I should try and do a daily update even if it’s just a small one. I think it helps me keep on track. Anyways, I’ve continued reading 小さな闇 today. Having the English translation on the side is so fumken nice - not having to reach for my phone/laptop to search for the meanings of words is a blessing during commute. Also, there is a little notes section at the end of the book, which points out some interesting words and sentence structures in the text and explains them. For one, it explained what Gジャン (jean jacket) is and why they call it that. And they also explain references to stuff like movies and manga - so I am not left wondering why the スラムダンク print on the protagonist’s shirt is a relevant to mention.
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I also was like “crane guy is gonna kill him for talking smack about his baby” but likewise dismissed it as too obvious
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I clicked on your link and saw that there were bookstore links on the page. I get all of my Japanese books from bookwalker so I clicked on the link but it can only be accessed within Japan. So I guess this is not a book I can read at this time. 
本商品は、日本国内からアクセスした場合のみ閲覧できます。This was at the top of the page. I actually managed to read all the kanji except the last two at the end. So I was pretty sure of the meaning before Google translating the page to English. Banzai, WaniKani! Banzai, reading challenge! Banzai, reading!
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April 21
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
The Switch is back home, but I’m so close to finishing this game I might as well just do. Ended up liking it quite a bit actually . I still don’t think it’s good language practice overall but eh, it’s not like it’s too long anyways. Once I resume FF7 and whatnot I’m back to diligent vocabulary mining 
.
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Did you try Mandarake and ebay?
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@enbyboiwonder piggybacking off this comment, BOOKOFF online plus the proxy of your choice is great. I think I got all of my JoJo (over 60 vols) for just over 10,000 yen (shipped in Japan though, not internationally).
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