April 26 
Home Post
Not a big reading day today; I was pretty busy and thus pretty tired by the time I could read, so no Zero Escape today. Instead I impulse-read the first page of ツルネ mostly just to check off the box 
Hopefully tomorrow will be more active!
Aaaaaughhhh I keep looking at different novels I want, but it takes me at least two months to get through a single one! Well, I could almost certainly finish 夜カフェ today but I’ve been holding back since I feel like I should keep pace with the club, but the ones that are more like N3 level or whatever, which is mostly what I’m interested in, take that long. I’ve only finished 2 novels so far and I’ve still got a bunch left, why am I looking at more, augh! Manga are fine since I can generally finish those in a week or less, but novels! I gotta increase my reading/comprehension speed first! This is torture! Not being able to read is torture! Augh, 活字中毒, indeed… 泣くなるぞ!
I read ch 6 and the 描き下ろし of 星だけが知ってる, finishing the manga! It’s so good, I love it.
It starts out with a flashback to Kengo’s childhood. Ah, or rather, a dream. I thought this chapter would be from Kengo’s POV, then, like some stories do, but it seems it’ll switch off.
We meet one of Sora’s professors and learn that he’s red-green colorblind, and Sora says that someone he knows might be the same. I wonder if it’s Kengo. 1) It would make more sense plot-wise than if it’s one of his college friends or something, especially as this is the last chapter, and 2) you can’t become an astronaut if you have a vision impairment of any sort, can you? It would explain why he started acting weird when the announcement of a new Japanese astronaut joining the ISS crew was made: it’s not him but he wishes it was, but it’s impossible. (How would Sora know though? It’s not like there was any indication, unless I just missed it.)
Ahhh yeah the professor is talking about occupations you can’t have if you’re colorblind: aviation-related, driver, Japan Self-Defense Force, etc… Aaaaa and that night, Sora’s channel-surfing and happens upon part of an interview on the news with Astronaut Toono and thinks back to his conversation with the professor and some of the things Kengo has told him (about how when he sees kids trying their best he can’t help but root for them) and looks up the application requirements for being an astronaut, and you have to have normal color vision. Ah, my heart hurts.
So I finally looked up what 色検 is despite this not being the first chapter it’s shown up since Sora wants to take or get it, and as I thought, it’s an abbreviation. It’s short for 色彩検定. I tried looking it up but I still don’t understand what it is. But it’s apparently the reason why, when we switch back to Kengo’s POV, Shiori asks whether Sora knows about his colorblindness or not. Kengo isn’t particularly hiding it or anything, but he also hasn’t told him.
One night—it’s February now—Sora searches for the place where he first met Kengo, wanting to meet him, and he does. Even though there’s no meteor shower or anything today, they both felt like they wanted to come here. Apparently when Sora was little, he wanted to become an airplane. Not a pilot, but a plane lol. He sounds like he was a cute kid.
omg, they’re paralleling their first meeting. When they first met, Kengo asked why Sora was here, and he said that even if he asks, it’s not interesting, but then told him anyway. Here, Sora asks Kengo what he’d wanted to be when he was a kid, and Kengo says that, even if he asks, it’s not interesting, but he tells him anyway. For as long as he can remember, he’s always loved outer space. He was more interested in picture books about space than other toys, and he spent so much time out on the balcony with a telescope in winter that he’d catch cold (and then just stay inside and read his space books lol). When he was 8, a Japanese astronaut went up into space on a space shuttle, and ever since then, he’s wanted to be an astronaut himself, and he started checking out more books at the library and working hard learning math and science and English, all so that he could become an astronaut too when he was older. But then, when he was 10, he learned that he had congenital red-green colorblindness, and his dreams came crashing down. After he finishes his story, Sora leans in and kisses him, “because the 10-year-old Kengo-san was crying.” And it was his first time telling anyone about his childhood dream, too. Aaaaa my heart ♡♡♡
Not entirely sure what happens after that, something about asking if Sora kissing him means it’s all right if he doesn’t hold back from now on and admitting he’s probably liked him from the beginning. Then he says that he’s always at the shop, so Sora’s free to come or not come. Sora thinks that Kengo is really unfair, always leaving him an escape route. Even so… He goes back to the café (the next day, I’m assuming?) and sits at the counter again and confesses that he likes Kengo’s coffee the best. Kengo’s like, “Thank you. By the way, is it just my coffee? What about me?” / “Eh—” “…I don’t dislike you.” / “I like you, Sora-kun.” / “Eh— Wai— Kengo-san?!” lol they’re cute
There was zero smut in this one, not even in the 描き下ろし like there sometimes is (heck, they don’t even properly start dating until the 描き下ろし), and no gross tropes either, so there was zero mistake in my hasty purchase of this one! Anyway I’ll definitely be getting Furuya-sensei’s other books; the English version of ふたりのライオン had been on my wish list for years, and searching for the original on Amazon JP is how I found 星だけ, so I think I’ll get that one next time. It’s so hard to prioritize though lol, there are so many I wanna get, but I can’t get them all at once. (My problem with figuring out which one I wanna read next, too…)
Also, I’m putting off reading the rest of 極主夫道 because I only kept 2 & 3 out of the box (which of course is on the bottom of a stack of four…) because I hadn’t expected redoing my shelves to take so long. A lot of the binders on the bottom shelf have bits of old story ideas and planning, some of which never made it into my Google Docs, and going through that takes a different kind of energy than laying around reading or doing Duolingo lessons or playing solitaire on my phone or whatever, so I’ve barely made any progress and the book club’s started vol 4 already. I still have クールドジ男子 and バッテリー out, which is 12 vol total, so I’ve still got stuff to read outside of 2.43 and Satori Reader even with me holding back on buying new books for now. (Which isn’t exactly working, clearly, but especially with the urge being stronger now that I’m making more money, I’m still considering it a success. I coulda bought like 20 books by now but I’ve only gotten 10 recently!)
I read ch 4 of 夜カフェ, which was about 9.5 pages.
God, I can just imagine how pleased Hanabi’s father looks after her mother tells her that she can quit her job if Hanabi doesn’t like it. That bastard, I wanna throttle him. I’m glad Hanabi told them straight off that that wasn’t why she was upset, and I’m glad they’re letting her stay with Aiko-san for the time being.
肝に銘じる (きもにめいじる) [expression, 一] to be deeply impressed; to take to heart; to keep in mind
雑用 (ざつよう) [noun] chores; odd jobs; miscellaneous affairs
色覚異常 (しきかくいじょう) [noun] colorblindness; color-vision deficiency
本腰を入れる (ほんごしをいれる) [expression, 一] to set about in earnest; to put one’s back into something. This one’s marked as “sensitive,” for some reason.
波風を立てる (なみかぜをたてる) [expression, 一] to make trouble; to make waves; to cause discord
I haven’t been reading much lately, but I’ve managed to read at least a little bit in Japanese (and Mandarin) every day. For novels I’m focusing on 冷たい密室と博士たち. I’ve kept up with my regular read-aloud sessions of 7SEEDS, ハイキュー, and ダンジョン飯 / 蟲師.
This reduced slate will probably be ongoing for a while, so I’ll cut out my manga volume a week goal. Death Note is first on the list when I bring that back.
Day 25 
告白 ~2%
Candy and Cigarettes last 23 pages of vol.1
Day 26 
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 26 pages
佐賀のがばいばあちゃん (IBC), chapter 5 and 6
I had watched a movie called 告白 many years ago, and I remember enjoying it a lot - it was a twisted tale of revenge set in a school (as many Japanese stories tend to be). Recently I found out that the movie was actually based on a book, and that said book has won the Japan Booksellers’ Award, so this is what I’ll be reading next. I only managed a tiny 2% for now, but I’m hoping to pick up speed in the coming days. The format is rather intimidating, with pages chock-full of text, as all of it is indirect speech (I think by various of the story’s protagonists?). But if you disregard that, the writing itself isn’t more difficult that what I’ve encountered so far. The text density is definitely higher though.
Yesterday I read this week’s IBC section and then I was running short of time and energy, so I went for something easier and started ゲゲゲの鬼太郎. I had proposed it for the ABBC but it was judged to be too difficult. I still believe it’s way easier than, say, Takagi-san, even though the text density looks intimidating at first glance. It’s not though, there’s just increased hiragana that takes up more space, and the writing is generally as straightforward as they come.
It’s interesting that the “monsters” are portrayed as having lived a blissful, peaceful existence for thousands of years before humans appeared and drove them into hiding and danger of extinction, just like any other animal. The monsters have a gentle, polite speech, while the humans seem rougher in their speech and behaviour, sometimes even scarier in their intent. I only read the first chapter which features 鬼太郎’s birth, so I’m looking forward to the adventures he’ll have next. 
I’m new to WaniKani (not to japanese) so I discovered this amazing challenge just now. Sadly I’m a little bit to late but I’ll try to do all remaining days .
I use mostly Satori Reader and try to read and translate some japanese Mangas I have here.
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Day 26 
Read: 終遠のヴィルシュ -Error:salvation-
Time: about 3 hours
Finished: 1 ending
If I had to describe this game I’d call it a dark sci-fi fantasy. More specifically it’s described as 「バッドエンド、悲愛エンドがメイン、運命と絶望のダークファンタジー。」Which after playing it is definitely accurate. The setting is the island of アルペシェール, where everyone dies by the time they reach the age of 23. Due to this it came to be called the country possessed by the god of death. The full story description is here if anyone’s interested. I really enjoyed this game. I’d say it’s my second favorite game that was released last year, and pretty high up there in my general list of favorites, but it’s definitely on the dark side, and as expected from the description there’s a lot of death. I really liked the art, the mysteries, and just the general 雰囲気. This game is split into four routes, and then the 三幕. Out of these the 三幕 was my favorite, I guessed part of the mystery early on but that just made me more interested in finding the rest out. This route also made me cry for like an hour straight (which to be fair I cry relatively easily at stories, but usually only like slightly tearing up.) A part I didn’t like as much was sometimes the more sci-fi parts made me think “I really don’t think that’s how that works,” but I don’t really place that much value on scientific accuracy when I play otome games. This game has a really interesting required play order (not really a spoiler but blurred in case someone wants to figure it out themself). In this game you have to play the bad ends (絶望エンド）of the first four routes to unlock the 三幕. When you finish the 三幕, it unlocks the 救済 ends for the first four routes. So you have to play through each character’s bad endings in a row to progress the game, which did get kind of depressing. Overall I’d recommend this game to people who like dark settings, mysteries, and don’t mind bad ends or otome games that don’t focus as much on romance.
喪う （うしなう）to lose (a loved one); to be bereaved of (didn’t know this could be written with this kanji)
退く （ひく）to move back; to draw back; to recede (this is the third reading of this I’ve seen recently)
皆無 （かいむ）nonexistent; nil; none; nothing (at all); bugger-all
大半 （たいはん）majority; more than half; most (of)
謹んで （つつしんで）respectfully; humbly; reverently
停滞 （ていたい）stagnation; tie-up; standstill; congestion; delay; accumulation; falling into arrears
尽く （ことごとく）altogether; entirely
生贄 （いけにえ）(living) sacrifice
そぐう to be suitable; to be appropriate; to match
授ける （さずける）to grant; to give; to confer; to award
蠢く （うごめく）to wriggle; to squirm; to crawl like a worm
変異 （へんい）variation; rogue (something)
紅蓮 （ぐれん）bright red
亡骸 （なきがら）remains; corpse; (dead) body
因果関係 （いんがかんけい）consequence; causal relationship; nexus
死活問題 （しかつもんだい）matter of life or death; life-and-death problem
27th of April
Day 27
Read pages 35 to 37 of かがみの孤城. Those pages were surprisingly easy. Definitely should have started reading earlier though, because when I read too late I end up cutting off both my reading time and my sleeping time 
I’m wondering whether to get an easier book to read when I’m low on time or energy, but かがみの孤城’s a loooong book and I’d rather finish it sooner, so maybe I should just focus on it 
Day 24 to Day 27 - Calendar
Well… I didn’t read much the last days, I just had no motivation. But, at least I managed to read a little each day.
I continued with the short story 冷蔵庫との対話 and also read the short story 夏が、空に、泳いで which I just finished. It were only 20 pages in total. Both stories are from the book 齋藤孝のイッキによめる! 名作選 中学生.
I have to second this! @Zakarius You’ve read (and shared) some pretty wild stories, and I always appreciate that. 
Yes, it’s the best!
I cannot.
Personal experience, sometimes reading the easy book improves your skills faster, and when you go back to the harder book, it then feels a little easier and takes less time. So it won’t necessarily delay you that much to take a detour. Plus, it could increase your enjoyment of the harder book too. 
That’s how it went for me last night reading 霧のむこうのふしぎな町 again after finishing 夜カフェ at least.
Well, I ended up missing two days last week. Been good ever since, though. 
I’m definitely going to keep going with the challenge; if anything missing the days has really motivated me to not just “daily read”, but “read”, if that makes sense. I feel like I’ve been slipping more and more into the mindset of “gotta check this off for the day” rather than actively choosing to read Japanese as my leisure activity for a night, which lead to my missing days.
I’ve been keeping up with my 薬屋のひとりごと reading; we’re getting real close to the end of the book! Just a couple more weeks! I don’t think I’ll be participating in the next ABC book, so I definitely want to push myself to immediately start 薬屋2 after finishing 1. A good chunk of the specialized vocab from book 1 should still be fresh in mind, so I want to take advantage of that to have as smooth a start as possible.
I’ve also recently started another book, Alicemare (アリスメア), one that’s been on my shelf for a while. It’s a novelization of an indie game of the same name (made by △○□× / みわしいば for those who know them; vgperson translated the game, and it’s available on Steam). Compared to 薬屋, it’s a much easier read for me, so it’s relaxing to have a book to turn to that’s both interesting and doesn’t required looking up a new word every other sentence. 
I remember the game being light on story, so I’m really interested to see what happens in the book.
I’m hoping to focus on these two books for the most part, at least until I finish one.
this was my experience too, actually with かがみの孤城! I paused about half way through the first volume and read 世界から猫が消えたなら - which only took about a week (it’s a short book) and then when I went back to かがみ it somehow seemed way easier (that might be coincidence in that I was just far through enough to have got used to it). It was a nice little break though!
I love seeing that this challenge is still running a whole year after the first one last summer!!!
I don’t have time to commit to this challenge yet/during the year when I work two jobs, but I’m eagerly awaiting the summer challenge. Keep up the great work you guys!!
Day 27
Today I read chapter 6 of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん, and a little article on the side as a supplement to my kanji studies!
• 間髪入れず = (かんぱついれず) immediately
• 急須 = (きゅうす) small teapot
• 手持ち無沙汰 = (てもちぶさた) being bored, 無沙汰 was printed in hiragana
• 和気藹々 = (わきあいあい) peaceful, harmonious
Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220427 
Tanuki Scroll XXVII: 赤ん坊と泥棒(どろぼう) 
Only have time for a short one today, but read today’s folktale from Okayama prefecture!
About a thief who breaks into a house, the family is all asleep but the baby sees him and begins to murmur. To calm the baby he pulls some silly faces, the baby giggles so he pulls some more. The baby is too cute that he forgets all about robbing the house and plays with the baby until morning.
Japanese found in the tall grass
ペロリ「ぺろり」ー sticking out your tongue quickly, can also mean to gobble something up quickly
If you ever need a small read then I very much recommend Hukumusume!
This is probably like the 50th time I’m recommending it but… 
Though come Autumn I’ll have been using that site for a year and will be running out of stories, it feels odd to say as well that the stories are getting a little too easy (I mean, me, being able to read Japanese… what??), but that goes to show at least how good these threads are! Still, gonna miss reading all these out-there tales.
I second this too! 
That is so pretty when it happens.
Also so much cuteness!
I looked at the first few panels and stuff you posted and I was: that looks gorgeous.
Then looked at cartoon gore ones: that looks terrifying, I think I’m gonna be sick.
I can’t handle gore.
But I hope you enjoy it. 
Continued 坊ちゃん yesterday and today. It is getting easier, thankfully. Or maybe I’m just getting used to the voice. I can’t tell. Still left with some question marks, one of them related to dialect.
First the dialect one. The dialect is related to 四国 (not sure that is much of a spoiler, but anyway) since that is the boondocks we are hanging out in.
Here’s the sentence:
「あまり早くてわからんけれ、もちっと、ゆるゆるやっておくれんかなもし」と田舎の言葉で言った。
So I know of the negative dialect thing of わからない becoming わからん, maybe that is just slurring and not dialect—I’m no expert.
I assume けれ is partial けれども.
But what is もちっと? I honestly have no idea, and neither did a couple of places I checked.
おくれん=おくれない (I’m assuming, as in お+くれない
かなもし though? I know かな by itself is “I wonder” or similar translation. But もし on the end? Is that adding “if” to the whole thing somehow? Or just dialect stuff I don’t know.
Next:
わからなければ、わかるまで待て。(This is part of a longer speech, but I do believe this sentence stands on its own.)
So the first part is easy: If you don’t understand, …
Then I’m not sure. Or maybe the sentence just doesn’t make any sense to me. I often feel like まで stumps me a bit, when used outside strict timeline stuff.
Is this actually: If you don’t understand, until you (?) understand wait. (That sentence makes no sense.)
Or maybe he (this is 坊ちゃん talking) is saying: If I don’t understand, wait until I do?
Maybe I need to give more context for you awesome folks to help me, but maybe I’m just lost? (I can’t tell which.)
Last:
授業は思ったよりうまくいったが、帰る時、生徒の一人が、「ちょっとこれを説明しておくらんかなもし」と、難しい数学の問題を持ってきたのには困った。
I’m interested in the “授業は思ったより” and/or really all of the first part (授業は思ったよりうまくいった). I understand everything that comes after that (except the exact nature of the dialect stuff I mentioned above). I also assume the last bit “は困った” is perhaps related to the very first part.
What exactly does " ‘lesson’ I thought " mean? It is the direct translation, and then comes a より and I guess I’m not entirely sure what is being compare to what.
If I had to take a guess, I would say that 坊ちゃん thought the lesson went well, but a student coming with a hard math problem means it didn’t? See, even my guess makes me confused.
Even with the difficulties, it feels nice to be able to read several pages without feeling like I’m missing something hugely important in the sentences I did have trouble with. But who knows, maybe I am. Wouldn’t be the first time with this story.
Day 27 / Calendar
Today I’ve got Takagi-san from 58% to 85%. This manga is probably the perfect difficulty for me to both enjoy but still struggle at somewhat, which is quite fun. If I continue like this (I won’t I’ll be mostly busy tomorrow), I should finish it quite soon. After which I’ll need to pick a new book to read (ngl, Spy x Family is great as an anime, so it will probably be that, considering how it was free)
April 27th!
I was a bit tired so I decided to read something short today, and chose ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん since every page is a self-contained story.
But then I was enjoying reading it so much that I ended up reading 25 pages which wasn’t much less than I’d have read if I’d picked something with chapters
It’s just so sweet and wholesome.
I read 100 characters in 9 lines lol. On a technicality I read every day still. So today my addon to use yomichan with Anki updated, and apparently changed to now only supporting new versions of Anki. I’ve been using an old one for the sake of some of my other addons and just cause it’s been familiar and stable… but I can’t find any way to downgrade this single addon. Since it’s the most important one to me I had to upgrade Anki itself. Along with breaking some things it also is enough of a UI change that I am getting lost trying to do a few things I could easily before, and in some ways it’s just objectively worse. Like I used to have my added cards list automatically update the moment I added them and now I have to change tabs to refresh it, lots of little things like that.
I’m too tired for all this right now.
April 27th
・薬屋のひとりごと (63% → 64%)
Okie, finished ch 22. You know you’re tired when a character yawns and you start yawning too. I know yawns can be contagious? infectious? but to such a degree… 
How to English? wakaranai
What if you read about somebody reading about a character yawning, and that urges you to yawn as well?
kk, I’m off to bed
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