April 4th (Calendar Post)
私の拳をうけとめて! => 100 pages (98 minutes)
Almost completed last volume!
Some fun panels from today:
This is one of the strangest words I’ve run into. A word made out of the strokes of a kanji? WAT?
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I’ve read through 4 chapters of the event now, so about halfway done with it. In the chapter today, they had their pillow fight. Rinze ended up being the secret weapon and was the strongest challenger. The story has been pretty cute so far, everyone in the hokura unit seems fun.
Kaho seemed to like the pillow fight a lot too
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May 4
Idk why I thought about skipping out on posting today. I spent time on Spy x Family adding words to the vocab list. Shout out to the person(s) who added Missions 2-4 as well!
In non-reading events, I made banana bread and brisket mac 'n cheese today. Both tasty 
Tadoku graded reader progress
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
10 / 10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes
Thanks! I figured as much but hoped otherwise lol 
My family kindly sent me some Amazon gift cards for my birthday recently, but since they’re US Amazon cards, they’re only redeemable to my US account. Was trying to figure out if there’s a way I can use them for Japanese goods, but not in this particular case.
I’ll try to find some Nintendo games in the US eshop that have Japanese language tracks (Amazon → Nintendo ecards → games)
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Day 34 
告白 ~ 24-26%
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 22 pages
Extra tired and busy yesterday, a bad combination (and I fear this trend will continue today). I did read on my breaks throughout the day, but it wasn’t as efficient or enjoyable as it would have been if I had just set aside a larger chunk of reading time with no distractions.
I do my reading mainly on my iPad, but sometimes (when I’m out, for example), my phone is handier, so I do some reading on there too. It surprised me that for this particular book the phone and iPad sometimes disagree on the percentages. I’ve read up to 26% according to the Bookwalker app on the iPad, to 25% on the same app on the phone. I chose to log the former just because it looks better. (I’m aware all of that is entirely insignificant, I was just wondering why a simple calculation done by a machine can be …subjective. I suppose it may have to do with the iPad screen displaying more text, but this is the first book where I noticed this discrepancy. )
Also read 22 pages of ゲゲゲの鬼太郎, finishing the last chapter and starting the new one, where of course I stopped halfway like I always seem to do. This too features ねずみ男. He’s what you would expect from a mouse man, extremely greedy and selfish, always scheming and trying to benefit, and of course always failing in the end. Kitaro on the other hand is this cool guy (kid?) who doesn’t care about food, money or fame, nor about Nezumi Otoko trying to thwart him at every turn.
All in all, from what I’ve read so far, I feel the first story, Kitaro’s birth, the only one you can get a taste of from the sample, is quite different in feel to the stories coming after it. It was easier language-wise, but more serious in its storytelling. There was an air of mystery and suspense, more graphic images of the monsters and ghosts, more depth in the story. So far the next stories in the book lack this extra something, and feel more like any kind of episodic cartoon where the good guy defeats the villain after some token adventures. The yokai and backgrounds are still as cool as ever, but it’s all toned down somehow. I remember reading that the first incarnation of 鬼太郎 was deemed too scary for children, and it was changed to something more appropriate. Maybe these first, scarier stories, would be more up my alley.
Some images:
Is Kitaro...smoking?
I thought he was just a boy?
A good trick to impress people if you're a yokai (eww)
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May 2-4
So I’ve been a bit busy so I haven’t had time to update (well beyond getting in on the interesting discussion going on).
So I’ve kept reading 坊っちゃん and one day I picked up a random manga I own and 多読 read a few pages because I was too tired to do anything else. Felt a bit cheap to mark that as having read, but knowing myself having a streak is nice and cutting myself slack every once in a while is a good way to make keeping the streak alive.
I think I’m gonna stop sharing story updates for 坊っちゃん because I’m getting into serious spoilery territory. If someone is reading my story updates and don’t plan to read it themselves, let me know and I’ll keep writing them. But no point if no one is reading them.
All I can say (considering the past couple of sentences) is that this story is pulling me in with its intrigue, and after getting used to the author voice I have a much easier time reading it. Of course, a major help is all the grammar bits I’ve gotten help with because more or less all of them keep cropping up. I’m so grateful to everyone who answers questions in this thread, my own and others. You make a difference. 
I’ve finished the first half of the story (上) and I will start 下 most likely today (5th). But first a couple of things I struggled with.
@Belerith and @Daisoujou He did move, so indeed your translation was right. Not that I doubted it, but I thought I’d let you know anyway.
Dialect thing
この辺で一番の美人じゃがなもし。
I’m wondering about the じゃが. なもし is ですね as @Naphthalene taught me. When I try to search for it, all I get is potato… 
This is used in several places by one elderly woman (if that context is useful). I could pull more of what she says with this if needed.
There was a sentence I was a bit unsure of, but since I read that one three days ago and I can’t remember where it was, I guess it will stay a bit of mystery. 
I’m almost completely caught up with reviews with less than 70 piled up ones left (I’m doing another review session in a couple of mins so don’t know how many I will do). This means I can slowly start leveling again soon. It is gonna be nice to progress again soon. I’ve already started poking at lessons (like lvl 33 radicals). But I’m not gonna start rushing or optimising for quick level ups.
Just meandering for now. ^^
31 Likes
Day 34 
Read: ジャックジャンヌー夏劇ー
Time: 38 minutes
Finished: 11 pages
Continued reading あらた森の蟲退治, apparently that’s the name of a new play everyone is putting on after the summer play for an elementary school. It’s about あらた森, a forest where a god lives happily together with a lot of animals. One day from a far away continent, bugs with a huge appetite come and start destroying the forest. The forest god tries to get rid of them but he gets attacked by the bugs and they injure him. He asks the god of the sky for help and she tries to recruit some birds to go down to the forest and eat the bugs, but every bird she asks refuses. Eventually she asks あらた a bird thats found only in あらた森, who agrees to go and deal with the bugs. I didn’t expect there to be the plot of a whole new play in this book.
New Vocab
歴代 （れきだい）successive generations; successive emperors
真っ盛り （まっさかり）height of; middle of; full bloom
くちばし beak; bill
補足 （ほそく）supplement; complement
代弁 （だいべん）acting for (someone else); carrying out (on someone’s behalf)
軽妙 （けいみょう）light and easy; lambent; clever; witty; smart
おどける to jest; to joke; to play the fool; to act indecently; to be silly over; to talk foolishly
親玉 （おやだま）boss; chief; head
難色 （なんしょく）disapproval; reluctance; unwillingness
ヨタカ Grey Nightjar
固有種 （こゆうしゅ）endemic species
実質 （じっしつ）substance; essence
語り部 （かたりべ）(professional) storyteller
ふんぞり返る to get cocky; to be arrogant
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Most if not all nintendo first party games can be switched to Japanese text and voice easily! Ones I’ve tried that I know work are breath of the wild, Pokémon games, fire emblem 3 houses, animal crossing, super Mario oddessy, ring fit adventure but yeah, I think in general anything first party should be okay!
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The link I found said “ですね” but I guess it’s more natural to only think of it as ね (but polite). じゃが is just じゃ (slurred/方言 version of だ) + が, so ですがね (at least, that’s how I would interpret it)
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Cool, thanks.
Not entirely sure what it adds/changes/does to the sentence, but it feels like a nuance thing I will eventually get after enough repetition; as in, I understand the sentence and vaguely what it does, but if you asked me for a straight definition, I wouldn’t be able to give it, and if you wanted me to translate it, I’d also have a hard time pinpointing the exact nuance it adds; however it doesn’t feel like I’m loosing anything by not having a perfectly clear understand of ですが in this situation. (Like is it nevertheless, or but, or still, or any other permutation of similar English phrase? I would be loath to try and pin down exactly, but I get the gist.)
I will re-check all the sentences with that, and keep it in mind for the next half of the story. Perhaps it will be clearer to me by the end of the story. Just understanding what the dialect/slurred thing is when it isn’t dialect/slurred will make it easier going forward.
Much appreciated because I was very stumped with searching for じゃが because all it thought I wanted was potato.
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220505 
Tanuki Scroll XXXV: 茶・栗・柿(ちゃくりかき) 
Read today’s folktale about a man selling tea, persimmons and chestnuts, but he tries to combine all of them into one word when sales-shouting and fails miserably.
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
籠「かご」ー Basket; hamper
ちっとも「些とも (Rarely used)」ー Not at all
気の毒「きのどく」ー Pitiful; unfortunate; poor
頷き「うなずき」ー Nod
うまくやる「旨くやる」ー To do something well
Magical Adventure of the Periodic Table
Earlier I came across: 鎂「マグネシウム」- magnesium, and this got curious about how many of the elements have kanji.
Though it is unlikely to see these elements in kanji-form over katakana, other than the common ones like gold, iron, copper etc., I still thought it was pretty cool. It seems most of the elements do have their own special kanji though some common ones like potassium have their own kanji names that don’t use the special kanji 「加里 vs. 鉀」- so there’s not really much reason for me to be looking them up, and most only really seem to be used for Chinese… it’s just cool okay
I didn’t check all of them, but here’s some that I found cool:
鈉 - Sodium
鈣 - Calcium
鐳 - Radium
釔 - Yttrium
锰 - Manganese
鈷 - Cobalt
汞 - Mercury
硅 - Silicon
溴 - Bromine
氦 - Helium
Nihonium, you know the element that is named after Japan, isn’t know by its kanji, just as ニホニウム 
sad times (Chinese is: 鉨)
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Cool stuff! Of course I had to look up Nihonium. Apparently it was first created in 2003 and it has only been made in very small amounts that decay within seconds, so I guess it’s no wonder there’s no kanji for it. 
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It’s a bit like ノマ, I guess, but I didn’t know there were more words like that. That one is really pretty cool!
Yeah, it’s surprising, but I’ve seen it before with percentages from book club schedules not lining up with my device.
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Read the first two chapters of ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 🛵 Volume 6 and it was nice as usual 
. Either it was bit poetic and light on story this time or I’m missing some implied story-telling (not sure if that has to do with my understanding of the Japanese or with me not reading between the lines enough in that case).
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reply re: 薬屋のひとりごと ch 28
I guess this part still doesn’t make sense to me. So the child is the crown prince, which is the current emperor, that much is clear. But the crown prince’s mother was also his foster sister who later became 淑妃, one of the four wives? I feel like the mom and the wife/foster sister should be two different people, which is why I’m so confused 
Edit: Actually, I feel like all three of those should be different people. This is what I meant with the “my mom’s younger sister…” kind of sentence, much bamboozle.
May 5th
・ お兄ちゃんはおしまい！Vol. 2 (0% → 48%)
I read manga today because tired and has exam tomorrow.
32 Likes
Day 35
告白 ~ 26-27%
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 49 pages
Finished the current ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 story - at 57 pages, it was the longest one in the book. It was also chock-full of yokai! Kitaro is framed for a serious crime against the yokai, but manages to escape and prove his innocence. All sorts of yokai make an appearance, often many of them together. This story emphasized how much everything is out of order in this collection: We jumped from Kitaro’s birth to him casually defeating bad yokai, to this chapter, where we first(?) learn about his amazing camouflaging ability, and we meet many yokai he has defeated, and some he has saved, in the past. What past though? I was supposed to be reading the first volume.
So out of frustration I also bought the first volume of the other collection I had in mind. The titles of the stories had 墓場の鬼太郎 in front, which I believe was his name before he became more suitable for children as ゲゲゲの鬼太郎. The birth story is the same (with differently worded text), but from a quick look at the next stories, they seem to be in better chronological order (he is at school in some), and somewhat darker too.
In case anyone else is interested in this 鬼太郎 mess, the first book is the one I’m currently reading, and the second one the one I just bought:
, 
some panels I liked
The yokai were caught on camera partying:
Angry yokai request from the Big Tengu to bring Kitaro to justice
This is the yokai police in bird form, and in human(ish) form:
, 
Kitaro’s trial
So many yokai in one place
His lawyer, おばば, sending ばけがらす on an errand.
Crows chasing Nezumi Otoko
There was a lot of new trial-related vocab as you can imagine, which I won’t list here. This chapter had an extra difficulty for me. Several words stumped me because I just couldn’t break them down or find them in a dictionary. In the end it turned out that most were just yokai names…
On the 告白 front, I only read about 1% today. Without uninterrupted reading time it was hard to concentrate properly. I’ll read some more before bed, but I don’t expect to make notable progress. I can say that I’m still enjoying the constant sense of foreboding. The narrator is describing the most normal, mundane things, yet there is a sense that something has happened/is happening in the background, or will happen any moment. Other than what we already know, I mean. Even normal student-teacher interactions seem somehow strained and weird. No better place for this oppressive atmosphere than a classroom. 
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That panel of the trial is really nice!
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ch 28
There are three people in that sentence. The current emperor, the kid of the current emperor, and the 淑妃 of the current emperor, who’s also his foster sister and the mother of that kid.
Somehow, the interface doesn’t show it, but it’s a reply to @Redglare
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More 坊っちゃん today. In fact, I read two chapters. 
(Most I have read so far.)
That was about a third of the second half of the story (15/37 pages). Truly it makes a difference when you’ve gotten used to the author voice.
And, and, and! A new dialect grammar (apparently just general grammar) thing came up, but somehow I managed to find the answer to it myself.
〜げな = そうだ (as in I heard that)
That was kinda cool. But I also had trouble searching for something else because I doubled the wrong consonant. (Accidentally searched for なっぐて, instead of なぐって. Dictionaries were confused. )
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That’s not dialect, that’s grammar 
(Have some more if you like: grammar - What is the usage of 〜げ and how does it differ from 〜そう or 〜っぽい? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange)
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The webpage I found the definition on called it 福岡の方言. ¯\(ツ)/¯ (dictionary.goo.ne.jp, I know nothing about them, just randomly popped up for my interweb search)
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