Happy belated birthday and many returns of the day! @MissDagger
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Day 54: May 24th
What did I read?: クマとたぬき Vol 2
How much did I read?: 10 pages
How long did it take me?: 9 min
Super tiny and quick read today >< I was so unexpectedly busy today…like my day started out so promising and spiraled into chaos almost as soon as I arrived at work, and then I ended up working way later than I thought…I really contemplated just skipping today lol, but I snuck a little reading in.
Sorry, no pic today >< tomorrow for sure
Happy belated birthday! 
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I discovered Shirabe Jisho by chance yesterday evening while downloading imiwa onto my iPad so I can still look stuff up if I’m leaving my phone charging elsewhere (god, it’s a real pain in the arse though, I’m used to being able to still see what’s on the page when I’m switching between open apps; on this, I gotta fully switch between them like a million times because I don’t remember what kanji look like), and I’ve been poking around on it more today, and I like it so much better than imiwa. The search function is so much better (a single search that lets you freely switch between typing, drawing (!!), and radical search), plus you can search vocab by word type and they’ve got multiple kanji lists (jinmeiyou, jouyou, by JLPT, by frequency, by grade, by radical), and they mark if a word is common. I’ll be transferring all my bookmarks and notes into Shirabe and then most likely switching over completely. I wish Goo辞書 had their app available in the US, but alas. Guess JP>JP will just stay in my browser for now.
Anyway, today I finished the preview for 鹿の王, or at least through ch 1-1, as that seemed as good a place as any to stop when I didn’t know if it would have all of 1-2 and it’s a pain to try and check. It seems like an interesting story, but also I don’t understand some of the furigana in this book, or rather the reasoning behind it. There are words/kanji that I know are common that get them, like 戻る. And then there are some that don’t get furigana the first time but then do a few on down the line. 奴隷 didn’t get furigana the first few times it showed up, but then once it suddenly did. 獣 got furigana the first time it showed up, and then again a few pages later after showing up multiple times in the interim without it. And then of course the ones I wish got furigana every time (like 山犬) don’t. Digital “books” aren’t exactly conducive to flipping pages without losing your spot. Well, even if the reasoning behind some of the furigana confuses me, it doesn’t particularly actually bother me, so I’m not opposed to picking up this book sometime.
I read ch 5-7 of ハイキュー!! finishing vol 1! After ch 1, these chapters are all so short, they just flew by. I didn’t even realize I was on ch 7 until I realized there weren’t enough pages left in the volume for another chapter! I won’t get to see KageHina’s first successful quick until Thursday or later! Books, hurry up and get here already… Also, I don’t remember hearing in the anime how Tsukishima refers to himself, but I was both kinda surprised and kinda not when he used 僕, although I suppose it coulda just been in that situation and he usually uses 俺; he only used personal pronouns the once in this volume.
Some vocab of note:
One of the characters in Heroes uses whips (むち), and today in 鹿の王, I learned the kanji for it: 鞭.
I love that word! (I’m pretty sure I used it as a fic title once.) I also came across another way of writing it yesterday, in 鹿の王: 木洩れ陽. The last I already knew was another kanji for “sun,” but 漏る I hadn’t known until then could be written any other way. I think I like the usual way better though, aesthetically.
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May 24th (Calendar Post)
隣の席の佐藤さん => 74 pages (85 min)
I just can’t get enough of 佐藤さん’s expressions =^.^=
Omake: here’s a nice background panel:
An interesting expression I ran into today:
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May 24 
Home Post
As I finished Zero Escape last night, today was a day for new things - AI: The Somnium Files 
I dig it so far! It’s… wild 
Don’t know what I expected from it really, but アイボゥ and the dreams (though somnium makes more sense with that huh) weren’t it. I’m very intrigued though! And I immediately love like all the characters I’ve met so that’s an easy way to drag me in haha. It’s so nice to look at too, the aesthetics are cool and the graphics are miles above Zero Escape at its best (no offense Zero Escape still love you 
) so it’s been good! It gives me Persona vibes though I never got very far in that, but I definitely get the spike chunsoft game vibes as well.
Language-wise, it’s totally doable! I expected it to be really, though it definitely has more police and crime vocabulary which makes sense. Good crash course that’ll prepare me for other future adventures as well 
But yeah it’s generally been around Zero Escape-level, with most of the language weirdness so far being specific jokey things or law stuff. All in all a good experience so far
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May 23 & 24th 
Had my last final so wasn’t able to read more than some tweets these days. All done now! So now I should have plenty of reading time! と言いたいところですが… I’m actually leaving for a trip in a few hours 
I’m still planning on reading when I’m there but it probably won’t be everyday. I do have a relatively long plane ride so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get some done then if I still have some energy left.
Happy belated birthday! 
Ooh I really liked this one, I love how you can get so many different lines from picking the same dialogue options, some of them are really hilarious Loved seeing all of your thoughts for the Zero Escape games so I’m really excited to see what you think of this one.
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Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! I would tag you all but that feels almost spammy because there were so many.
@rikaiwisdom I bookmarked your post, so I can go back to it when/if I want to get into podcasts. 
@dunlewy Sounds like a fun birthday idea to use next year. 
I did have a good day even if my friend couldn’t come by due to a mix up (I live in the country side-ish and she didn’t have a car that day). But she was coming over today, but since tomorrow is a holiday, she instead invited me over for game night at her place. So tonight will be games and drinks. So that will feel like more of a proper celebration! 
Read chapter 6 of Yotsuba& today. Was a nice and easy chapter. And tomorrow when I’m tired the last chapter in volume one is super short. I can’t believe that I will finish a manga volume in about a week (if I ignore that I sneaked like 10 pages same day I finished the last graded reader).
I’ll probably read volume 2, and then decide how to possibly combine multiple books at the same time.
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@MissDagger
Happy belated birthday! (I always feel weird about how to celebrate my birthday too, even when I don’t live alone. Glad you will get to be with your friend tonight!)
I can confirm, pre-reading doesn’t count. For a while there I was reading a chapter of 夜カフェ a day, largely by pre-reading a bunch the night before. But then after finishing my chapter for the day, I’d “pre-read” for the next day’s chapter so …
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Hehe, don’t worry, I didn’t actually think that’s what you had in mind either :3 I agree about one month being a guaranteed good amount of time, and who knows, maybe I secretly had plans of becoming super busy after exams and wouldn’t even have time for reading (spoiler: no such thing for me)
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@MissDagger Happy belated birthday!
ZTD
@natarin Congrats on finishing the trilogy! You know, if any of these games must be different between playing it in English and Japanese, it’s ZTD. Have to admit I was ultimately kinda disappointed with the story (a lot of people were), but in my memory it’s this extremely goofy experience in large part due to the English voice acting. Like, “complex motives” being a real thing the antagonist says at the end kinda became a meme. But beyond that, Eric especially just sounds so dopey to me. When he’s constantly going “Mira is my angel!” and, one of my favorite videogame lines: “I really, truly love ice cream,” it gets hard to take ZTD seriously. Was the Japanese less… like that? Hahaha. I think the whole thing’s localization was a little stiff. But then on the other hand the executions are so brutal at times they’re actually a little uncomfortable (something about the shower situation freaks me out). So it felt like the tone was all over the place and when it comes to that game I kinda consider it not good but also I love it in some weird ways. I think I’m just rambling, which is probably the only appropriate way to discuss ZTD.
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220525 
Tanuki Scroll LV: ネコの大芝居 
This morning I had an idea of what I wanted to read about today, but now that it’s come to reading time I’ve completely forgotten what it was 
Sooo, I read today’s folktale instead. Which is about an old couple who have worked hard all their lives and wished they had had children, but no longer can, so they pray to 神さま that a cat will do. And their wishes are answered and a cute cat arrives from nowhere!
The years pass by and the cat gets old, and to thank the old couple for their kindness it tells them that it’ll perform whatever play they want (they don’t seem that surprised that the cat can talk 
).
Japanese found in the tall grass
Learnthings
大芝居「おおしばい」ー large-scale play (like one with an A-list cats cast); big act or charade
畑仕事「はたしごと」ー working in the fields / on the farm
芝居「しばい」ー Play or drama
忠臣蔵「ちゅうしんぐら」ー Chushingura (a well-known Japanese play)
Forgotten Things
ぶち「斑」ー Spots, specks, mottles
(for additional learning type「ぶちネコ」into Google images and lose yourself to all the cute cats)
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Happy birthday for yesterday!
And yeah, birthdays are weird as an adult, 21 is like the last “yay” birthday, after then every year after is just… “oh, that’s another one.”
Sounds like you’ve got a good night planned though, have fun!
Looking at the pictures you share I think the folk stories I read are at a similar level, only thing is that there’s rarely furigana, but you should have no trouble with all the tanuki!
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Omg yeah, I’ve been endlessly doing that already Like the first thing I did was bully this poor police officer for his name like 80 times, rip. I look forward to annoying everyone around me as a cool cybernetic detective 
I’m glad to provide my usual nonsense, I’m sure once stuff gets going I won’t be able to shut up about it so I’m glad it’s enjoyable 
ZTD stuff
@Daisoujou Thank you! Yeah I’d heard that the writing and voice acting for the English translation were a bit rough There’s overlap in the content for sure, like Delta definitely said 複雑な動機 or whatever a billion times at the end, and Eric is often ridiculous, but when he’s reliving his trauma or grieving Mira or anything like that his voice acting was brutal, maybe some of the most emotional in the whole game, so 
I think generally the dialogue came off less ridiculous to me, probably partially because the localization was weird and partially because I’m likely less sensitive to that sort of thing in Japanese at this point.
ZTD’s a weird experience overall, I very rarely had any grasp of what was really going on which yeah, Zero Escape, but this was a different level The whole thing kinda feels like rambling yeah, there’s just stuff happening and sometimes it fits together but it’s always absolutely wild either in a silly goofy way or a brutal murder way. The showers… oof. ZTD definitely went for the shock value of death in a way the others didn’t. And some of the big narrative reveals are just completely wild, like everything with Sigma and Diana and Phi and Delta, what
Oh it was also fun when they vaguely referenced like Men in Black and Back to the Future, oh Mくん and M’くん
(also @MissDagger happy (extra) late birthday!! I hope it and the adjacent celebrations were lovely )
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For the past few days I’ve been back with old pals Saikawa & Moe, reading 冷たい密室と博士たち. I’m about 35% in and it’s been a pretty nice breezy read so far. I was planning on catching up to the S&M series book club here before the next pick (which is probably still doable) but I’m also planning on starting 海辺のカフカ & Flesh & blood & another book for a book club with Japanese discord pals all in June which….is a lot of books to juggle, whoops. I am enjoying reading 冷たい密室 along with the audiobook & the audiobook for the 3rd S&M book doesn’t come out until July so I’m slightly tempted to take the excuse to delay till then. That said, I can imagine these being very fun book club books what with all the mysteryness 
@MissDagger adding in another happy belated birthday best wishes! As an aside, I’ve been really enjoying your yotsubato updates, it’s such a wonderful manga & so nice to hear about someone else enjoying it 
Woohoo! Nice I really need to get back to that series, it was fun…too many books, too little time
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May 25th
・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (48% → 51%)
Finished chapter 11. Thoughts: In this chapter, Rihaku and Maomao talk about how each of the mysterious and seemingly random cases so far might actually be tied together And seems like tall girl (not Maomao) who carries the scent of medicine might be involved. And as always when Maomao is within 3 meter of another person’s presence, Jinshi is jealous when he spots them talking together.
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May 25th!
Another chapter of Shirokuma Cafe. This one was like a cooking show, which was fun 
I was able to understand it while only looking up a few vocab words, so that felt good!
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That’s good to hear. And I’m not having much trouble with what I’m doing, so even if tanuki stories are a little harder, I can probably read them.
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Day 55: May 25th
What did I read?: クマとたぬき Vol 2
How much did I read?: 12 pages
How long did it take me?: 14 min
Finished this volume today! Bear and Tanuki reunited at last 
And as a bonus, we found Bear’s mom, who is obviously super sweet and helpful just like Bear 
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Ii finished reading ジョンさん日本へ. At the kabuki theater, John and Yuki find two older people sitting in their seats, or what they thought were their seats. John discusses it with the old man and another man, probably an usher, came up and looked at the tickets. They were all confused because all four of the tickets had the same seat numbers. Finally, John asked what month, day, and day of the week were printed on the tickets. John and Yuki’s tickets were for the day before! They apologized and left, then after they got outside, they laughed out loud.
New Words:
はじ
始まる to begin, to start, to commence
おな
同じ same, identical
わら
笑う to laugh
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My books got here today!! I ended up reading all of ハイキュー!! vol 2. My first time reading a full volume in Japanese in a single day! It took me about 4.5 hours, so half an hour or so per chapter. That’s not too bad. Ah man, I really wish I had the full series on me though lol, but it’s gonna be a while. Anyway, it seems Tsukki just does use 僕 as his personal pronoun, which is somewhat unexpected but also kinda fitting. Also I love the way Tanaka talks, and that I can appreciate it more now that I’m reading it. He’s so great. And I don’t know if this is my first time seeing Ukai’s name in kanji, but it is the first time that I know what it means: 烏養, one who fosters crows. Although if I hadn’t already known his name and/or it weren’t for the furigana, I’d have no idea how to read it lol
Also! I finally learned what exactly it is they call Kindaichi (らっきょうヘッド, among other nicknames involving らっきょう), and I don’t understand why I so often see him referred to as “radish-head” in English. らっきょう is a type of leek or onion. Because they both start with “ra”??
TIL that ハゲ (“baldie”) also can mean “idiot; moron.” Characters sometimes calling others who aren’t even remotely bald “baldie” as like a reactionary insult or whatever suddenly makes a lot more sense.
I also started ボーイミーツマリア, reading act 1. I love this book so much. [Tetsu: (futilely physically holding Taiga back from going to confess to Maria because she’s way outta his league) / Fukumaru: Just leave him, he needs to learn the harshness of reality. / Tetsu: What are you, his father?!] or [Tetsu and Fukumaru: Huh, it seems Maria is actually a guy. Well, too bad, right, Taiga? / Taiga, too lovestruck to pay attention: She has a husky voice and she uses 僕, she’s so cool!!] lol he’s such a dumbass, I love him. Also I think this manga is the first time I’ve seen 台詞 (outside of songs, of course) without furigana. And the Kansaiben isn’t giving me any trouble at all so far, which is nice.
I had jury duty today, although we ended up getting released early because the defendant didn’t show up. I’d brought 夜カフェ along with me, and I had half an hour or so to read, and I read all of ch 8 (15 pages) in that time.
Some vocab of note:
真骨頂 (しんこっちょう) [noun] one’s true worth; one’s true self; what one is really made of
一段落つける (いちだんらくつける) [expression, 一] to settle (a matter) for the time being; to complete the first stage (of something)
土日 (どにち) [noun] weekend; Saturday and Sunday
活かす (いかす) [サ五, transitive] to make the best use of; to put to good use; to leverage (skills, attributes, experiences, etc.); to capitalize on (experience, etc.)
とどめを刺す (とどめをさす) [expression, サ五] to finish off; to ensure (something) is dead; to deliver the coup de grâce; to put an end to; to deliver the final blow
お世辞にも (おせじにも) [expression] by any standard; (not) even as flattery
一朝一夕 (いっちょういっせき) [四字熟語, noun] in a day; in a brief space of time
ダントツ [noun] far and away the best; the very best; cream of the crop; decisive lead; commanding lead. Abbreviation of 断然 “firmly; absolutely; flatly; resolutely; decisively; definitely; by far; far and away; by a long shot; hands down” + トップ.
身の程 (みのほど) [expression, noun] one’s social position; one’s place; one’s standing
高嶺の花 (たかねのはな) [expression, noun] goal which is unattainable; prize beyond one’s reach; woman who is out of one’s league; flower on a high peak
名を馳せる (なをはせる) [expression, 一] to win fame; to be widely known; to be well-known; to make a name for oneself
正真正銘 (しょうしんしょうめい) [四字熟語, noun] genuine; authentic; true; real
変わってる (かわってる) [expression, 一] to be unusual (of a person or thing); to be uncommon; to be peculiar; to be crazy; to be eccentric; to be different. Sometimes derogatory.
A lot from ハイキュー!! today, though that’s not unexpected lol
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I ended up finishing やがて君になる the other day and it was beautiful. The manga started off slow but it really picked up by the end and was well worth read!
With that manga finished, I started on a new one that is a classic I have been meaning to read for years now: マリア様がみてる. I heard the Flowers visual novel took a lot of inspiration from the series so I think I will love it. One unique(?) thing about the manga is that they seem to use some kanji with completely different readings based on the furigana. I’ve seen some other manga do this sparingly but this one has some words where the reading is always non-standard.
I guess some of the inspiration Flowers took from them was the use of French words (at least I think so, 妹 appears to be petite sœur and 姉 is sœur if I’m reading the furigana right).
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