📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

[AzusaChan]

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).

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

May 25th (Calendar Post)

A bit of a busy day, but I managed to finish 隣の席の佐藤さん!

隣の席の佐藤さん => 24 pages (19 min)
少女漫画主人公×ライバルさん => 36 pages (25 min)

Sadly this will be the last set of 佐藤さん panels =._.=

Started a new manga, 少女漫画主人公×ライバルさん, and I find it hilarious. I love how they twisted the classic cliché of the shoujo manga rival character that is always getting in the way of the main character.

Some fun panels:

[potatonaught]

May 25
Reading more Kiki! May go through the rest of chapter 2 tonight.

Picked up again this grammar resource I was translating on the side at the beginning of April, 日本人のための日本文法入門. I got to the beginning of where it starts to talk about the predicate and the 3 types that can be used to end a sentence.

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@dunlewy

John and Yuki’s tickets were for the day before!

Oh no, they missed their showing!! What a shame.

@enbyboiwonder

Some vocab of note:
…
A lot from ハイキュー!! today

I may have mentioned this to you before—and I don’t want to take away from your study methods—but in case it’ll be helpful, our active Haikyuu book club has vocab lists for chapters 1 through 68 (soon 69)(google sheets) available to anyone.

I’ve been grateful to the previous Kiki’s Delivery Service book clubs for their vocab lists, so I just want to get the word out there that these resources are available!

[dunlewy]

@potatonaught

@dunlewy

John and Yuki’s tickets were for the day before!

Oh no, they missed their showing!! What a shame.

Well, they didn’t seem to mind too much! But I felt sorry for them.

[enbyboiwonder]

I’ve saved a few vocab lists and even redownloaded Google Sheets onto my phone for them, but I never seem to end up using them lol. For me, at least, it seems to be easier to just look up the words I need to in a dictionary than to search for them in a spreadsheet, though I will consult them sometimes

[natarin]

May 25 Home Post

I played some more AI: The Somnium Files today! I’m still liking it a lot; the interactions are super fun, and I’m very curious to see where the plot is going Talking to 応太(おうた) and A-set has been interesting; there’s been a lot of internet slang I haven’t really encountered which means more lookups but they’re fun ones. They’re a hot mess There’ll be more tomorrow for sure!

[wiersm]

Yesterday I finished かがみの孤城

This is the first book of significant length that I finished in Japanese so I’m quite pleased with that!

Some thoughts on かがみの孤城

I found it to be quite a suitable book for my beginning/intermediate level of Japanese. Large parts of the book are fairly easy to read with only some vocabulary that was unfamiliar to me, but the author uses the same words often, so you quickly get used to those. And then every once in a while there will be a part that is harder to read with more unfamiliar kanji and vocabulary but then you get to flex your Japanese muscles

Content-wise, I didn’t like the book that much, but then I’m definitely not the target audience . I found the pacing to be quite uneven with not much going on for large parts of the book. The story of the main character こころ is well-told, but the backstory of a lot of the other characters is only told in one big information dump at the end of the book and I felt that it would have been more compelling if those stories had been incorporated earlier in the story so that the characters would have had the chance to talk with each other about their problems.

The next comment might be considered a spoiler:

I do have to say that it might not have helped either that most of the ending was already spoiled weeks ago by comments in the book club threads

If anyone is still planning to read the book then I think I would actually advise you not to read the book club threads because of the risk of spoilers.

Re podcasts

@rikaiwisdom

It’s still somewhat uncharted territory for me and I haven’t listened much to some that I’ll list, but I have them saved out of recommendations from others and such. You might know some if not most already

Thank you for the recommendations!

I have been listening to Teppei too. In case someone missed it: he also has a podcast called Japanese with Teppei and Noriko that is more conversational because it’s the two of them and a bit more advanced (Noriko sometimes talks quite fast in particular).

Yuyu I also recently started listening to and another podcast I recently started is EASY JAPANESE Japanese podcast for beginners, which is also two people so more of a dialogue.

I’ll check out your other recommendations for sure!

[Naphthalene]

Re:かがみの孤城

@wiersm

I do have to say that it might not have helped either that most of the ending was already spoiled weeks ago by comments in the book club threads

If anyone is still planning to read the book then I think I would actually advise you not to read the book club threads because of the risk of spoilers.

Those were theories, not spoilers, though. If you say they are spoilers, though, now people will know that they were accurate.
(Well, but they’d still have to guess which one, though, because we took quite the spread shot; I guessed at one point or another that any girl other than こころ was 喜多島先生, that’s some serious bet hedging there )

[wiersm]

Reply to Naphtalene (might be considered a spoiler for かがみ)

I guess it’s the risk of book clubs. If someone tells you what the ending of the book will be, then it’s still a spoiler for the ending of the book regardless of whether that person is speculating or speaking from knowledge. If I really want to avoid all spoilers then I shouldn’t participate in book clubs. I just want to give people the chance to figure out the book for themselves instead of having someone else figure it out for them.

Maybe it’s a good idea if you add a spoiler warning to your post as well? Because you are now basically confirming that your comments in the book club are the ones that are accurate.

[Zakarius]

Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220526

Tanuki Scroll LVI: お姫さまと松の木

Ran out of time today, so picked a short one - today’s folktale, from Yamagata prefecture!

Were a princess falls for a man who plays the koto at night, but it turns out that he’s the spirit of a pine tree.

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Japanese found in the tall grass

Learnthings

殿方「とんがた」ー Gentleman/men, also sometimes seen on signs above the men’s room.

[pocketcat]

I haven’t been able to be online much due to traveling + work, but I have consistently been reading each day even if not very much. I’m currently up to 63% of 心霊探偵八雲 and continue to enjoy it.

[omk3]

Day 55

夜市 ~ 50-58%

Day 56

夜市 ~ 58-68%

When I started this story I wrote that while nothing much had happened it felt pleasantly eerie. Now I might as well be writing about a different story altogether. The eeriness is mostly gone. From a mysterious, vaguely creepy atmosphere we progressed to a scene straight from an action movie (a Western maybe), and now it feels more like fantasy in genre than anything else. I don’t particularly like fantasy. There have also been very dramatic developments, but I think I liked it more when nothing was happening but all sorts of things were threatening to happen - much more atmospheric that way. I’ll keep reading and see where it leads me, but I can say that so far, both of this book’s stories turned out totally different from what I was expecting. And there’s not a hint of “horror” to be seen. surely a passing skeleton or two isn’t enough to make a story “horror”, right?

[MissDagger]

Thanks for even more birthday wishes.

I had a great time with my friend and her husband. Good food, and a fun board game (Mansions of Madness).

Replies

@MaraVos

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 …

Does that mean you essentially read the latter half of a chapter and the first half of the next?

[quote=“Zakarius, post:2140, topic:56375”]
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.”[/quote]
Already at 21? I don’t know, I think I didn’t start feeling like this until 25ish. Soon to be a decade ago.

@sycamore

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

Glad you enjoy them. I’ll make sure to keep the updates coming.

And I’m here again by the time I am tired, so maybe I’ll give up digressing all over the place about birthdays as an adult. It would spare you guys a novel to read.

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Read chapter 7 of Yotsuba& today! That is the first volume done!

For this last chapter: I’m a sucker for rain, and seeing Yotsuba out in the rain like that I was like: why not join her? When you’re right beside home anyway and don’t seem to have anything to do? Yotsuba’s dad is excused, ofc, because work.

How much I enjoy this thing that came up in this chapter

I enjoy rain so much I actually had a long holiday in Ireland, a couple of years ago. For those in Europe: remember that summer when almost all of Europe was scorched for almost the whole summer and almost no rain fell? Yeah, that is when I went to Ireland to have a rainy summer. It was the sunniest summer in Ireland in ca 30 years… At least it was fairly cool compared to the rest of Europe?

I’ve really enjoyed reading Yotsuba& (vol 1). Beyond the fact that it is hilarous, I’m proficient enough at casual language that I can read a lot of it without help. The only big exception was when it dipped into shounen style between Yotsuba’s dad and ジャンボ because I haven’t read much shounen and none of it in Japanese, so I was utterly lost. (Even after understanding what the sentences meant because I don’t know shounen conventions.)

Next up is volume 2!

I, also, spent a bit of time checking how much is left of the Black Moon arc of Sailor Moon (the arc I’m in the middle of). Turns out it is all of volume 4 of the kanzenban left. When I went to (my boxes of books to) get volume 2 of Yotsuba&, I also picked up volume 3 (to remind myself where I left off) and volume 4 of Sailor Moon.

So apparently I’ve decided to finish that arc at least, and it was nice that the arc ends as the volume ends. Couldn’t have planned it better! Not sure I will get back into Sailor Moon before this challenge ends, but it is almost on the currently reading slate.

[Redglare]

Summary post

May 26th

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (51% → 64%)

Finished chapter 12, 13 and 14. Lots of stuff happened!

In short: Maomao put pieces together and managed to save the ritual priest (Jinshi) just before he was hit by a pillar from above, but she got hurt in the process. Turns out the tall girl (Suirei) really was involved somehow, but the details are unclear. She was found dead, but it was actually a fake death induced by a special mix of drugs/plants, so when they checked her coffin later she wasn’t there. She and the other culprit(s) escaped. Maomao laughs like a maniac from excitement just thinking about finding Suirei so she can learn how to make fake death potion / “yomigaeru” potion. In other news, we learn that Jinchi is 24 years old (and still has his “precious” bits? douiukoto). Gaoshun is 37 and has grandkids already, wow!

[Naphthalene]

Re:かがみの孤城 spoilers

@wiersm

Maybe it’s a good idea if you add a spoiler warning to your post as well? Because you are now basically confirming that your comments in the book club are the ones that are accurate.

Wait, no, I did not. I was literally thinking of someone else’s comment. The one thing I actually got right, I did put in proper spoiler tags, and even then, I made all possible guesses in the threads anyway, so it won’t help anyone

[lucylavelle]

May 26th!

I finished the first volume of Shirokuma Cafe today. I’ve really enjoyed it, though I’ve found some bits of it a little hard to parse because there is a lot of very casual language. The art style is ridiculously cute, and its been fun to read so I’m definitely going to read the next volume, though I think I’ll read the next volume of Yotsuba first

(Home Post)

[dunlewy]

I started 浦島太郎, Urashima Tarō. As the tale says, this is a story of Old Japan. A fisherman goes to the beach and finds a group of children hitting a turtle with a stick. He makes them stop and has them give the turtle to him so he can put it back in the sea. The turtle thanks him nicely and swims off. A week later, when Taro is again fishing, the turtle comes back and tells Taro there is a beautiful, happy place in the middle of the sea where he lives. Taro gets on the turtle’s back and off they go. The middle of the sea is indeed beautiful.

New Words:

ぼう
棒 stick, rod, pole

かめ
亀 turtle, tortoise

いた
痛い painful, sore

よてんき
良い天気 fine weather

と
取る to catch, to grab, to pick up, to take

Here is Taro in the middle of the sea:

[saidahgilbert]

[quote=“MissDagger, post:2161, topic:56375”]

@Zakarius

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.”[/quote]
Already at 21? I don’t know, I think I didn’t start feeling like this until 25ish. Soon to be a decade ago.

So, am I just weird, then? I have heard many adults act that way about their birthdays. Even my younger siblings (who are now all in their 20s) seem uninterested in celebrating their birthday but I look forward to my birthday every year and I’m turning 31 this year. I was giddy with anticipation last year when I turned 30 because it meant that I was leaving the 20s and reaching a next stage in my journey of adulthood. I am happy because not only do I turn older, I get to demand special attention for my birthday.

[DIO-Berry]

Days 53-55

• ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

5/24 - 52-62
5/25 - 63-101
5/26 - 102 -111

I really just need to figure out how to set aside more time for reading. I’m really enjoying everything so far, except maybe the gore lol, but I knew what I was getting into.

I’ve gotten to Kakyoin’s introduction and the part where Star Platinum sucks Hierophant Green out of the school nurse. It cracks me up a bit because wouldn’t that feel like a really awkward kiss lol? Reading the manga is also making me further appreciate the micro-reactions the tv anime added like Jotaro leaning out of the nurse’s reach when she tells him off for his hat.

[windupbird]

Summary Post

Day 56: May 26th
What did I read?: しろくまにっき
How much did I read?: 16 pages
How long did it take me?: 12 min

This seemed like a good “read a couple pages” book for today xD I’ve been a little busy packing for my trip. On a related note, I’ve decided that I’m going to end my personal challenge today - I’m just…not feeling motivated to try and maintain it while I’m away, if I’m being honest. I think I’m ready for a little break. But of course, I’ll be sticking around to follow you all to the end! ^^

This is my favorite pic from today, the tiny bear is so cute