May 28
Whoops, last post was Wednesday. Hmm… I’ve mostly been reading about Japanese than in Japanese. Although Thursday I did prep for Haikyuu book club and today was the read aloud.
I had finished chapter 2 of Kiki’s. I need to print chapter 3 vocab list.
Only a few more days to read the rest of the tadoku book too…
I finished 夜カフェ２ on the 26th! On the 27th I read a couple pages of my next book: 霧島くんは普通じゃない, but I didn’t really earnestly start it until today, when I read 11 pages and finished the first chapter! It feels much easier to read than 夜カフェ partly because of the language difficulty level, but also because outrageous things start happening pretty much right away. I mean, our hero Miu gets a papercut and the brand new 超イケメン transfer student grabs her wrist and licks the blood off her finger! Then face plants into his desk muttering やっちまった……… 
I did not make a liar of myself today! Although I didn’t read very much, either; I only read 4 pages of 海辺のカフカ, not even the whole prologue. I’m intrigued by this “boy called Crow” character.
隅から隅まで (すみからすみまで) [expression, adverb] in every nook and corner; from A to Z; from head to toe; from page to page; every inch
回りくどい (まわりくどい) [い-adjective] circuitous; roundabout; indirect
義務教育 (ぎむきょういく) [noun] compulsory education
控えめに言う (ひかえめにいう) [expression, ワ五] to speak with restraint; to understate; to downplay; to put it mildly; to say the least
細々した (こまごました) [expression, prenominal] sundry; various; assorted
Ah thanks, I guess I also need to think about how I’m counting days since I count each day even if I don’t read, but then I mark that I didn’t read that day
May 28th (Calendar Post)
少女漫画主人公×ライバルさん => 161 pages (178 min)
I can’t get enough of ライバルさん’s antics.
Angry ライバルさん
A couple interesting expressions I ran into:
May 28 
Home Post
It’s weird how widely my experiences vary in different media. I started reading 海辺のカフカ today for the book club and I really don’t think it’s any more difficult than the games I’ve been playing (if anything it’s probably easier so far) but it’s so much more mentally taxing somehow. Like I read the opening chapter and was like “ow my brain hurts. Time to play AI: The Somnium Files as a break” like?? I don’t understand
Reading weirdness aside, I like it so far! I still don’t really know what to expect from the story but I’m intrigued to see where it goes. AI: The Somnium Files is still a great time as well; カガミ is an icon lmao. All is going well!
Day 57 should be 5/27. If you started on April 1, the first day of May would be day 31. Just add 30 to whatever day it is.
Thank you!
I finished chapter 1 of ナミヤ雑貨店の奇蹟。 It seems a popular and well-known book, with great reviews from people who read the English translation, and I’m a little surprised that there hasn’t been any discussion of it here yet, or any reviews or even gradings on Natively.
The style is interesting. I’m about 75 pages in, and I don’t think the 3 main characters have had a traditional description yet. I don’t know what they look like, how old they are, what their full names are, or what their back stories are. I don’t think there was ever even one sentence to introduce their personalities by description. All I can do is guess, based on what they do, what they say, and how they say it. But just from that, their personalities are gradually revealing themselves. So far, I’m impressed.
It be like that. Can be that the text is already cut up into bite size chunks that make it easier to parse, or that you’re more familiar with AI.
I have finished up spy x family vol 8, but there’s still some chapters left of this arc in volume 9. I’m glad I waited for volume 9 to release first, so now I can continue reading tomorrow. My parents are also on the way back from their cruise.
Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220529 
Tanuki Scroll LIX: ごみゼロの日 
I thought I had already read today, then I suddenly realised that I have not indeed read today.
So iddy biddy read of “what day is today?”
And today is zero trash day!
Because 5 (ご) + 3 (み) + 0 (ゼロ) = ゴミゼロ!
I have just realised that today is not the 30th, today is the 29th.
It gets worse, today, the 29th, is konjac day, I thought yesterday (28th) was konjac day.
The only explanation: timetravel.
Japanese found in the tall grass
Not sure if I’ve come across this before but here it is anyway
実施「じっし」ー Enforcement; implementation; putting into practice
Not really a word but an organisation
環境美化推進協議会「かんきょうびかすいしんきょうぎかい」ー Environmental Beautification Promotion Council
I think when I was younger we had kid parties, but I honestly can’t remember. As far as I can remember we’d invite relatives (grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins) for fika (aka sweet bakery goods with a hot beverage (is the general translation of the Swedish word)) for cookies, buns with coffee, tea and cordial/soda, and then after that cake.
I don’t think we even got our favorite food for dinner, haha.
So pretty casual in my family too. After my siblings and I moved away from home, we basically stopped celebrating birthdays. 
Well, except me, who would often (and then less often as the years went by) invite my family over. And have a separate dinner/visit a restaurant/café with friends.
When our parents stopped paying for them? 
@Zakarius @saidahgilbert Kladdkaka is a nice and easy one. Although the only method I’ve learnt for it was to make it all in the saucepan. Melt butter, add sugar, then the recipe usually says to carefully add the eggs, but I find it is a bit too hard to avoid scrambling them (possibly because I’m too impatient to melt the butter slowly enough that it doesn’t heat up much), so I usually add cacao and vanilla sugar first, then eggs, and last flour. Makes minimum mess.
My most common alteration is to make double and bake it on a baking sheet (with sides obviously). This will usually mean it will be drier (more cake-y) close to the edges, and more gooey towards the middle. Don’t make it too gooey this way though.
Next step: take out of the oven. Break dark chocolate into pieces and put them on top to melt (from the heat of the cake) 5ish mins later they will be melted through but look like nothing has happened. So spread them out with whatever tool you like. (I often add crushed nuts after spreading, in fact substituting some of the flour for hazelnut flour is amazing.)
When cool, put it in the fridge to stiffen the layer of chocolate. Later, cut into squares, and freeze anything you don’t eat that day (holds in the fridge for a few days, of course).
Hassle free and always gets compliments as long as everyone likes chocolate. Serve as is, or with whipped cream/ice cream. Berries add freshness (and tartness if using raspberries or similar tart berries).
If I don’t have much time, I most often do this because it is easy and freezes well.
Please keep me us updated. I have the same soft spot, haha.
Did you ever mention what this manga is about? Because your panels look fun enough that I’ve gotten curious. Might want to add it to my want-to-read list. 
I sometimes forget how long it can take to write a post when you’re also going through and finding quotes everywhere. 
Me hungry. 
EDIT (except I didn’t have a chance to click post, but anyway): Today is mother’s day in Sweden and my neighbor just came over. They’d been celebrating and had a lot of food and fika over, so I just got a slice of smörgåstårta (sandwich cake (not sweet)), chocolate truffle cake, and a bit of sponge-meringue cake (whipped cream and berries in the middle). The smörgåstårta piece is a bit small, so I’ll need to add more to my dinner, but timing/universe providing? 
May 28
Ended up not reading yesterday. Second day skipped during this challenge. Kinda amazed I haven’t skipped more.
Read other half of chapter 7 and all of chapter 8 of Yotsuba&. Miura needs to learn some manners. But it was all fixed at end. Phew.
Chapter 8 was hilarious all the way through. Also Asagi still coolest character. Karate chop! Also, the Ena and Fuuka encounters. Shooting the teddy bear, and then poor napping Fuuka. 
Note: This is a yuri comedy manga
Kimura-san is your typical shoujo manga main character. She’s a plain but good-hearted girl. As expected from a Shoujo Manga main character, she’s in love with the most popular guy in school, the cool, kind and admired-by-all Mizushima-kun.
Kimura-san is very timid but tries her best to get close to her crush. There’s however, someone that always manages to get in her way - the beauty of the school and Mizushima-kun’s childhood friend: Hiyama-san. She’s your typical shoujo manga antagonist that looks down on the main character and tries to stop her advances on the popular boy … or maybe not as typical as it seems!? It just happens that Hiyama-san reason for interfering is that she is head-over-heels in love with Kimura-san!
You can read the first 3 chapters for free in amazon.co.jp.
Thanks for the summery!
Hiyama-san is very yell-y (at least in the sample). Having someone screaming in my face like that all the time makes my heart race (not in a good way).
Love the art though.
Kinda good though, my want-to-read list doesn’t have to grow bigger. I have already picked up so many things I want to read from this thread. As if I didn’t have more than I could read in a lifetime in English already. 
May 29th!
I read chapter 7 of Happiness today. The story is really picking up now and getting really interesting though I would prefer it if there were less panels featuring teenage girls pants tbh.
I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the Spring challenge already!
In that case, you should maybe not read Fruits Basket
I’m usually pretty robust when someone shouts and curses and stuff, but that was too much even for me…
I finished Ojisama to Neko Volume 2 today, two days earlier than expected because I sometimes read more than my planned 5 pages per day. Now I have to find something to read for the last two days of May in order to complete the read every day challenge 
In 18 pages, three different chapters, the MC had Hiyama-san yelling in her face three times. I’m pretty sure I read like 1-3 chapters of Fruits Basket, and I don’t think there is that much yelling even counting all those pages. xD (It was some time since I read Fruits Basket though.)
I don’t know, this was just so in my face yelling that I wanted to lean back and go: please stop yelling at me. Didn’t get that feel from FB at all, but maybe the huge amounts of yelling shows up later?
Day 60
Wanted to see how much of NHK Easy News I understand so went and read the latest article titled 6月に外国人が観光で日本に来ることができるようになる. Was surprised when I understood almost all of it 
, and also to see the latest grammar I learned being used in the article (Vことができます).
New usefull word: 観光 - sightseeing; tourism
I finished 浦島太郎. After retuening from the Palace of the Dragon King, Taro finds that his house is gone, and so is his mother. He asks a man where his house is. The man answers that there used to be a house there, but that was 100 years ago. There hasn’t been a house there since. Taro says, “One hundred years?.. One hundred years?” He looks around and realizes there is notheing left for him but the beautiful box the younger princess had given him. He opens it and a white smoke comes out. Taro becomes a very old man, and then disappears. No one understands what happened.
New Words:
けむり
煙 smoke
なに
何も nothing at all
Here’s poor Taro:
