Yesterday’s:
Y’know I remembered that Deku calls Erik/Camus アニキ, but I forgot Erik calls him 相棒. I’m kinda jealous tbh. Since パートナー gets used more often, 相棒 feels more special. Like, (Vance? Vince?) will call you 相棒, and it would be one thing if everyone called their partner 相棒 in this competition, but no, they use パートナー. It’s just him. So I’m like, “No! Only Erik can call me 相棒!” But I’m not the only one Erik calls 相棒…
Also! It comes with voice dramas! And you can toggle the text on and off and it has a log mode where you can read the whole thing and you can jump forward and back by individual sections! So I’ll definitely be listening to/reading those at some point, though probably not anytime soon.
Anyway, I played for about 6 hours. We got the red orb back into our possession and escaped through the traveler’s gate to Homura (first イシの村 [石], then ホムラの里 [炎]… I don’t really remember the next place, so I wonder which is next), then started off toward the monster hideout in the west. I had wanted to finish the labyrinth and have Veronica and Senya/Serena join up, but I ended up being too tired and turned in. Aside from unlocking お宝ハンター/Itemized Kill, I haven’t gotten to where Erik starts calling you 相棒 yet.
Some vocab of note:
密林 (みつりん) [noun] close thicket; dense forest; jungle. Apparently this is also a slang word for Amazon.com lol
青二才 (あおにさい) [noun, derogatory] green youth; immature youth; novice; greenhorn
乗りかかった船 (のりかかったふね) [expression] having gone too far to turn back
事切れる (こときれる) [一, intransitive] to expire; to die
なんの変哲もない (なんのへんてつもない) [expression, い-adjective] completely ordinary; plain; commonplace; everyday
いてもたってもいられない [expression, い-adjective] unable to contain oneself; itching to do something; cannot sit still
金床 (かなとこ) [noun] anvil
指南 (しなん) [noun, する verb] instruction (in martial arts, performance, etc.); teaching; coaching. This comes from 指南車, an ancient Chinese vehicle with a compass whose needle always pointed south.
マセる [一, intransitive] to be precocious; to be mature for one’s age; to seem grown-up; to seem mature
無骨 (ぶこつ) [noun, な-adjective] boorish; unrefined; rustic; uncouth; clumsy; brusque
単刀直入 (たんとうちょくにゅう) [四字熟語, noun, な-adjective] straight to the point; point-blank; frank; direct
The story has been decent so far, if I wasn’t tracking my total character count I would think I’m near the end but I’m only about 1/3 of the way done per jpdb’s total character count for this game. I’m not sure how the story will end when there is so much left but it has been a fun read so far! Relatively simple too, the grammar is a lot easier than I expected, its mostly just a lot of vocabulary look ups.
Japanese found in the tall grass 
Advanced Struggling 
).
Ch.10
This always happens, I’m like “oooh I’m almost done that’s exciting, I’ll definitely just be happy and emotionally fulfilled when it’s over!” and then I get there and I don’t feel like part of this world anymore lmao. Business as usual 
But yeah AI was absolutely fantastic, everyone who’s talked about it was completely right, I loved it a lot and had many feelings 
I finished in a little under 60 hours which certainly isn’t native speed but not bad either, especially with my incessant need to click on everything always haha. So yeah, fourth game under my belt? Feels pretty good 
The big dance scene just… I’m so weak for that sort of thing, all the characters you’ve spent all this time getting to know and love together just singing and dancing and having a good time? To show how much they care about 伊達? They all put together this whole surprise for him 
I’ve gone so slowly and procrastinated so much that at this point I really have to force myself to look at it, because most of what’s left are expressions I’ve already encountered in the wild. But there are still a few unfamiliar ones mixed in, and being honest I know that even for the ones I’ve seen it would be useful to look at the usage and meaning/nuance. Somebody on Reddit described the Sou-matome books as review books rather than textbooks, and actually that makes a lot of sense for the way they’re written, and helped me understand how/why I should be using them now.
That would have me reading a vol in 3-4 days instead of 7. I think I have the motivation, I just have to figure out budgeting my time