📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

June 20th!

I read chapter 25 of Mitsuboshi Colors today. It was a fun one.
I was planning to read more tonight as Mitsuboshi Colors is usually quite a quick read for me, but I had a bit of a long day today so I decided to take it easy!

(Home Post)

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June 20

Zenitendou - 18 → 19 (2 pages)

Almost skipped reading today since I left it until so late, but I guess I decided to stay up late instead. :sleeping: Thankfully the next two pages for Zenitendou were fairly easy. Although I definitely found one sentence interesting in how I didn’t understand it at all, until I got I put it in to DeepL and then ichi.moe. By getting both a translation and then a break down, I figured out how it worked.

Well, better than not getting it, I guess. ^^

どかか / だれか / similar still get me confused to this day. Not what they mean exactly, but you can bet anytime they show up in a sentence, I will be scratching my head trying to figure out what the sentence means. :sweat:

On happier notes, I think everything is ready for :tangerine: :email: (Orange) book club. It feels crazy to realize I will be leading a book club starting in less than two weeks. (Have I mentioned I haven’t managed to keep up with even one WK book club yet? (As in kept reading rather than dropping/falling behind for various reasons.) I better do with this one. :joy: :grimacing: :joy:)

23 Likes

(📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱 - #12 by DIO-Berry)

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 16巻

6/20
start- 73

Decided to read until I was ready to pass out. I only did one arc though. I think I probably could have read more but I got really tired of Polnareff :joy: His lines are pretty easy to read, but I’m just not a fan of his character. Hopefully the focus shifts to someone else quickly, but I don’t remember.

21 Likes

Home

Today I watched the first ep of 絶対BL with JP subs. I can actually pretty much follow along without having to pause every few seconds either for lookups or to play catch-up, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it if the audio wasn’t JP too; right now, the audio helps me catch things I missed in the subs and the subs help me catch things I missed in the audio.

I read 晴れのち ch 3 梅雨 and ch 4 プール掃除. We meet Haruno’s former senpai from the MS soccer club 鳴子(なるこ)(あずま) during a thunderstorm lol. He’s dropped by to check on his former kouhai because he’s worried about him and also to try to get him to join the soccer club in HS as well (“Drinking tea and eating sweets? That’s not club activities, that’s a date!”). Haruno still seems to be under the impression, at the beginning of ch 3, that they’re not dating, but he still doesn’t try to, like, deny it or correct it or anything. At the end he seems to have accepted that this is what they’re doing now. He’s kind of an airhead. And! Yamato kisses him on the forehead, and though he gets embarrassed he doesn’t really mind and lets it become a thing, and then in ch 4 he’s the one to kiss Yamato on the mouth! (after Yamato already tried to kiss him earlier but Haruno, unawares, thwarted him lol) He thought, “Well, if Hitose says we’re dating, then we must be,” and he decided that if he kissed Yamato the same way then he’ll understand how Yamato feels every day. He’s really out here thinking a kiss on the mouth is the same as a forehead kiss.

Haruno, yer gonna kill him lol

They are truly moron4moron. (Though on the one hand, not knowing what 流しそうめん is can be excused since he lived abroad for most of his childhood, but on the other hand, confusing his mix-up for Haruno’s: アホ.)

I also played 46 minutes of DQXI. I know the exact time because I started playing at 11:14 p.m. lol. I found slime island (a quest took me there), and though I came across a LMS, I wasn’t able to defeat it :/ Camus even has Metal Wing (plus dual wielding!) and Sylvia Metal Slash now! But alas.

Some vocab of note:

不審死 (ふしんし) [noun] undetermined manner of death; suspicious death
ガリ [noun, slang, derogatory] overly skinny person. From the onomatopoeia がりがり “very skinny; emaciated; all skin and bones.”
胃袋を掴む (いぶくろをつかむ) [expression, マ五] to attract someone with food
どっぷり [onomatopoeia, な-adjective, adverb] totally (immersed in something, e.g. liquid, work); addicted
入梅 (つゆいり) [noun, する verb] entering the rainy season; beginning of the rainy season. It is, of course, also written 梅雨入り. This spelling seems to be a case of the 音読み compound still being read with the 訓読み (though it can actually be read either way).
未練 (みれん) [noun, な-adjective] lingering attachment; lingering affection; regret; reluctance; ruefulness
鈍感 (どんかん) [noun, な-adjective] thickheaded
思い立つ (おもいたつ) [タ五, transitive] to set one’s mind on doing; to get the idea of doing; to make up one’s mind

21 Likes

June 20 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I started off with some 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ today and my brain was not vibing with the way this scientist guy was talking :joy: I’m sure it’ll be fine when I go back to it, I just did not have mindset for it at the time so that’s a later adventure!

I did play a bunch more バディミッションBOND because of course I did; it has a lot of goofs and it’s always fun actually finding them funny, that can be rough with the language barrier. All the characters are just wild enough that it comes across no matter what :laughing: Like I’ve said all the speaking styles are pretty distinct, but seeing more of how チェズレイ talks has been interesting. He’s definitely polite in like a “serving the young master” kind of way, but since he’s the way he is it’s also kind of condescending :joy: But yeah he even uses stuff like 殿(どの), plus a whole bunch of music terms and metaphors for flair, so he’s an experience for sure.

~ BOND things ~

Some wild stuff happened plot-wise for sure, but a lot of it was just fun interactions which like!! Yeah I’m down! :grin: Give me goofs before the angst inevitably hits again haha. ルーク is so precious, he went to モクマ’s like meet and greet for ニンジャジャン because he loves heroes :pleading_face: He’s by far the most wholesome character, good balance for the unending chaos surrounding him, RIP this man.

アーロン is… less than delicate :joy: And yet ルーク thinks pretty well of him:

Cue アーロン straight up growling and ルーク being like “I think my standards are broken” lmao. アーロン growls like… a lot, he really lives up to the beast name; he even sleep-growls?? Absolutely wild :joy:

This man… it’s pretty impressive coming off as extra by the standards of this world but he is sure there, absolutely amazing :joy: I’m really curious to learn more about him actually, he’s interesting; like yeah his whole human manipulation thing, and the crazy disguise skills, but I’m curious what’s actually going on with him as a person too. Like yes he has no problem being rude to people within his polite facade, but it doesn’t really seem like he thinks very much of himself either? It’s like everything’s an act, everything has a purpose; there are definitely some identity issues in this man. He fully offered to present himself as an entirely different person if ルーク preferred that, and I don’t entirely think he was kidding, which… yeah, he’s complicated! Him and モクマ are really interesting too; he continues to be the only one seeing through モクマ’s goofy facade to how he really feels about things, though today that feeling was intense rage towards チェズレイ sooo… complicated again :laughing: But yes he’s also absolutely savage:

I’m always big on characters so none of this is any surprise really, but I really like all of them :grin: they’re a lot of fun!

22 Likes

:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220621 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 38.61%

I’ve been reading aloud while reading, but because it feels weird to talk at normal levels alone, I speak hushed. I feel that I have mentally conditioned my Japanese speaking abilities to only be done in whispers, if I need to speak at normal levels in Japanese I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to :thinking:

:seedling: Japanese found in the tall grass :seedling:

Learnthings

同様「どうよう」ー Same; similar; equal
小遣い「こづかい」ー Pocket Money
慄然「りつぜん」ー Terrified; horrified
電報「でんぽう」ー Telegram
上策「じょうさく」ー Excellent plan; good idea
情死「じょうし」ー Lover’s suicide; joint suicide
出席日数「じゅっせきにっすう」ー Number of days someone has attended somewhere (like school); attendance days
武装蜂起「ぶそうほうき」ー Armed uprising
用箋「ようせん」ー Stationery; writing pad
くたくた ー Exhausted; worn out

Fun with Hiragana
へのへのもへじ ー A way to make a face with hiragana (popular to do as children)

Poor attempt:

へ へ
の の

じ is supposed to be at the side to make it look like the side of the face.

Here’s what it looks like:
へのへのもへじ

Forms
聯絡 = 連絡「れんらく」(Making contact; getting in touch; communication)

Magic P

24 Likes

June 21

:candy: Zenitendou 1: page 20 → 21 (2 pages)

I’m still going at what feels like a super slow pace, but I feel not used up at the end, more like done. Like, yeah, I’ve used 60% of my tank, don’t wanna go too low or run it empty because tomorrow it won’t be back to full then.

At this rate I’ll finish the first story in another 4-5 days. Feels very slow, but I’m also enjoying the ride. And I am reading comprehensively so some sentences take a little while. Trying to nail down those areas I’ve often glossed over because I found them confusing. And not paying enough attention to particles is still kicking my ass.

This author really loves putting commas after the subject particle, and I keep missing that, so I dismiss the first part of the sentence from my mind and the second half becomes not very clear because it is missing that vital subject. :joy:

I’ll get used to it eventually.

Happier news. Still playing Atelier Sophie and pretty happy with my listening comprehension. I think I basically catch every word I actually know, and I’m catching the grammar constructions used and figuring out what roughly is said as long as the sentence doesn’t include a lot of unknown vocabulary. I’m also enjoying how casually I can do it with English text right there. It doesn’t feel like studying at all, just playing a game with some additional benefits.

Also, I’ve been looking into potentially joining a university Japanese course, emailed the institution today to see if I could get an answer on how I prove my Japanese skills, because I want to join the N3 level course which is about where I am (halfway-ish through it). But the diploma from my one year at Japanese school doesn’t mention level of Japanese at all. :sweat: And I’ve not taken the JLPT… The first time ever I’ve thought 残念 about that. xD

21 Likes

June 21!

I noticed that Hana ni Arashi is free on Bookwalker for a few days, and since Natively rates it as a similarish level of difficulty to Yotsuba I thought I’d give it a go during my lunchbreak.
And then I ended up reading 5 chapters and my whole lunchbreak had disappeared :smiley:

(Home Post)

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Oh nice, I am glad you are enjoying it! I added it to Natively a while ago and really enjoy the series, its super cute. I still need to catch up though cause I’ve only finished the first 8 volumes and the newest volume 11 comes out soon

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It was actually your review that encouraged me to try it!
Thank you for the indirect recommendation :slightly_smiling_face:

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june 21 :cherry_blossom: home post

It’s finally not raining here so I decided to read outside :smiley: I read a couple pages of 夜カフェ chapter 8 and 極主夫道 chapter 37, but my main focus today is 神々のトライフォース. I really want to finish this manga today

edit: I did it! 神々のトライフォース is finally finished!!

23 Likes

(📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱 - #12 by DIO-Berry)

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 16巻

6/21
74 - 92

I wanted to read a lot more, but I was too hyper and distracted last night :joy: I couldn’t concentrate and lost an hour or 2 to mental flailing :joy: :sweat_smile:

21 Likes

Home

I read the couple 描き下ろし pages that are technically a continuation of ch 4 (whoops), then ch 5 花火 and the 描き下ろし mini-chapter 桜の記憶, finishing vol 1 of 晴れのち四季部! I can’t wait to get the rest of the series. I adore it so much.

(The outer space inside his head lol) And then on a later day when Yamato bends down hoping to get a forehead kiss from Haruno, he gets a headpat instead. まあいいか…

In ch 5, their school is hosting a 夏祭り, and after inviting Yamato to go with him, Haruno worries over what to wear, thinking that Yamato would surely wear either a jinbei or a yukata, before finally deciding on a yukata since he thinks Yamato’s more likely to go with that. He shows up in his school uniform lmao. So Haruno drags him back home with him to borrow a yukata from his older brother before going to the festival. He needs the full experience! And later they sneak off to the roof to watch the fireworks holding hands

I also played 16 min of DQXI; it’s the continuation of the 46 min from last night lol. I didn’t end up playing any after I got some sleep like I’d originally planned.

And that’s all I ended up reading today. I finally finished going through the last of the binders on my bottom shelf and copying down the fic stuff I wanted to keep into my Docs, and then I got sidetracked with other fics for that pairing that I already had in my Docs. Now all I’ve got left is my yearbooks, what looks like some old sketchbooks, and some file thing. I just gotta figure out what I wanna do with those (and work myself up to touch them since it looks like there’s webs on at least some of them…) and then I can finish sanding and finally get to painting, and then I can finally get all my books back outta their boxes and back on the shelves! Shouldn’t take too long, right? Of course, it’s hotter now than when I started, so I’ll probably tire out sooner, and I already tire out pretty quick…

Some vocab of note:

露店 (ろてん) [noun] street stall; stand; booth. I assume this uses the “expose” meaning of 露, not “dew” lol
一喜一憂 (いっきいちゆう) [四字熟語, expression] now rejoicing, now worrying; swinging from joy to sorrow; glad and sad by turns
息を引き取る (いきをひきとる) [expression, ラ五] to pass away; to breathe one’s last
他愛もない (たわいもない) [expression, い-adjective] silly; foolish; absurd; childish; easy; trifling; guileless. The 他愛 is 当て字, not to be confused with 他愛 (たあい) meaning “altruism.” 他愛もない and its variations are usually written in kana, though.
冬至 (とうじ) [noun] winter solstice
臆病者 (おくびょうもの) [noun] coward

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I was all “I’m going to read all 31 pages today!” which like, doable tbh. But I got halfway through the scientist chapter and my brain also just checked out. It’s not that it’s hard so much as it’s quite boring. So far it’s all basically info we’ve gotten before presented in a very verbose format.

I’m going to try to knock out the rest as soon as I can so I can join the discussion but oof. These chapters are very inconsistently interesting!

14 Likes

June 21 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

Well I started off fighting through the 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ scientist talk again and I wasn’t sure how far I’d get, but I managed to finish that chapter and then I got sucked in and read a whole other chapter so… I basically read two chapters today? So that’s pretty cool :+1: Being occupied with that I didn’t play as much バディミッションBOND today, but I still did some; mostly just reading through some side stories and replaying a section to unlock one I didn’t before, all that good stuff. (I also got in the mood to mess with 怪人(かいじん)二十(にじゅう)面相(めんそう) again because チェズレイ reminded me of it so I read a little of that, we’ll see if I actually keep on with it this time :man_shrugging:)

buddy things!

I mostly just have fun screenshots today:

He’s so powerful :joy: I am curious what the deal with all his like “beast” traits is, like is it just thematic or is there a reason he has super senses? It keeps coming up so it feels like it’s probably relevant but idk; maybe it has to do with the experiments that happened in his country? I might just be primed for that kind of plotline from other things lmao but it’d make some sense :man_shrugging:

…is that an ace attorney reference :joy: Wild, this is not a capcom game but whatever! Also モクマ naruto runs because of course he does :laughing:

Have I mentioned that I love her?? She’s probably gonna betray us all (I have bad experiences with characters using たまえ lmao) but also her using たまえ? Powerful :muscle: I can’t believe she’s gonna turn us into backup dancers, this game is absolutely wild :joy:

On a more serious note: モクマ definitely has a complicated past we don’t know about, he’s kind of an alcoholic and clearly just in a bad place but really good at putting on the whole nonchalant goofy act, but I don’t know why :cry: ナデシコ seems to? It seems he was more like ルーク once, some sort of hero-type vigilante, but something happened and I have no idea what but it’ll probably hurt when we find out!

Lmao it’s so reassuring when it’s not just me :sweat_smile: Like yeah there’s some interesting stuff in the chapter, but the ratio of new information to number of words I was looking up and convoluted phrasing I was wrapping my head around? Yeah not ideal :joy: It gets better after though, can confirm!

23 Likes

:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220622 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 42.02%

40%!

:seedling: Japanese found in the tall grass :seedling:

Learnthings

気障「ぎざ」ー Smug; pompous; snobby
愁え「うれえ」ー Lamentation; grief; anxiety (more common to see as: 憂え)
身動き「みうごき」ー Moving around; stirring about
「かすり」ー Splashed pattern (on cloth, like a kimono)
図々しい「ずうずうしい」ー Impudent; shameless; audacious
技倆「ぎりょう」ー Ability; competency; skill (more common to see as: 技量)
訛り 「なまり」ー Accent (like Kansai accent, German accent etc.)
地金「じがね」ー Ore; unprocessed metal; one’s true character/self
青大将「あおだいしょう」ー Japanese rat snake
「ほお」ー Cheek
木枯らし「こがらし」ー Cold, wintry wind
詐欺罪「さぎざい」ー Fraud
馬耳東風「ばじとうふう」ー Talking to the wall; complete indifference

Forms
鮨 = 寿司「すし」(Sushi) (can also be: 鮓)

21 Likes

June 22nd!

Three more chapters of Hana ni Arashi today.
The Bookwalker limited free period has done its job well, its going to expire before I can finish the volume so I guess I’m buying it so I can finish…and then inevitably buying the rest of the series too… :smiley:

(Home Post)

20 Likes

June 22

Zenitendou :candy:: Page 22 → 31 (8,5 pages) (one page was only a picture)

Well, that was me pushing through. :muscle: I’ve gotten more used to the voice so that makes a bit of difference, but I did read 4 times as much as I have any other day. Took about 1,5 hours, I think, or possibly 2 hours. Not entirely sure when I started.

Pushed through because it was the end of the first story. Got that “it is soon ending” momentum going.

Tomorrow, I will probably reread the first story from start to finish (not looking up any words unless I get super confused). Just to kinda get a better idea of the story as a whole, and hopefully cement the author voice better in my head.

I look forward to when :tangerine: :email: start because I suspect that will be so much easier to read. Will be a nice break from Zenitendou. But that is a little more than a week away. So another week and story of Zenitendou before then. :sweat_smile:

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So
I bought some books :joy:

Can we all just appreciate how F R E A K I N G CUTE the covers in the bottom row are :sob: Like they just get progressively cuter with each volume (the cover of vol 5 is even cuter but that volume wasn’t going to be out for another week and I didn’t want to wait, so that will probably be in the next order, along with some stuff I just realized I forgot to buy too distracted by soft boy with soft cat :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: )

Anyway, I’m feeling excited for the next challenge now, I think I really needed a pile refresh :laughing:

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Hooray! I’ll be sure to keep a look out :heart:

Thank you!

1 Like