📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

Audiobooks

Oh I hope you don’t have problems tuning it out in the future now that I pointed it out, haha. I know I tend to be frustratingly sensitive and attentive to this stuff; it’s been a problem for me with various copies of movies and stuff before too. There’s definitely a point to the device mixing because it sounds practically as loud as the real audio to me on my phone, so I thought it was a phone issue until I checked everything else and realized it’s on the computer too. Of course now I’ll hear it forever on the computer too haha. I’ll see what I can do, appreciate you checking.

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April 12th (Calendar Post)

三日間の幸福 => 7 Pages (86 minutes)

Hopefully tomorrow will be a less chaotic day and I’ll be able to read more.

Fun word I’ve ran into today:

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April 12 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

More VLR of course! I mostly just did the puzzle room so that was a lot of fun as always :blush: I wanna play more but it’s sleepy hours sooo tomorrow!

VLR is wild

Hmmm the treatment room… I’m not really surprised that cold sleep came up, it tracks with all of the weird time implications so far, but there’s some more concrete proof. Though they’re also implying that only three people were frozen? So that’s another complicating factor to say the least, like… who? But yeah the more time passes the less confident I am there’s really an outside word to go back to, definitely getting some vibes that remind me of uh… similar situations :joy:

Alright it’s time for a crackpot theory: so 天明寺(てんみょうじ) yeah? Something’s obviously up with him, he knows too much about things, he has a picture of (あかね) he keeps with him always (a picture of her on that flashback sunset hill no less :eyes:), he knows and trusts 四葉(よつば) and seems upset that she doesn’t recognize him, lots of things. Also considering that some people were likely in cold sleep, potentially including 四葉(よつば), perhaps 天明寺(てんみょうじ) is 淳平(じゅんぺい)? クォーク even joked about the girl in the photo being his first love and I’m just like… maybe he’s right :joy: It’s be absolutely wild but not unheard of for Zero Escape, and it’d explain some things :eyes: including like why he’s even here? If he’s not 淳平(じゅんぺい) then he’s definitely someone else relevant, there’s a lot of mystery there.

Nightshade! I barely got anywhere but it was pretty interesting, just… historical :joy: I remember wading through the opening section of like “this clan fought this clan and then they reconciled and some people got married but people were mad maybe” kind of stuff and just being like what is happening lmao. It’s super pretty too though, perhaps once I finish Zero Escape I should take a look at it again :eyes:

Oh very relatable, truly an everpresent phenomenon haha. At this point barring exceptional situations like Kansai robot I’m usually just like :man_shrugging: close enough

I’m sorry you’re having a rough time though, it sounds like life and Summer Pockets are both putting you through it in their own ways (that chain of kanji you posted earlier? terrifying until I looked it up and still terrifying after actually). You’re still absolutely crushing it though; I hope things get easier for you :grin:

It’s interesting actually, I absolutely feel like manga should feel easier for me but like… no? It’s usually more exhausting somehow; my theory is that it’s a psychological thing bc I feel like it should be easier than it actually is? But yeah it’s interesting to see how different people work with this stuff! :sparkles:language :sparkles:

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Oh truly! In the intermediate book club book right now, the Saga dialect just has me like… “yep, those are the words I know, and this is probably what she would be saying right now given that.” Part of it’s also that I treat the non-VNs slightly more as something to try to read without puzzling as hard over every character like I end up doing with the VN (though I do still look up practically everything in the built in dictionary when I can), but yeah. It’s kinda both good and bad that I can do that more comfortably when every bit used to be a challenge, since there’s definitely the risk of skimming over important stuff to notice too.

Much appreciated :heart: Some of the life stuff’s pretty rough and there’s not much of an end in sight, but I haven’t let it stop me yet. And I’ve said it before but yeah I’m being reminded how weird it can be to evaluate visual novel difficulty. It’s not an easy medium. Grammar-wise this one still isn’t that bad I think (though it certainly drifts through all the “higher level” points and stuff), and has plenty of shorter sentences, but for the sake of comedy or off the wall references or whatever, it’ll really pull the weirdest words from absolutely anywhere. The few books I’ve read up to this point didn’t choose their words by partially throwing dartboards at a dictionary like this does, haha.

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Home

My new fic has Consumed me. Really doesn’t help that it’s for a pairing (and character) that makes me feral, either. I did still do some reading, though.

I read Seed 11 of GREEN.

And we get the first character in this series whom I actually hate

Ohhhh I figured out something I’d kinda glossed over in the previous chapter. Kayoko wants to buy the vegetables that Wako’s growing for use in her restaurant—that’s what her job is. So now, 「農家のヨメ」というより「農家の人」になっていた——

A high school third-year who seems to have a crush on Makoto, Ooshiba Yayoi, the daughter of the Ooshiba Shiitake Farm, has come down ostensibly to ask Makoto a question for her homework but really to check out what his rumored girlfriend is like. And she starts criticizing Wako on her appearance for things that are literally just… because she’s a farmer?? Like Makoto?? Like, Wako literally just came over from having been in the middle of farm work, and she’s criticizing her for wearing dirty, thick-soled boots, patched jeans, an old shirt whose collar is stretched out, having dirt under her fingernails, unkempt hair (she wears it in two quick braids while farming to keep it out of the way, and they’ve got flyaways 'cause she’s, y’know, been doing manual labor), and not wearing makeup, like??? What else is she supposed to be wearing, five-inch heels and designer clothing? What the frick? Who the everloving flip does this ojou-chan think she is. But oh, of course this girl who refuses to get her manicured nails dirty or let one single strand of her perfectly straight hair get out of place or to look anything other than that she’s just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine and wears five-inch platform heels to go to a friggin farm and looks down on farmers and doesn’t want anything directly to do with the thing Makoto’s most passionate about is clearly a better fit for him. Never mind that she’s far too young for him. This is the first character in this series whom I actually hate, and I hate her with a burning freaking passion.

And it’s not like Wako-chan doesn’t make an effort with her appearance outside of farm work. Sure, she’s not particularly fashionable, especially not compared to Yayoi-ojouchan, but she does dress more nicely off the farm than on. And why the hell are you dissing/making fun of someone for wearing work-appropriate clothing while they work, ah??

The next day, obaa-chan tells Wako-chan that she’s bought something good in town for her today, and she gets excited thinking it’s cute clothes, but it’s the kind of clothing that obaa-chan wears while farming. Makoto laughs when he sees her all kitted out in it, though he says it’s because of the pose she’s struck (and I’m inclined to believe him, for, as his name suggests, he’s not really capable of lying), and tells her that it suits her—or rather, that she looks cute no matter what she wears (which makes her happy lol she’s a simple woman).

Oh wow, and now ojou-chan has shown up again (looking for Makoto again, of course) with her pen stuck down her cleavage.

lol, she’s studying to get into a farming university? Really? With her attitude? And she actually plans to take over her family’s shiitake farm? She does know she’ll have to get her hands dirty, right? What a joke. Oh, no, she’ll just wear gloves. Won’t stop her from getting sweaty and gross, though—in fact, they’ll just make her sweatier! She does know her hair will get messy when she sweats, right? Even if she puts it up. Guess she’ll just have to shave her head, then!

She got to Wako-chan, who then goes out and purposely buys ギャル clothes like what Yayoi wears. She looks cute and they do suit her, but… not so much her unevenly sunburned arms. She also uses a face mask, but it’s 3 years old and just dries out her skin :(

lol turns out Yayoi-chan failed her midterms! Or at least did poorly enough to have her mother get angry with her; I dunno if 48 is considered failing or not, actually. (Isn’t it below 30 is failing? Or does it vary from school to school?)

I read 2 pages of 2.43, putting me at pg 55.

Summary

I forgot that their libero Yuuhi is a third-year. I was thinking he was a second-year like Hokao. I’m not sure I remembered that Tomoki’s a second-year, either, though I feel like I should’ve, seeing as he calls Ochi 先輩 in the section I read today.

I guessed correctly that 起 has the 音読み き even though I don’t recall ever coming across it before! I wonder if it’s the oneself radical, since 紀 and 記 are also read き. I didn’t even think about it until afterward, though. I just saw 起用 and immediately, without even a split second of hesitation, went, “Oh, that’s きよう,” as if that weren’t my first time seeing it. (Did not guess the meaning, though. It’s “appointment [to a position, job, etc.]; being used for a role; promotion.”)

And, yup, I was right about this being the scene where Kouhei bemoans about not having a girl manager. K High has two, and one is dating the captain while the other is dating the second-year ace. He says that co-ed schools are weak (“Kouhei, sorry to tell you this, but we’re co-ed too.”) before saying that he wishes they had a girl manager too. It’s all right if they get a little weaker. Ochi, coming up to the table, bonks him lightly atop the head with his lunch tray and tells him that if he wants a girl manager that much, he should go to K High. I’m pretty sure in the anime, he scolded him here saying that they can’t afford to get any weaker. Unless that was a little bit later, past where I left off with Tomoki and Keita heading off together, freeing up a spot at the table for Ochi.

I read the next 3 chapters of Colloquial Kansai Japanese, which, I’m not sure I wrote down when I read the first 3? And I don’t remember when that was anymore so I can’t update it now. Oh well. But yeah I’ve got two more groups of chapters left after this. I had bought this book a while back thinking it’d be the next best thing to having an actual resource for Fukuiben as I haven’t found one thus far, though there hasn’t really been all that much so far that overlaps. Well, it’s not like I’ll never end up reading anything where people speak Kansaiben (hell, I’m in the middle of 極主夫道 right now). Also I’m learning that some things I’d never realized were dialectal are apparently Kansaiben. Like ご苦労さん. And アホ.

Some vocab of note:

逞しい (たくましい) [adjective] burly; strong; sturdy; robust; indomitable; indefatigable; strong-willed; resolute
担う (になう) [ア五, transitive] to carry on one’s shoulder; to shoulder; to bear; to take upon oneself. I had known the 担ぐ (かつぐ) reading for this kanji (which has similar meanings), but today was my first time seeing this one.

Off-topic, but I saw a double rainbow today! I’ve got a photo at the top of my log entry today, linked below (though you can really only see the main rainbow, unfortunately; the reflection was more visible in-person than it is in the picture).

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:tulip: Day 12 :tulip: :house:
Read: ジャックジャンヌー夏劇ー
Finished: 23 pages
Time: 1 hour 12 minutes
Headed out to a cafe and got some reading done, only 24 pages left in the first story. I usually use Jisho to look up words I don’t know but today I came across a word that it didn’t have so I tried out using a Japanese dictionary for the first time. The word was 優麗, which apparently means 上品で美しいこと (to be elegant and beautiful?). Might try using one more often when I want to know the nuance of a word better.

Story Thoughts

It’s interesting seeing the characters’ interactions that weren’t able to be shown in the game since it follows Kisa’s perspective. In this story there’s a lot of Kai’s interactions with the other first year students, and the parallels he draws between their relationship and his with Fumi. So far he’s relating a lot to Yonaga about starting out acting at this school and feeling overwhelmed and like he can’t compete with the pure talent of his classmate. This is something that has made Kai feel like he doesn’t know how he should live at Univiel, and although he wants to say something to Yonaga because he knows how he feels, he can’t bring himself to because it’s something he’s still lost about.

New Vocabulary

だに even (formal or literary)
色香 (いろか)loveliness; charm; allure; beauty
一挙一動 (いっきょいちどう)one’s every action; every single move
挫折 (ざせつ)setback; failure (e.g. plans, business); frustration; discouragement
あぐねる to tire of; to lose interest in; to be too much for one; to find unmanageable; to be beyond one’s control; to not know what to do with
曰く (いわく)according to …; … says
相反 (そうはん)inversion; opposition; conflicting; repulsion; contradiction
狼狽える (うろたえる)to be flustered; to lose one’s presence of mind
やや a little; partially; somewhat; slightly; semi-; -ish; on the … side; a short time; a while​
転ける (こける)to fall over; to fall down; to fall; to collapse
しどろもどろ confused; disordered; faltered; incoherent; inconsistent
垣間見る (かいまみる)to take a peep at; to catch a glimpse of
対照的 (たいしょうてき)contrastive
名残惜しい (なごりおしい)reluctant (to part)
ないまぜ mixture; jumble​
大股 (おおまた)long stride; big steps
唸る (うなる)to roar; to howl; to growl
さも really (seem, appear, etc.); truly; evidently
共鳴 (きょうめい)sympathy (with a view, idea, etc.)
敗北 (はいぼく)defeat; loss; reverse; setback
交互に (こうごに)alternately; by turns; one after the other
動作 (どうさ)movement (of the body); action; motion; gesture

Ooh Nightshade! I played it in english but I can imagine that one’s really difficult in Japanese. Historical games are a different beast :joy:

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Read 三毛猫ホームズ to the end of part 3.1

The 見合い scene was kinda boring and felt like filler, just like @pocketcat said. Also, it felt like this section had twice as much new vocabulary as the others :weary:

Place names
赤坂(あかさか)a district in the main/central area of Tokyo.

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Last night ended up ridiculously busy with various little things popping up, so 23 pages is what I managed over the course of a good 4 hours of interrupted reading. This leaves me with 55 pages left, which I doubt I will manage tonight what with some errands to run and a promise to call a language exchange partner. Good news for everyone else catching up to my spoiler posts though! :stuck_out_tongue: I’m still on track to finish by Saturday, which is what matters to me.
I’m currently somewhere in the middle of 4.2, 84% done. No spoilers for today - I actually left off right as something appeared to be about to happen because I had to go to bed and knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it!

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4月13日 - Day 13
Calendar

  • 博士の愛した数式 (34-36%)

Although it’s just 2%, today’s part was filled with so many emotions! Also I encountered a few interesting phrases.

Vocab

耐えがたい(たえがたい)- unbearable; intolerable
影響を及ばす(およばす)- to affect; to impact; to influence
恐怖を味わう - to experience (taste) fear
虫が知らせる - to forebode; to have a presentiment
役目を果たす - to carry out/fulfil a role
動揺 - shaking; trembling; pitching; rolling; oscillation

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Main Post

I had finished reading volume 2 of Yuru Camp sooner than I expected and I just bought volume 3 on kindle today, so I’ll be continuing that for a little while longer. Thought I would add some screens down below.

Yuru Camp vol 2

Noticed it’s turning more into a cooking manga than a camping manga lol. Next update should also be soon, as I’m close to finishing Yoru Cafe.

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:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220413 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll XIII: :metal:

I don’t have a link to anything today, because instead I have been listening to 兀突骨「ごつとつこつ」and was like… wait, this is Japanese… I’m learning Japanese… I can use this to learn even more Japanese about samurai, deadly battles and all that sort of fun stuff. Unfortunately the lyrics seem to be nowhere to be found online and I neither have any of their CDs since they are hard to come by and expensive one day, one day… so I’ve just gone through the song titles.

On the off chance that someone here likes death metal as much as I do here’s a song:

Insane bass slapping :white_check_mark:
Tasty guitar shredding :white_check_mark:
Headbanging fun time guaranteed :white_check_mark:
Obligatory metal-video-cameraman who they employ for every single damn heavy metal video who just can’t stop going nuts to the music and shaking the camera all over the place :white_check_mark:


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

Lots of words

決戦「けっせん」ー Decisive battle
撫デ斬リ「なでぎり」ー Killing sweep - killing many foes with one sword slash, aka ultimate move in a sword fighting game were you have to input an unnecessarily long string of button mashing
晒し「さらし」ー Bleaching; bleached cotton. Can also mean to dox someone on the internet
無慈悲「むじひ」ー Merciless; ruthless; unfeeling
反撃「はんげき」ー Counterattack
背水の陣「はいすいのじん」ー Fighting with one’s back to the wall; last stand
文物「ぶんぶつ」ー the products of a civilisation / a culture / peoples
「いしぶみ」ー Tombstone; stone monument with an inscription, can also be: 石文. This is on WK, but there isn’t a vocab with it just by itself
戦雲「せんうん」ー War clouds; threat of war
争乱「そうらん」ー Conflict; strife
死地「しち」ー Close to death; extremely dangerous place or situation where you are in great danger of dying
剣豪「けんごう」ー Master swordsman
血塗「ちみどろ」ー Blood-drenched; gory. More commonly seen as: 血みどろ.
死中求活「しちゅうきゅうかつ」ー Finding a way out of a potentially fatal situation
万里「ばんり」ー Thousands of miles
行軍 「こうぐん」ー March
武名 「ぶめい」ー Military fame
因果応報「いんがおうほう」ー Retribution; retribution justice; karma
刺客「しかく」ー Assassin
天下無双「てんかむそう」ー Peerless; unequalled
獄門「ごくもん」ー Prison gate
覇王「はおう」ー Supreme ruler
復讐「ふくしゅう」ー Revenge
祝詞「のりと/しゅくし」ー Ritual Prayer
婆羅門「ばらもん」ー Brahman (Hindu priest), usually written in kana
摩利支天「まりしてん」ー Marici (Buddhist god of war)
陽炎「かげろう」ー Heat haze
髑髏「どくろ」ー Skull, though used as a symbol of death, like how the figure of death is used
落日「ろくじつ」ー Setting sun
出陣「しゅつじん」ー Departure into war; going into battle
蒼天「そうてん」ー Azure sky; blue sky
魍魎「もうりょう」ー All kinds of goblins and spirits and gremlins and such - a collective term for them as a whole
大安「たいあん」ー An entire day of bad luck - in the traditional calendar a day that is said to be unlucky all day; auspicious day
川越し「かわごし」ー Crossing a river

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I’ve been lurking so far, but! I managed to read 11 / 13 days in April so far.
@NicoleIsEnough programmed this beautiful Excel heatmap for me to track my pages read each day:

Heatmap

I finished the titular short story from 海の見える理髪店 today, which I’ve been wanting to read for a while now (to get an entry for the Naoki Prize Reading Challenge, and because I found a 朗読 by Saitō Sōma of the first 30 pages on YouTube, so I “read” the first half of the story along with the audio, and then read the remaining 20 pages today.

It was a rather relaxing story, which was to be expected, but I know there was something more there. Something implied, a deeper connection between the two characters. But this wasn’t really made explicit, even though I felt it would have made for a nice twist at the end. This way, I’m left speculating and interpreting by myself, which is a rather odd feeling.

On to the second story, いつか来た道! (there’s six in total)

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I was able to keep playing Ace Attorney today! I think I’m putting it on hold for the time being, though. It’s too bad, but the game requires more attention and stamina than I’m able to put in right now. It’ll be nice to go back and play it when I’ve learned more grammar!

I guess this is more about listening (does reading subtitles count?), but I went on Netflix and noticed that はじめてのおつかい is available to watch in my region now (maybe elsewhere, too?). I’d never heard of this show before, but I’ve watched 10 episodes with japanese subs already. I can’t with these tiny kids running errands for their parents :sob:

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I am so glad I started this challenge! This is the first time I’ve done this, and I am really enjoying it. It has also been a revelation that I CAN read Japanese, and that is so motivating! I never thought I was that far along in my studies. Even being on a baby level is cool.

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Day 11, Day 12 & Day 13 - Calendar

Just a short recap of the last three days. I’m still reading. Just didn’t update.
Well, I started 魔女の宅急便 on Sunday already, although I only read up to page 9. That is were I had stopped the first time I started the book some months ago.
These three days I read up to page 30. While it is a bit easier this time around, I still have some difficulties with the book. I find it harder then 夜カフェ. Hopefully it will get a little easier once I accustomed to it. It’s not that it’s unreadable though, it just doesn’t flow so well (if that makes sense).

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Aw yeah! The magic of this challenge is real :star2: So lovely to see everyone making such strides with their reading :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Day 13

なぜ?どうして?かがくのお話1年生: 40% → 48%

Also started reading 都道府県のおはなし (Stories of Japanese prefectures) as part of ABBC, read the introductory chapter (2 pages): 0% → 7%.

After having watched this video, I’m trying a new approach to reading: I read a couple of pages without translating them, once or twice. And only then I look up new words. This made reading more pleasant and fluid so far.

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Oooh yeah that’s good, I should probably try to do that more lmao. Having things to read in both ways is a really good way to go about it I think, I’m just so bad at not looking things up, it absolutely kills me :joy: I have to know!! Hopefully as the number of things I don’t know decreases I’ll get better about it but idk, the perfectionist tendencies run strong :man_shrugging:

For real, I think slice-of-lifey stuff especially can be really deceiving. Maybe because there’s less of a central concept driving specialized vocabulary, it just ends up even more all over the place? Idk but as off the wall as Zero Escape gets sometimes, I’m not sure it can even compete with Summer Pockets :joy:

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:cherry_blossom::black_cat::cherry_blossom:
\huge\color{ #A3E4D7}\mathrm{🎂Day 13🎂}
:cherry_blossom::black_cat::cherry_blossom:

\small \color{ #FCF3CF}\mathrm{★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★}

Today I didn’t read よつばと!:open_mouth: It’s my b-day and I got a Satori Reader subscription as a gift from my father so I read the first bit of コナの大ぼうけん and really enjoyed the easy lookups and Wanikani integration vis-a-vis furigana:) I expect I’ll be alternating between よつば and コナ going forward.

\small \color{ #FCF3CF}\mathrm{★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★}

Tooltip

The flowers above the “Day #” links to my post for the previous day, and the flowers below link to the next day, except for the latest day ofc, they link somewhere special :wink:

:birthday:

Replies

Thank you, I agree :blush:

Thank you :blush: I have:)

Thanks! I’m sure I will😁

:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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Edit: Hah, I posted the kanji image from last time instead of today’s, oops.

Many replies

Hey that’s really good! I do really like the heavier ends of metal – death, doom, all that sorta stuff. Death metal vocals being what they are though, I don’t know if I’d even be able identify this as Japanese hahaha. Gonna listen to this band more some day for sure.

Yeah I feel that! I played a lot of the first game but still quit on case 5 cause I was finding it too much. There’s a lot of upfront court and death vocab to learn, plus the game goes slightly hard on role language and other goofy character quirks in speech. No harm at all in pushing it back for now; it’ll make a nice goal to look towards now.

Yes! Unfortunately it showed up right about when my Netflix sub was going to lapse (and I’m leaving it that way for now) so I only watched 6 or so episodes, but that show was adorable.

Not much to add, but so happy for you; I love to hear it.

Yeah about that, just look down in this post… :melting_face:


@pocketcat So I discovered late last night that I can use Audacity to straight up edit the audio files, find the offending frequency, and squash it. Not super excited to do that 60 times over, but I am glad I’ve got a solution that totally solves it.

Summary post

Well, this route continues to be unexpectedly hard. You never can predict where it’s going to go. I feel less bad about it today… honestly less bad in general at least at this exact moment so I wonder how much my more frustrated days come in part from a degree of depression (hey that’s sure a thing post-covid), but I’m gonna veer off that topic for now heh. I knew I’d have less time to read today so I’m not too concerned about the 2700 characters read. Might slip in more later, might not, whatever. I’m just happy to hang in for the moment.

Because let me tell you, it’s rough. Part of this route has been about going overly 中二病 . Within the plot the characters are aware and reference it being exactly that, but they’re sort of reminiscing or otherwise referencing how they acted when they were a little younger. So you get lines like this:

天の頂に座す王よ、蒼界の覇者よ、我が名と呼び声に応え、今叫べ…

Soon after that the character started shooting magic beams and summoning people or something in gibberish katakana and… well, here I am on the other side of it! Happy about that part haha.

But then we arrive at conversations like this. It’s a little “wow what a block of kanji” but also even if I kinda know the characters involved and could intuit some meaning like we talked about last thread… there are just so many words there I have to do that for (the first is the island name though). And it’s fine, again, today’s a relatively good mental day so, genuinely, whatever. But I gotta air out my struggles just to feel heard as I wrestle with this, haha.

There’s nothing that truly excites me on the new word front, though I do find it cool that 火に油を注ぐ (ひにあぶらをそそぐ) exists as a phrase. Adding fuel to the fire, making things worse, it’s very directly comparable to English in that way.

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