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I read act 12-13 of 舞台に咲け! today, finishing vol 2! Now I gotta wait for the summer for vol 3 to be released… Man, I can’t wait to learn more about Tsumugi and his past with Imari! But until then, I gotta figure out if I wanna read バッテリー, クールドジ男子, or GREEN first. Decisions, decisions…
Yesterday I finished the prologue of 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部 代表決定戦編 (a.k.a second season, renamed and split into two volumes), so I started fresh with ch 1 笑うキングと泣き虫ジャック today. My goal is to read the whole of this first volume during this challenge, so I’ve got 257 pages to read in 61 days! That’s only 4 pages a day—totally doable. Today I got off to a good start right on track with just over 4 pages, the entirety of ch 1-1. Just 253 pages to go!
And now I ramble about 2.43 like the obsessed fanboy I am. Will this happen every day? We shall see. But probably.
Speaking of “fanboy”… Is there even a gender-neutral term that’s on the same level as “fanboy” and “fangirl”? Yeah, there’s “fan,” but it just doesn’t have the same feeling. It ain’t strong enough. Maybe I could just go with 大ファン, at least on here… But I digress.
It did not start where I expected it to, but it kinda fits with the first season and the prologue lol. Right off the bat, we get that ch 1 is from Ochi’s POV, which I’m pleasantly surprised about! I was expecting Subaru. Subaru’s more the main character of Fukuhou (well, he’s their captain, king, and ace, so that’s not surprising lol), but also Subaru’s the 笑うキング and Ochi the 泣き虫ジャック in the title. He’s the second listed, and you’d kinda think the POV character would be the first? Anyway, I love Ochi, so I’m happy this is his POV. (I love all the characters, but, well. Also Ochi is very gender. He’s my new icon.) (I have a feeling we’ll get another Fukuhou-POV chapter later and it’ll be from Subaru’s.) Then, part 1 is called VICTORY CEREMONY, and their introductory ep in the anime does open on them losing a match, so I figured this was that. It’s got Ochi watching the awards ceremony after his team has lost, but then there are cheers of “Subaru!” and “Thank you, Subaru!” and “Our president!” (a pun on his name, 統, 大統領, just like with the title of ep 7, コートを統べるヒーロー) and I’m like, “What,” and then, “…Oh, this is middle school, ain’t it.” And then, sure enough: 進英中の三年主将、三村統.
Yeah first season starts a year and a half before the main events with Yuni and Chika in the last term of their second year of middle school. The second season’s prologue I thought would be another flashback to when Chika was at Meisei MS like that of the first season (although I’m not sure that one actually counts as a flashback…?), but it was another nightmare :( I’d say it’s a tragedy that we don’t exist in the same universe so I can’t give him a hug, but there are very few people Chika would let hug him and I would definitely not fall on that list. I still gotta write a fic where Yuni gives him a hug… as his best friend and one of the few people Chika would actually allow to hug him, it’s, like, his job. I’m really glad he got a hug from Minami-sensei in ch 5, but Yuni still needs to give him one too. At least.
And, okay, ouch, that hurt. The last line before Chika wakes up from his nightmare in the prologue is:
自分の足はたしかに〝コートの真ん中〟に立っていた。ただ、その場所は〝みんなの真ん中〟ではなかった。
and then one of the last lines of the MS section of ch 1-1 is:
大柄ではない三村だが、長身の選手の頭を軽く跳び越えるくらいの伸びやかなジャンプをして、〝みんなの真ん中〟へと身体全部で飛び込んだ。
You’re really out here to hurt me, huh, Kabei-sensei. (Well, not that I didn’t already know that.) The comparisons between them start even before the story’s properly started. And then ch 1-2 is called SETBACK. This is gonna be Ochi’s injury, isn’t it.
Ochi took notice of Subaru in middle school—everyone did: he’s a show-off with the talent to back it up, one of the best spikers in his division, the idol of many a middle-school girl the prefecture over, the darling of Fukui’s MS sports league—but does he know that Subaru took notice of him, too? He’s not a genius by any stretch of the word and he doesn’t stand out at all, Fukuhou’s coach didn’t even pay him a second glance when he was looking for players to recruit to build a team around Subaru, but he is a stable, consistent player (he’s rather like Suga from ハイキュー!! in that respect), and Subaru did take notice of him and recommended him to the coach. He might still have ended up at Fukuhou anyway (he certainly would have applied; he does wonder, watching Subaru celebrate with his team from the second-floor spectator’s seating, what it would be like being part of that, and he considers him going to the same HS as Subaru inevitable), but like… does he know??? That he was never just another player to the player in his year he looks up to most??? That even before they joined the same team, Subaru has wanted to take him to that orange center court at HaruKou??? I hope I get to find out. I don’t even know yet where that flashback scene with Hata-kantoku talking to Subaru about the team he’s planning to build would fall in this book. It might even be in vol 2! Man, I’m going crazy thinking about it.
While reading, I came across 結果, a word I’ve known and easily been able to recognize for ages, and I realized that the first kanji is 結; I did the lesson for it yesterday, and when it came up in reviews today, I’d completely forgotten the reading. Hopefully now I won’t forget that it’s けつ! (Yes, this morning was my first review of it, yes I am behind on reviews, it happens periodically. It’s the ADHD, I’m pretty sure.)
I came across another word, which I’m not sure of, 中体連. I’m sure the 中 is short for 中学 and that 体連 must be some other abbreviation, but I don’t know of what. So for now I’m just thinking of it as “the middle school sports world,” even though I’m 100% certain that would be written differently.
Finished up my last chapter needed this week for 薬屋のひとりごと. I’ve been really enjoying reading this book, and am super excited to read past the first volume (which I’ve already read the equivalent manga volumes of in English). I’ve been grabbing faaaar too many new vocab words as I read, so I probably won’t list interesting ones here unless they really knock me over.
Home post 
Thats about what I’ll be able to do most days, due to uni being a priority. I’ll go all in on reading for the summer challenge tho 
home post 
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humanity 
officer, I would like to file a report 
) Was this what I expected to want to read today? No xD Was it something I enjoyed reading, yes! Will I read it again tomorrow, maybe! lol
stay safe!