June 10th 
Finished LOOPERS! I had a lot of fun with it and it was definitely on the easier side reading wise. When you reach the last few lines it goes into auto mode on its own and you can’t turn it off which made me panic a bit. Two more days until I can check how many hours it took me but it was on the short side for sure. I loved all the geocaching shenanigans and Mia was super cute. It was cool to see how the experiences they had in the time loop came around in the end to help them succeed. I see now why it’s tagged as a nakige. 感動した 
I think my next game will be even if tempest 宵闇にかく語りき魔女 which is apparently a dark fantasy otome game with some gameplay in the form of investigations and trials. This one just came out so I’m gonna try going walkthrough free, can’t see that going well though 
It makes me happy that it seems like more games on the Switch are being released with both English and Japanese capabilities. Makes it way easier to purchase and if I’m ever super stumped on something it’s pretty easy to check how it was translated in the English version.
June 11
Read the second story in The Best Selection 2 from Yuu Watase. オトメの事情. The premise is completely unbelievable and it is very manga-esque slapstick humor (it isn’t slapstick exactly but I don’t know what else to call it). But it was quite entertaining to read because the last few pages seriously redeemed the first 3/4 of the story. Not that the first 3/4 was bad, just zany without substance nor not zany enough (to work as zany); if that makes sense. 
I ended up buying a couple of otome VNs last night because they were on sale. They were less then 10€ each. Debating with myself about another one that is on a 40% sale (but like 27€ish with that discount), but I don’t expect to be able to read that one in quite a while (ninjas in Edo period). So can probably wait with buying that one until another sale. It is so hard to resist though because Ninja & Edo! 
The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220611 
No Longer Tanuki Progress: 15.40%
第二の手記… スタート‼
And what’s the best way to start a new chapter? With a very long sentence that takes up almost a whole paragraph of course! But it used one of my favourite words「花吹雪」, so it’s okay.
Japanese found in the tall grass
Learnthings
波打際「なみうちぎわ」ー Beach; water’s edge (more common to see as: 波打ち際)
岸辺「きしべ」ー Shore; bank (also a name)
嫩葉「わかば」ー New leaves (more common as: 若葉)
絢爛「けんらん」ー Gorgeous; brilliant; dazzling; ornate
鏤める「ちりばめる」ー To inlay; to set; to stud; to mount (like “diamond studded ring”) (more common as: 散りばめる)
砂浜「すなはま」ー Sandy beach
日一日と「ひいちにちと」ー Day by day (it’s watching you)
Choose Your Own Meaning
褐色「かっしょく」ー Dark brown
BUT it can also be:
褐色「かちいろ」ー Dark indigo that is almost black
Here there is no furigana, so who knows, but I’m guessing by the context it’ll be the dark brown version since it’s talking about leaves.
Other Forms
樹肌 ＝ 木肌「きはだ」(Tree bark)
徽章 ＝ 記章「きしょう」(Medal; insignia)
June 11th
Usually on Saturdays I read the chapter of Yoru Cafe that I need to read for the BBC, because it always takes me ages so its good to do it on a weekend day. But today I had a class with my tutor this morning, had an hour long phonecall with my dad since we havent had a proper chat for a week or two, and also we are visiting friends this evening for pizza and board games…
So instead I read chapter 8 of Happiness today as thats always a quick read. It was interesting.
Is it Nightshade? 
Yes. Have you played it? I totally want to buy it now and try and read it, but… eh… I’m trying to be kind to myself.
That’s the one I’m currently playing! It’s really good, but there is some time and subject specific vocab used, haha. The grammar isn’t too bad, actually. If you want, I can take some screen shots next time I play - probably tomorrow. 
Please do!
Hmmm… I wonder if there is like a samurai/ninja/Edo SRS deck out somewhere. I could see myself actually working through such a one for a bit, just to get some familiarity with the vocabulary.
This may or may not be helpful to you, but jpdb has an SRS system where you can learn vocabulary from a VN. I couldn’t find Nightshade on there, but Hakuouki is on there which is an Edo Samurai type story. Unfortunately can’t export the deck to anki or anything so you’d have to do daily SRS on jpdb but it might interest you! Here is the link to the vocab list for Hakuouki on there if you want to check it out Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms – Vocabulary list – jpdb
Not sure this is gonna work for me, but thanks for pointing me to it. 
With over 12k entries and the majority of them being everyday modern vocabulary, it would be a nightmare to sort out the interesting terms. (Unless there is extra sorting possibilities when logged in.) It did amuse me though to see entries for character names, for the の particle and other particles, その, etc. The list literally have all words that appears in the VN. O_O
Of course, maybe there are great sorting and other tools while logged in. I guess I should check that… ^^
There’s an option to sort out wk vocab for Patreon supporters, but other than that you can just mark words as known manually.
June 11
Final Fantasy VII
Just did a little today, running low on energy. Hopefully more tomorrow!
June 11th
・SAO Progressive 1 (2% → 6%)
This is a book I have a physical copy of (510 pages). I know the book is split into two parts and I’d like to at least finish the first part by this time next week, which would be at page 194. I don’t know if I can do it, I can only give it a try.
More look-ups than in Kagami no Kojou, but not as many as in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto. Got stuck on the first page due to the astronomy term “second magnitude star” (二等星) trying to figure out what object in the sky that was supposed to be. (Wikipedia was not very helpful)
Was a bit hard to stay focused at times, but surprisingly didn’t suffer from fatigue. Feels good! Makes me wonder what’s the (next) main bottleneck holding me back in my reading skills right now, if that makes sense.
Forgot to post this yesterday, but I read 人魚禁漁区, the second story in 竜のかわいい七つの子.
Synopsis
A boy, Jun, happens across a mermaid on the side of the road, unmoving but seemingly alive, and calls for help to get her back in the water. The next day at school, he hears one of his classmates talking about how he’d run over a mermaid on his bike on the way to school yesterday—she was likely the same one. In this world, mermaids are regarded as animals and pests with whom humans compete for fish, and if you harm or even kill a mermaid, you don’t even get a slap on the wrist. There are people who fight for mermaids to have human rights, but they’re generally looked down on by society. Jun finds himself sympathizing with them, though. When he sees the mermaid again that afternoon, determined to make her way out onto the road, he decides to help her rather than leave her well enough alone as he’s been advised. He takes her to the school, where she’d been trying to get to, in a wheelbarrow filled with seawater, and afterwards, as thanks, she stuffs a bucket over his head and tries to take him to her home at the bottom of the sea, but of course, a bucket can’t hold air underwater and he would drown, and he manages to get away. He decides that he wants to become an ocean researcher and learn more about mermaids. I hope he gets to meet her again in the future and they can learn to communicate properly (and maybe fall in love?)
I’ve been thinking about starting DQXI in Japanese for a while now, and I finally started it yesterday! I named the Luminary エリオル (Elior), as that’s what I went with for his full name in the single fic I have completed for this game, which came about because I was wondering in what kind of circumstances Erik/Camus would even use his full name. (I usually call him El, and if I make a second save file, I’ll probably go with エル.) The game actually has the option to play with or without furigana, which can be changed at any time from the settings menu, which is pretty cool. I’m sticking with furigana for now. It also has the English voices, which I wasn’t expecting. There are definitely words I’ve had to look up, but I haven’t really been having any trouble so far aside from my slow reading speed—I miss like half the in-battle text, I have yet to be able to read even a quarter of one of the info cards on the loading screens, and it took me nearly 6 hrs to almost be ready to enter デルカダール城. The books actually give me more trouble than talking to the people.
Also I learned a new pronoun: 汝 (なんじ), an archaic form of “you.” It has multiple other readings as well, some of which are respectful, polite, or derogatory. It was used by the guy who gives you your first quest, as part of a saying telling one to be kind to everyone.
Some vocab of note:
擬態 (ぎたい) [noun] mimicry
匍匐前進 (ほふくぜんしん) [noun, する verb] crawling along
猫車 (ねこぐるま) [noun] wheelbarrow. I already knew 手押し車, so now I know two words!
餌付け (えづけ) [noun, する verb] artificial feeding; accustoming wild animals to eating food given by humans
アザ [noun] birthmark
月日が経つ (つきひがたつ) [expression, タ五] time passes; the days and months go by; the months roll on
元も子もない (もともこもない) [expression] losing everything; coming to nothing
ふきだし [noun] speech bubble. I saw it written in kana all but once, when a デルカダール guard used the kanji: 吹き出し.
首を長くする (くびをながくする) [expression, する verb] to eagerly look forward to
石畳 (いしだたみ) [noun] stone paving; cobble paving; cobblestone; flagstone
神秘的 (しんぴてき) [な-adjective] mysterious; mystical
まんざらでもない [expression] not all bad; not as dissatisfied/annoyed as one would have others believe
足手まとい (あしでまとい) [noun, な-adjective] impediment; burden; encumbrance; hindrance
退ける (しりぞける) [一, transitive] to repel; to drive away; to repulse; to reject. New reading for this kanji! I only knew のける, which, of course, being different words, has a somewhat different meaning.
欠かせない (かかせない) [expression, い-adjective] indispensable; vital; fundamental; imperative; crucial; critical
全滅 (ぜんめつ) [noun, する verb] annihilation; total destruction; crushing defeat
太刀打ち (たちうち) [noun, する verb] crossing swords. competing against; contending with; fighting against.
古今東西 (ここんとうざい) [四字熟語, noun] all times and places; all ages and countries
I was tired today from work and Fathers’ Day shopping (rather, from having to go out into the heat to do so. It was hot as everliving hell out there: 99°F, feels like 109°), so playing some DQXI was it for my reading today. I played for about 4.5 hrs, just long enough to meet Erik and escape, then hear from Deku (I don’t remember his name in English; Dirk?) where the red orb is.
It seems Erik will form imperatives by taking the ます stem and adding な (来な, 行きな). That’s my first time seeing that. (Of course, I did hear it when I first played a couple years ago, but I didn’t notice. I don’t think I even recognized Erik’s voice as being Uchiyama Kouki’s… I’m pretty sure I recognized Jasper/Homerus as Sakurai Takahiro, though; I don’t think I’ve ever not recognized his voice.)
Some vocab of note:
地下牢獄 (ちかろうごく) [noun] dungeon (specifically one which is a prison)
旧知 (きゅうち) [noun] old friend; old acquaintance
間一髪のところ (かんいっぱつのところ) [expression, noun] close call; narrow escape. Really, Erik said “間一髪だったな,” but context says it was a shortening of this.
振り切る (ふりきる) [ラ五, transitive] to break off from (pursuer); to pull away
欲を言えば (よくをいえば) [expression] ideally; if one were to wish for more
首を突っ込む (くびをつっこむ) [expression, マ五] to poke one’s nose into another’s affairs; to have a hand in; to take a deep interest in; to meddle in
June 11 Home Post
I started today off with some more 海辺のカフカ for this week; so far so good! I read like 16 pages total today without much trouble so at this rate I think I’ll be able to keep up with the book club just fine 
I didn’t really intend to play much AI: The Somnium Files since I was busy and didn’t start until it was pretty late, but uh… things happened 
I’m always saying AI keeps throwing new stuff at me but it really just keeps happening, every time I think I have some idea what’s going on there’s some new wild aspect and man. It’s a whole time
~ AI things ~
Sooo I talked to イリス after we got attacked and… there are alien program conspiracies now?? I can truly never guess where AI will go next huh, wild But yeah that’s a whole thing, so now we’re doubting not only our boss and our whole work situation but also the AI who literally lives in our eye?? Like アイボゥ being so immediately like “well that’s all clearly ridiculous, there’s no way you believe her right?” and 伊達 just like “…but you’re connected to that program, right?” 
Yikes! The conspiracies might go deeper than I ever thought; I’ve been concerned about how our boss just conveniently happened upon 伊達, memory-less and missing an eye, and was like “yeah come be part of my secret agency!” like that’s so sketchy, she clearly knows more about this than we do. And 6 years ago (that fateful time) the only other Psync machine in existence got mysteriously stolen and no one knows where it is? There is so much sketchy stuff here, I’m so concerned
On a more fun note though, I can’t believe イクラマンふとし is Minecraft It’s some Stanley Parable stuff all over again, waking up in this somnium Minecraft world:
Things are wild right now lmao.
Ooooh Nightshade I messed with it a little a while back so I can’t give super accurate information, but from what I remember of the time it wasn’t that bad apart from some intimidating historical stuff right at the beginning It’s one I’ve been thinking about getting back into sometime soon, so it’s exciting to see other people interacting with it
Jun 12, Sun calendar post
Week 11 of Spring 2022’s summary
I don’t really read as much, as I split some time to listening, and planning on listening better.
Reading
- I read two chapters of Night Cafe somehow. I also considered continuing ahead +1 chapter – not really impossible, but I held back by an expectation of needing some efforts.
- Read JoJo, to fulfill the plan
- Read Death Note Ch.17 (first of Vol.3) ahead
- Unsurprisingly, I still continue to buy and read miscellaneous stuff on Bookwalker.
- It’s the first time that I change the display language to Japanese on Steam.
- Apparently, this is required to see Japanese screenshots of a game.
Listening
It’s a shortened form of ～なさい ^^ Makes it more casual.
Day Something
- ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 14巻
6/8
119-132
6/12
132-end (189)
Ah yes, the episode that can be summarized with Jotaro beats up an ape
The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220612
No Longer Tanuki Progress: 16.50%
Not too much time today, but managed to fit in a paragraph or so.
Japanese found in the tall grass
Learnthings
他郷「たきょう」ー Another place; foreign lands
難易「なんい」ー Difficulty; relative difficulty
六親眷属「ろくしんけんぞく」ー All of one’s relatives, by both blood and marriage; your kin
蠕動「ぜんどう」ー Vermiculation; peristalsis; to wiggle like a worm
蛮声「ばんせい」ー Rough voice
配属将校「はいぞくしょうこう」ー Commissioned officer of a school
肉体「にくたい」ー The body; the flesh; one’s physique [MEAT BODY]
People
聖徳太子「しょうとくたいし」ー Prince Shotoku (6th-7th Century) Also apparently had very baggy clothes.