Home Post Day 12-13
Apr 12-13
I started reading the last story in 本陣殺人事件, which is 黒猫亭事件。I read the prologue to Chapter 2. The prologue is similar to the previous story. It is narrated by the author. The author pretended he actually did meet 金田一 in his life, and got inspired from him. I’m guessing the author is using the literary form of 私小説（a type of confessional literature where the events in the story correspond to events in the author’s life) in the prologue.
I don’t fully understand the background setting of the story. Was it actually happened in 銀座？How is the town related to 武藏野？Is 九十九坂（つずらざか）an original word from the novel, or is it a real place in Japan? We got a map image from the author again! It has the 寺 and 「黒猫」where the woman(?) died. The 寺 might be related to the crime.
Words of the day:
おおうべくもない：Can’t be disguised
かきのける：push away
えたい：得体。正体
ちっとやそっと：to a small degree
Home Post Day 14-15
Apr 14-15
I read a few pages on Apr 14, and a lot more in the morning of Apr 15. Now I have finished Chapter 5! Half way through? Basically the police officer was trying to figure out all the suspects and the relationship between the suspects.
A little more background setting is added: The owners of 「黒猫」both came back from China after 第二世界大戦. Probably the north part of China. I heard after 第二世界大戦, some Japanese stayed in 東北. Either because their husbands were dead from the war, or they married to locals. From the story, it’s also uncommon to marry to someone else after coming back from China. The word 引き上げ者 I learned today is referring to those who came back to Japan after the World War II.
Words of the day:
どぎつい：a garish color
雲行き：the situation
ザラ：not uncommon
老師：old 僧。In Chinese, this word means 先生
つくねん：doing nothing, ぼんやりしている
As much as I was reading yesterday, I didn’t today?
I only continued with 魔女の宅急便. Today I started at page 38 and read to the middle of page 44. It is still surprisingly hard? Somehow I had the impression the book would go way smoother.
I love fun formatting in books! Thanks for sharing!
I think this is probably 制服, as in her work uniform？ It’s the wrong kanji, but 整 has the onyomi せい, and the other homonyms read せいふく don’t make sense in context.
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
A bit tired today after the work week but I did manage to read six pages for Week 3: 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん 👵🏼. It was actually a pretty relaxing read: not too hard and some nice childhood scenes
Pocketcat nailed it, I couldn’t have worded it better. What that random reviewer wrote was not okay. Next time anyone is bothering you, you know what durtle I’ll whip out!
Out of context, but I can’t help but appreciate how this was written by a cat, hehe <3
I finished the story (five pages) of Wind and Sun trying to prove who is stronger. I loved the ending! Sun told Wind “I am stronger. Wind, do you understand?” No answer from Wind, so Sun laughs at him! That ending I wasn’t expecting, but it made me laugh.
I realized what was missing from the previous section (well, apart from any major story development): Holmes! Thankfully she was back for this section, and it was much more fun as a result. However, I need to rant a little. (spoilers for 3.2, open at your own risk!) Really now? Another cheap lookalike trick? Mystery books have been relying on identical twins and the apparent obliviousness of everyone around them for ages. How would anyone think that staging this farce, relying on a witness not paying attention and the live body not twitching, having to carry a corpse across campus at dawn, etc etc, would be a better choice than a straight, simple murder? Why, Akagawa-san? (I do still hope that things didn’t go exactly as “Katayama” deduced, but I guess we’ll see.)
That’s very exciting to hear! I think? Was it a good, satisfying twist that ultimately made sense, or was it pulled out of a hat? I guess I don’t really want an answer, I’ll just have to read and see
words etc
白々しい - barefaced (eg lie), shameless, transparent
毛羽立つ - to become fluffy
ごろ寝 - falling asleep (in one’s clothes), crashing out
仇を討つ - to avenge somebody by striking down their killer
忠犬 - faithful dog
ふてくされる - to become sulky, disgruntled
小春日和 - Indian summer (around November), mild late autumn weather
立ちはだかる - to stand in the way (especially with legs spread out)
はったり - bluff
I also read chapter 3 of 夜カフェ today. I was wondering why a page of 夜カフェ went by so much faster than a page of 三毛猫ホームズの推理, until it dawned on me that, with the kanji density being noticeably lower, there’s just more hiragana, which of course take up more space, thus fewer words per page (same font settings, as they’re both ebooks). Another advantage of kanji: they save space, and therefore paper!
Just looking at the title, I think that’s the one where 猫猫 tells a few stories of somnambulism (including her guess that the 妃 was faking it) and we see the departure of said 妃.
also thank you for your message and support And sorry again for randomly venting.
I feel so tired learning all N1 grammar points is super hard. Just 30 pages of The Quintessential Quintuplets vol. 2 manga today. Seriously I think I need a vacation I’m running low on energy.
Day 13
Actually days 8 – 13. Oh god, almost a whole week. I’m so sorry I was not updating you guys, this week I wasn’t feeling well and was not really interacting anywhere and not just here. However, now a brief catch-up post.
I finally caught up with the それでも歩 book club schedule at the start of the week. You really do become more comfortable with the series the more you read it, the 4th volume and the first half of 5th totally flew by. When that was settled I actually managed to force myself to pick up the accursed 夜カフェ. Actually, it wasn’t bad I kinda liked it however, I believe I became too tolerant of the ambiguity, I wouldn’t call whatever that was reading – just scanning through and grasping only the little part I could decipher, it’s too bothersome to look up every fifth word the same way I do with manga. I believe I do the same thing with any book maybe it is the only way I can read books regardless of the material language. oh well
On the bright side, I’m having an absolute blast with 不可解なぼくのすべてを at the moment. I believe it’s a perfect match for my level, the kanji and vocab I recently learned here are really frequent and those which I do not yet know are few. And most importantly, there is no furigana so it forces you to really look into each character yet the read is light.
But there are moments like my brother in Christ there’s a reason why I read manga instead of books
tldr for those who are interested: skincare routine
The pros do not end here obviously, the premise hits the soft spot in my kokoro and the illustrations are really top-notch there were moments where I was quite literally awestruck. I’ve already finished the first volume and plan to read a lot more this weekend.
I’m posting a little after midnight, but I actually did the reading hours ago
I was off work today because of Easter so I was planning to do a lot of reading, but it didn’t end up working out that way!
I read Chapter 16 of Mitsuboshi Colors, which was fun.
I remember the feeling of absolute horror I had when I encountered that panel
I really enjoyed 不可解なぼくのすべてを, so I’m glad to hear you are enjoying it too!
Yet another mission today. The game’s pretty fun not gonna lie. Might take it as a “try to understand, don’t look up many things” type or resource at this point.
Day 15: April 15th
What did I read?: ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 Vol 2
How much did I read?: 11 pages
How long did it take me?: 37 min
Finished up this chapter - I felt like Beniko was surprisingly nice and understanding in this one lol. Maybe because Hibiki acknowledged that it wasn’t really fair for him to win the competition over someone who had actually learned to play the piano through hard work. Still, nice of her to bail him out with the magical past-erasing gum xD
I’m going to challenge myself to finish this book over the weekend. There are 2 chapters left, so 1 chapter per day. I think I should be able to do it
Good words and a lol courtesy of Jisho
コンクール - competition; contest (from the French “concours,” apparently)
幻想曲 (げんそうきょく) - fantasy; fantasia (music)
わらにもすがる思いで - hoping against hope; desperately hoping; as a last hope
Led well into the next word I looked up, which was ちんぷんかんぷん - unintelligible language; incoherent language; talking nonsense; babble; gibberish; jargon; gobbledygook
I feel like every time someone mentions that book they say they thought it would be easier than it was I haven’t read it so can’t comment on why.
I don’t think I can say much without giving things away But I overall enjoyed the book and the very final mystery reveal mostly just caught me by surprise.
Home post 
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(I do still hope that things didn’t go exactly as “Katayama” deduced, but I guess we’ll see.)
what in the actual
And sorry again for randomly venting. 
flowers 
