26th of April
Day 26
Read pages 30-34 of かがみの孤城, which took me an hour. Don’t really have much to say but I’m finally making some good progress again.
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Days 16-21, 23-26 
Woah time goes fast!!
I did miss one day. There were two days were I barely read anything–just a paragraph–but I’m gonna give myself those because this isn’t a “read a lot everyday” challenge.
In this time, I have read
• Chapters 4 and 5 of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん
• Only a couple more pages in 透明カメレオン
• took an easy day to read a little children’s picture book
Looks like I’ll be doing make-up day(s) at the end of this challenge! That is, unless I build the habit of reading everyday permanently like some people seem to have 
My Home Post
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I need to constantly keep reminding myself of that 
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Hey all! I have…not been reading every day. I went back to work post-covid and I almost miss the halcyon days of fever and coughing because I got a ton of reading done in that time! As opposed to now where I just feel tired and crappy all day and then go to sleep for 10 hours. I’m just about keeping on top of my SRS by doing no new lessons but that’s pretty much it. I had my first Japanese class in a month and made some very odd sentences because I kept forgetting simple words like house and year.
I was going to come in and here and say I’m bowing out and I’ll see you all in the summer challennge…but I think I’m going to give it one more go and start afresh from 1 May. Going to spend the next few days looking through the books I have and figuring out what would be a fun, easy, sustainable book to read over the next month.
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220426 
Tanuki Scroll XXVI: ネコ岳の化けネコ 
Read today’s hyakumonogatari, which is about cats again, this time a whole mountain of cat.
A travelling merchant gets lost in the mountains, he hears a ニャー！as if from nowhere and follows it. But this is no normal cat, this is Nekodake, big bad ghost cat of the mountain realm. He finds a mansion in the middle of the mountain and asks to stay the night - but neither is he safe here, for it is a mansion of Nekodake’s cat-minions. They try to trick him into having a bath were the water is magic cat water and will turn him into a cat. Luckily one of the cats (a calico again!) recognises him and tells him to flee.
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
本格的「ほんかくてき」ー Genuine; Authentic; Real
親玉「おやだま」ー Boss; Head
Places
阿蘇山「あそざん」ー Mt. Aso, Kumamoto prefecture
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I updated my brand new study log - not sure if I should cross-post? cause I want to share with you all of course. I’ll give it a try and blur the review, it doesn’t really have spoilers or anything, but just in case.
じゃーん！
Edit to add a reply:
Aww, it warms my heart to be referred to as a member of the Tanuki Cuteness Brigade. 
I just have to order my copy of 雨と君 to make it official. 
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I finished “The Tortoise and the Hare” story. Here are my favorite pictures from when the hare sees he’s losing.
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Hi all, I’m just dropping by to say I’m alive but not reading Japanese every day. I’m studying for my exams 10-11 hours per day, + ~1 hour of SRS so I don’t read unless I feel that is how I want to relax, which it usually isn’t.
Anyway, happy birthday to everyone I’ve missed 
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Good luck on those exams!
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April 26th
・薬屋のひとりごと (61% → 63%)
Almost finished chapter 22. It’s already late, so sleep sleep time 
Tomorrow will hopefully be not as busy.
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I love these summaries; you read some of the most amusing sounding things there!
Haha, that’s great too. I just love when people post pictures here.
I knew I’d be a little shorter on time today, so I tried to stay focused and work through, and I managed 7000 characters in what I’m pretty sure was less than 2 hours. 1:45 maybe? Maybe only 1:30. I should try paying attention.
But hey, today was really good! I’m not fully through Kamome’s route but the big turning point hit and I think I see what it’s doing now. I actually feel really silly for not expecting some of this, but I dunno, I’ve never been one to make big predictions about where most media is going. I’m usually just settled in for the ride and putting my attention on how it’s conveying the stuff it’s currently doing. In a sense, a lot of what I think is up now was foreshadowed well. I think I like this route a lot.
Today's image is really obliquely a spoiler... I'm just playing it super safe. On the other hand, it's also a picture of cute cartoon cats of a sort, so I recommend it if you're not bothered by the vague implications it has towards this route's twist
I’m starting to feel noticeably a lot better at reading again. I think I’m finally going through my next big “wait, reading is easier” thing that hits every month or two. Some lines are just coming to me right away that would’ve been unthinkable before, actually very little was particularly hard today. About the only sentence I really needed to spend a moment puzzling through was (also a moderate Kamome route spoiler) “入り江には、海賊船ではなく、海賊船のなり損ないみたいな壊れた帆船があった。” And that’s primarily just because I didn’t know about 損なう’s use as an aux verb.
Much appreciation to the read every day challenge for keeping me focused 
. If I’m as close to the end of this one as I think I am, I’m rather pleased with how I’m starting to move through this VN quicker. I started this route only 6 days ago.
Oh yeah, cool new word. 手品 (てじな), magic trick/sleight of hand/etc.
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April 23rd-26th 
(Days 23-26)
The deadline is a thing of the past, I managed to submit a somewhat reasonable report. I’ve continued reading 小さな闇 on the 23rd and 24th. And I had read an NHK news article today. As for yesterday (the 25th) - I literally have no recolection of yesterday… That all-nighter really messed me up, man am I tired.
I’ve noticed a lot of birthday wishes as I was scrolling through the thread, catching up on what everyone’s been up to - so Happy (belated) Birthday to the peeps I missed Hope you had wonderful days~
@dunlewy & @NicoleIsEnough Had to do some googling again, and damn! I think I had found a new obsession - learning about old cemeteries. But honestly, I don’t think we have anything even remotely as cool back at home so not only have I not seen something like this before, I didn’t even know they existed. They look like some miniature, grotesque cities. I can’t stop looking at them.
Damn, that sounds tough - bestest of luck with the exams!
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April 26th!
Today I read a bit of 鋼の錬金術師 with a friend. We read 5 pages, finishing off the first chapter. We decided to move on to something else for our next call and settled on the tsubasa bunko edition of 君の名は, which should be fun 
I also read a few more pages of ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん, which is very cute and wholesome.
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I’m looking at tomorrow’s book and it another one of the policeman stories. I love those! Ryou the officer is so funny! I might start it tonight if I have time. I’m looking forward to another good police story. I wonder what adventure he will have this time.
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April 26
Final Fantasy VII
Vocabulary
- 旅費 = りょひ travelling expenses.
- 解明 = かいめい elucidation, unravelling, understanding.
- 旅先 = たびさき trip destination.
- 変身 = へんしん metamorphosis, transformation.
- 生き抜く = いきぬく to live through, to survive.
- 女房 = にょうぼう (one’s own) wife.
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Day 26: April 26th
What did I read?: クマとたぬき
How much did I read?: 24 pages
How long did it take me?: 22 min
Finished this volume today~
Ignoring the stress pile that is my life in favor of tanuki + bear
Tell me this isn’t the cutest thing you’ve seen in your whole life
Dancing tanuki 
Good words
- 樹氷 (じゅひょう) - frost on trees; hoarfrost (on trees); frost-covered trees
- 里山 (さとやま) - undeveloped woodland near populated area
- 腰が抜ける (こしがぬける) - to be unable to stand; to be weak in the knees; to be paralyzed (e.g. with fear) (paralysed); to be dumbfounded
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April 26
Read another graded reader. I didn’t understand the key words but the gist is a girl visits Japan and has a good time thanks to round-glasses-wearing Ryoubo-san. You’re not suppose to look up definitions when doing tadoku; just keep going and using the pictures and context clues to guide you. So something I’ll probably have to revisit later. Maybe the necessary kanji will turn up in WK lessons.
Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
5 /10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes
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April 26th (Calendar Post)
私の拳をうけとめて! => 64 pages
Kept getting interrupted in the middle of reading so I couldn’t properly measure my reading time >.<
More frowning-girl panels ^.^
Some random vocabulary from today’s reading:
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April 26 Home Post
Not a big reading day today; I was pretty busy and thus pretty tired by the time I could read, so no Zero Escape today. Instead I impulse-read the first page of ツルネ mostly just to check off the box 
Hopefully tomorrow will be more active!
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Aaaaaughhhh I keep looking at different novels I want, but it takes me at least two months to get through a single one! Well, I could almost certainly finish 夜カフェ today but I’ve been holding back since I feel like I should keep pace with the club, but the ones that are more like N3 level or whatever, which is mostly what I’m interested in, take that long. I’ve only finished 2 novels so far and I’ve still got a bunch left, why am I looking at more, augh! Manga are fine since I can generally finish those in a week or less, but novels! I gotta increase my reading/comprehension speed first! This is torture! Not being able to read is torture! Augh, 活字中毒, indeed… 泣くなるぞ!
I read ch 6 and the 描き下ろし of 星だけが知ってる, finishing the manga! It’s so good, I love it.
This ch made me emotional (but then it doesn't really take much lol)
It starts out with a flashback to Kengo’s childhood. Ah, or rather, a dream. I thought this chapter would be from Kengo’s POV, then, like some stories do, but it seems it’ll switch off.
We meet one of Sora’s professors and learn that he’s red-green colorblind, and Sora says that someone he knows might be the same. I wonder if it’s Kengo. 1) It would make more sense plot-wise than if it’s one of his college friends or something, especially as this is the last chapter, and 2) you can’t become an astronaut if you have a vision impairment of any sort, can you? It would explain why he started acting weird when the announcement of a new Japanese astronaut joining the ISS crew was made: it’s not him but he wishes it was, but it’s impossible. (How would Sora know though? It’s not like there was any indication, unless I just missed it.)
Ahhh yeah the professor is talking about occupations you can’t have if you’re colorblind: aviation-related, driver, Japan Self-Defense Force, etc… Aaaaa and that night, Sora’s channel-surfing and happens upon part of an interview on the news with Astronaut Toono and thinks back to his conversation with the professor and some of the things Kengo has told him (about how when he sees kids trying their best he can’t help but root for them) and looks up the application requirements for being an astronaut, and you have to have normal color vision. Ah, my heart hurts.
So I finally looked up what 色検 is despite this not being the first chapter it’s shown up since Sora wants to take or get it, and as I thought, it’s an abbreviation. It’s short for 色彩検定. I tried looking it up but I still don’t understand what it is. But it’s apparently the reason why, when we switch back to Kengo’s POV, Shiori asks whether Sora knows about his colorblindness or not. Kengo isn’t particularly hiding it or anything, but he also hasn’t told him.
One night—it’s February now—Sora searches for the place where he first met Kengo, wanting to meet him, and he does. Even though there’s no meteor shower or anything today, they both felt like they wanted to come here. Apparently when Sora was little, he wanted to become an airplane. Not a pilot, but a plane lol. He sounds like he was a cute kid.
omg, they’re paralleling their first meeting. When they first met, Kengo asked why Sora was here, and he said that even if he asks, it’s not interesting, but then told him anyway. Here, Sora asks Kengo what he’d wanted to be when he was a kid, and Kengo says that, even if he asks, it’s not interesting, but he tells him anyway. For as long as he can remember, he’s always loved outer space. He was more interested in picture books about space than other toys, and he spent so much time out on the balcony with a telescope in winter that he’d catch cold (and then just stay inside and read his space books lol). When he was 8, a Japanese astronaut went up into space on a space shuttle, and ever since then, he’s wanted to be an astronaut himself, and he started checking out more books at the library and working hard learning math and science and English, all so that he could become an astronaut too when he was older. But then, when he was 10, he learned that he had congenital red-green colorblindness, and his dreams came crashing down. After he finishes his story, Sora leans in and kisses him, “because the 10-year-old Kengo-san was crying.” And it was his first time telling anyone about his childhood dream, too. Aaaaa my heart ♡♡♡
Not entirely sure what happens after that, something about asking if Sora kissing him means it’s all right if he doesn’t hold back from now on and admitting he’s probably liked him from the beginning. Then he says that he’s always at the shop, so Sora’s free to come or not come. Sora thinks that Kengo is really unfair, always leaving him an escape route. Even so… He goes back to the café (the next day, I’m assuming?) and sits at the counter again and confesses that he likes Kengo’s coffee the best. Kengo’s like, “Thank you. By the way, is it just my coffee? What about me?” / “Eh—” “…I don’t dislike you.” / “I like you, Sora-kun.” / “Eh— Wai— Kengo-san?!” lol they’re cute
There was zero smut in this one, not even in the 描き下ろし like there sometimes is (heck, they don’t even properly start dating until the 描き下ろし), and no gross tropes either, so there was zero mistake in my hasty purchase of this one! Anyway I’ll definitely be getting Furuya-sensei’s other books; the English version of ふたりのライオン had been on my wish list for years, and searching for the original on Amazon JP is how I found 星だけ, so I think I’ll get that one next time. It’s so hard to prioritize though lol, there are so many I wanna get, but I can’t get them all at once. (My problem with figuring out which one I wanna read next, too…)
Also, I’m putting off reading the rest of 極主夫道 because I only kept 2 & 3 out of the box (which of course is on the bottom of a stack of four…) because I hadn’t expected redoing my shelves to take so long. A lot of the binders on the bottom shelf have bits of old story ideas and planning, some of which never made it into my Google Docs, and going through that takes a different kind of energy than laying around reading or doing Duolingo lessons or playing solitaire on my phone or whatever, so I’ve barely made any progress and the book club’s started vol 4 already. I still have クールドジ男子 and バッテリー out, which is 12 vol total, so I’ve still got stuff to read outside of 2.43 and Satori Reader even with me holding back on buying new books for now. (Which isn’t exactly working, clearly, but especially with the urge being stronger now that I’m making more money, I’m still considering it a success. I coulda bought like 20 books by now but I’ve only gotten 10 recently!)
I read ch 4 of 夜カフェ, which was about 9.5 pages.
Short but under a cut since it's this week's reading:
God, I can just imagine how pleased Hanabi’s father looks after her mother tells her that she can quit her job if Hanabi doesn’t like it. That bastard, I wanna throttle him. I’m glad Hanabi told them straight off that that wasn’t why she was upset, and I’m glad they’re letting her stay with Aiko-san for the time being.
Some vocab of note:
肝に銘じる (きもにめいじる) [expression, 一] to be deeply impressed; to take to heart; to keep in mind
雑用 (ざつよう) [noun] chores; odd jobs; miscellaneous affairs
色覚異常 (しきかくいじょう) [noun] colorblindness; color-vision deficiency
本腰を入れる (ほんごしをいれる) [expression, 一] to set about in earnest; to put one’s back into something. This one’s marked as “sensitive,” for some reason.
波風を立てる (なみかぜをたてる) [expression, 一] to make trouble; to make waves; to cause discord
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