Hi, welcome to Wanikani and the forums! 
For buying digital stuff I usually go for bookwalker, it isn’t too hard to buy from there and there’s a lot of manga you can get for free. I’d also recommend checking out the bookclubs, the Absolute Beginner bookclub is where I started out and there’s a list of books they’ve read and links to where to purchase those books in each thread as well.
14 Likes
Despite having several books to finish, I’m still on my Aozora kick. Tonight was one with a fascinating title, 悪妻論. 朗読 was by 西村 who has such a nice narration on everything he does. As for the reading itself - it an essay on “bad wives”, with such gems as:
人はなんでも平和を愛せばいいと思うなら大間違い、平和、平静、平安、私は
然 し、そんなものは好きではない。不安、苦しみ、悲しみ、そういうものの方が私は好きだ。
悲しみ、苦しみは人生の花だ。
人間はみんな姦淫を犯しており、みんなインヘルノへ落ちるものにきまっている。
夫婦は愛し合うと共に憎み合うのが当然であり、かかる憎しみを
怖 れてはならぬ
だから、良妻などというのは、ニセモノ、安物にすぎないのである。
I was dying of laughter reading this prompting my partner to ask what I was getting into this time. Good times. I’m sure it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I enjoyed it immensely. The grammar is definitely not what I’d consider easy, however, so you’ll probably want to be a seasoned Aozora reader in order to get your full set of giggles.
Anyways, learned an interesting phrase: 若気のアヤマチ - apparently it means 年が若くて血気にはやったための失敗. I wonder if people still use this phrase - it’s fun. Unfortunately 若気 has a secondary meaning that might be a slur and my IME doesn’t pull up the correct kanji for it when I try to write it, so I suspect not.
23 Likes
Thank you kindly! Those Graded Readers look great! 
9 Likes
After 多読 series, you might take a look at Absolute Beginner Book Club’s Nominations, to see what is right for you.
8 Likes
rikaiwisdom replies!
Yeah it’s really just through vocabulary! Technically when I actually mess with jpdb it throws kanji cards at me, but the vast majority of the time I just get a general sense of the meaning and readings through words. It’s definitely compartmentalized differently than kanji I specifically learned through WK, but I’ve generally been able to get a good sense of them just through exposure in different contexts!
Aw thank you! 
Being able to shift mindset to just having fun playing a game or whatever else and learning Japanese as a result has really been life-changing. It’s so much easier to pick up something because I like it and want to see what happens than as a study tool. I do think pulling back on SRS and the like has contributed to that; it changed the dynamic for sure.
Yes yes yes!! I absolutely recommend them; I also really had no idea about them before a few months ago and they’re probably the best experience I’ve had with Japanese so far. The Nonary Games is a bundle of the first two, 999 and VLR, both of which I played over the course of this and the last challenge. I feel like they’re honestly pretty approachable; a significant portion of them are voiced, it’s VN-style so you can take your time looking stuff up with game2text and the like, etc. The language isn’t too rough either. I wasn’t a veteran reader by any means when I started (I’m still not lmao) and it was really manageable! The worst is really when people go off on random scientific tangents from time to time, but those are interesting to see and not super frequent.
I’m playing ZTD right now like you said and it’s structured differently, it’s cutscene-based rather than a VN, so it’s been a good different kind of practice! I haven’t played AI: The Somnium Files yet so I can’t speak on difficulty or anything, but I’ve heard really good things about it.
Anyway tl;dr I also started Zero Escape on a whim and I’m super glad I did, they’ve been a ton of fun! If you like mysteries and puzzles at all I’d definitely recommend them. I’m not sure what Final Fantasy is like language-wise so I can’t compare them directly, but I’d imagine if you can play that relatively comfortable then Zero Escape would be totally doable. So if they’re at all intriguing to you I’d say to give it a shot! Definitely not biased at all 
14 Likes
That Absolute Beginner bookclub seems like the perfect place for me to start haha, thank you very much!! 
11 Likes
I read ch 7-8 of クールドジ男子. So it seems this uses a lot more fonts than I thought, because these couple panels alone use 4, and there are 3 others I definitely know I’ve seen as well (one of which I posted yesterday, where Mima says he wasn’t mistaking Hayate for a woman, is the most difficult for me to read. I am very glad there’s furigana on everything):
(Some of them are also different from the ones used in the version on pixiv; those are easier to read! But it is a pain to read on online, so I guess ya gotta make it easier somehow, eh)
Commentary, etc.
Ch 7 is set at the same time as ch 5 (which seems to be set the day after ch 6), the day that Hayate starts his part-time job at Mawarimichi. It follows Shun, who has no club activities for a while because of upcoming tests, so he goes straight to his sister’s shop to study because if he fails any he can’t be a starting member, but:
Also, we learn the name of Hayate’s university! 枸橘大学, named after the trifoliate or hardy orange. Apparently it’s a good school, making him a book-smart dumbass lol. Which, his attitude toward tests, that if you understand the material in class then you’ll be fine, definitely supports that. He’s probably the type to barely study but still get all As and you’re just like, how. Anyway, Asami, Shun’s sister, asks him to tutor Shun since they’re not busy right now.
I feel like I’m most like Hayate. And with my crush on Mima, it’s probably little wonder I ship them…
Ch 8 continues from Hayate’s POV, and it starts out with him and Souma doing that dance where you’re both trying to pass through the same space but you both keep moving in the same direction and accidentally blocking each other. They finally manage to get past each other, and based off Souma’s expression, Hayate thinks he’s pissed him off, but he was just trying to hold in his laughter. (He also thought Souma was a high schooler, but no, he’s only a year younger than you lol) He goes to greet Mima next, and he thinks that, when he sees Mima-san, he can calm down ♡♡♡ And then upon learning that this is his first day here, Mima tells him, “じゃあ、頑張りすぎないように頑張ってください,” and Hayate thinks he’s cool as always, and then when he leaves he tells him, “また僕一人では行きづらい所があれば、誘わせてください” ♡♡♡ Yeah if they don’t have another “date” at some point, I’m definitely gonna be miffed.
For games, I redownloaded Animal Restaurant and restarted with the language set to JP. That one has a lot more reading than say ねこあつめ. I also found a new game, Tsuki’s Odyssey. It’s cute, the vibe kinda reminds me a bit of Animal Crossing, though this is much more of an idle game (you can’t even fish for long before they stop showing up). And even with the language set to JP, there are still a few things in ENG that are clearly not supposed to be. That, plus the description for tuna being ピアノとマグロの違いって何？ makes me think this was made as an English game. But it’s still cute, and it’s still practice.
Puns! (may need to view full-size)
I also played a bit of ゼルダ無双. Keeping everyone pretty much the same level is going much better this time around. I may only be two missions in, but the first time, I didn’t even bother trying to learn to play Impa and Zelda until their challenges, so they were well behind Link already. Also, I don’t have as much difficulty reading all the battle-related vocab as I thought I would. I don’t always know how the kanji are read when there isn’t furigana, but I can generally infer the meaning from at least one of the kanji and/or the context.
Some vocab of note:
モテる [一, intransitive] to be popular (esp. with the opposite sex); to be well-liked; to be pampered, spoiled, doted upon, etc.; to be welcomed
日替わり (ひがわり) [noun, prefix] daily special
誤解 (ごかい) [noun, する verb] misunderstanding
着せ替え (きせかえ) [noun, する verb] changing clothes (on someone else, e.g. a child or a doll). ねこあつめ’s daily password.
翡翠 (かわせみ) [noun] kingfisher. jade (gem). lustrous color similar to that of a kingfisher’s feathers. ねこあつめ’s daily password.
さばさば [adverb, する verb] frank; candid; easygoing; laid-back
手が回る (てがまわる) [ラ五, intransitive] (usu. in the negative) to leave nothing undone; to give good service; to attend to everything; to see to something properly
29 Likes
May 3 
Home Post
I played some more ZTD today! Reading time has been been pretty hit or miss with the end of the semester, but I’ve been fitting it in wherever I can gotta get my fun in somewhere!
28 Likes
April 3rd (Calendar Post)
私の拳をうけとめて! => 61 pages (84 minutes)
Only 3 chapters left in this manga!
Fun panel of the day:
ぐしゃぐしゃ
31 Likes
Day 33 
告白 ~ 20-24%
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 30 pages
In 告白 the switch of narrator has been a breath of fresh air so far as far as difficulty is concerned. The student does include actual dialogue once in a while, the sections are shorter, and the descriptions feel clearer. I also already know the current narrator’s name - the teacher’s name I didn’t learn until almost after she was done speaking. On the subject of names, the teacher made very specific reference to two students who she named A and B. I have no idea why she would do that, as her descriptions of them were so detailed that no classmate of theirs would be left in the dark as to their identity. The only one not knowing is the reader. Now the student does refer to A and B by name, but it’s still not clear who is A and who is B. On the other hand it seems there’s at least one character in the book who knows less than the reader, so that’s some comfort at least. 
I also read 30 pages of ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 - I don’t know how I always manage to leave chapters unfinished. They are quite long, and those with ねずみ男 tend to be wordier than others, but still. One of these days I’ll read one from start to finish. Probably.
The backgrounds continue to delight me, and the youkai are very cool, but the fact that the target audience is mainly schoolboys is painfully obvious at times. This story for example featured quite a lot of toilet humour.
Fun words and expressions from ゲゲゲの鬼太郎
口車に乗る - to fall for someone’s smooth talk, to be taken in (“get on the mouth car”?)
大船に乗る - to rest easy, to be in safe conditions (“board a big ship”)
話に乗る - to jump at the chance, to accept an offer, to show interest
美食家 - epicure, gourmet
天然記念物 - protected species, natural monument
イチャイチャ - flirting, making out
絶交 - breaking off a relationship
toilet related vocabulary (basic, but new to me)
大便 - feces, excrement (in contrast to 小便 - urine)
便器 - toilet bowl, urinal, bedpan
肛門 - anus
Nice panels
29 Likes
Lately, I’m starting to view this as the big value of Wanikani because it makes it so much easier to look up words in dictionaries. That and also that I at least have a general idea of the meaning of a lot of kanji (even if it faded a lot for some of then) which so often helps to just guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
Welcome! And I just wanted to add that you can also get some graded readers for free on Free books – にほんごたどく and some of those include audio even as well!
14 Likes
Day 33
Read another short story about chihuahua 花すけ
(I accidentally posted this is the “News reading challenge” topic, shows how tired I am nowadays )
23 Likes
Continued with こんにちはウーフ today. One of the benefits of reading kids books is that the level of nonsense in them really tests your language skills. In today’s chapter, a baby bear was standing in a river, talking to a fox and a bird about whether he should be a bus driver, a cook or a mountain climber when he grows up and then play acting scenarios for each one. I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from having understood it!
26 Likes
Day 33 
Read: ジャックジャンヌー夏劇ー
Time: 6 minutes
Finished: 1 page
Started Neji’s story あらた森の蟲退治, and 1 page in my brain went nope. I think it’s a mix of starting reading too late today, and this story seeming like it’s going to be the hardest in the book. I learned the word 献木 (donating lumber to a shrine is what jisho said but it seems to be referring more to trees here) and then the story started going into detail on that in the second page and I couldn’t follow, my lumber knowledge is really lacking あした、リベンジしてみる。
Also may or may not have remembered that there’s a sale and coinback going on on bookwalker and added even more to my 積読 pile
New Vocab
望む （のぞむ）to see; to command (a view of) (first time seeing this meaning)
献木 （けんぼく）donating lumber to a shrine
牡丹 （ぼたん）tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa); moutan
橘 （たちばな）tachibana orange (Citrus tachibana)
27 Likes
I’d recommend checking out Satori reader as well! (It’s one of the things I most wish I’d known about from the very beginning.) And on tofugu.com they happened to just post a blog on graded readers as well.
11 Likes
Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220504 
Tanuki Scroll XXXIV: 宇摩志阿斯訶備比古遅神 
Today I read about one of the 別天津神「ことあまつかみ」who were the first five gods that came into existence according to Shinto beliefs. 宇摩志阿斯訶備比古遅神「うましあしかびひこぢのかみ」 was one of two gods who appeared slightly later than the first Three Deities of Creation ( 造化の三神「ぞうかのさんしん」).
I like it how the three creator gods appeared, made everything, and then just hid themselves away. Then these two others come along and sort of just exist and then go into hiding like the others. It’s theorised that Umashi represents coming into existence like a reed sprout, like how the ancestors of humans are believed to have come from the buds of reeds.
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
箇所「かしょ」ー Place; point; spot
文献「ぶんけん」ー Literature; document
国土「こくど」ー Territory; domain; realm
独神「ひとりがみ」ー Gods that came into being alone (as opposed to appearing in pairs like the next gods), came into existence without procreation, also the gods who go into hiding themselves away.
諸説「しょせつ」ー Various opinions/theories
神名「しんめい」ー Name of a god
出現「しゅつげん」ー Appearance; arrival
訓注「くんよみ ／ くんちゅう」ー An older way of writing 訓読み
名義「ぬいぎ」ー Name
神格化「しんかくか」ー Deification; apotheosis
ミクロネシアー (Federated States of) Micronesia
世界樹「せかいじゅ」ー The world tree; Yggdrasil
一方「いっぽう」ー On the other hand; the other way; one (of two); the other
New Kanji
舅「しゅうと」ー Father in law
騰「あが」ー Rising up; leaping up
@natarin, thanks again for the が-trick, it really is like magic!
26 Likes
I’ve been reading the Graded Readers for this Challenge. You can see some of the pages in my posts.
4 Likes
The Intermediate Book Club is looking for people who want to participate in reading the club’s next pick! And the best thing is, you can still have a say in what the next book (or manga, fwiw) will be 
11 Likes
Played a few hours of Triangle Strategy today. That still means I only just finished the first mission, but I think it went quite well despite all the vocabulary that I still have to get familiar with. It’s also a lot of fun to listen to the voice acting (especially when I do manage to understand it on the first pass).
Some interesting words:
じゃじゃ馬 - in this case used in the tomboy sense
天下一品 and similarly 無二
火の粉
I also thought this expression was interesting:
泣く子も黙る - basically meaning “so strong and imposing that it will silence a crying child” (I would normally expect the opposite 
). The bandit leader used this expression to describe himself.
27 Likes
May 4th 
・薬屋のひとりごと (84% → 86%)
Finished chapter 28. It was short. Also had one sentence I can’t make sense of, I suspect it is a “my mom’s younger sister’s niece’s brother’s uncle” type of sentence.
現帝の東宮時代に生まれた子は一人。母親は東宮の乳姉弟であり、のちの淑妃である。
26 Likes