Hahaha, funny sentence! That would be my father, for example, right? 
About your sentence, what confuses you in there? The であり does the same here as て-form usually does, that is it connects two sentence parts. (I have zero context but I read that as my mother was raised together with the crown prince and later became queen maybe?)
Even with context I’m confused. Feels like there’s five different people in those two sentences, but maybe it is just three? I think it means something like “At the time when the current emperor was a crown prince, only one child was born. That child’s mother is the crown prince’s(?) foster sister, which is the 淑妃 (one of the wives).” I guess the confusing part is, who is the crown prince in that second sentence? And might be hard to know without having read the book, but also, since when did the 淑妃 have a child? Why is she a wife when she’s sibling with royal people??? Much bamboozle.
Ah okay, I see. So it might actually help me to be context-free here 
Here is my deduction (which may still be totally off ^^)
現帝の東宮時代に生まれた子は一人。- At the time when the current emperor was a crown prince, only one child was born. I take this to mean: The current emperor was a single child.
母親は - for logistical reasons, this can’t be the foster sister and the mother at the same time, so it must be somebody else’s mother. My initial reflex was that it is the narrator’s mother because of the rather informal 母親. Also there doesn’t seem to be anybody else around whose mother she might be?
東宮 - I think this is the same dude as in the first sentence, the current emperor.
の乳姉弟であり、- this still refers to 母親, so she was the foster sister of the crown prince (so that he would have some company because he was an only child, see sentence 1 ^^)
のちの淑妃である - and this still refers to 母親 so she became one of the wives (sorry I guessed that wrong initially).
So it boils down to two people actually, maybe? (if we leave the narrator out of the equation)
EDIT: Nope, haha 
Nevermind.
Once again, a little over 6000 characters, so that’s a definite victory. Today I’m just frustrated at things tangential to Japanese. Had a full blown migraine that messed up my not-Japanese plans yesterday evening, which is aggravating, and now today I’m still particularly having to not stare at the screen without a lot of breaks and stuff. I’ve taken a lot of measures to try to stop them, but I can tell they basically come at the same times when all the other symptoms of inflammation are flaring up elsewhere in my body, so I don’t think they’re just standard standalone migraines, in that sense. My other (post-covid…) problems are exacerbating them. Blahhh
But yeah, I read. The timing was good for me to tap out right after a sudden difficulty spike. See, you know how I said yesterday I mined 20 words in like barely over 1000 characters? Today it took me well over 4000 for the same thing. It truly does vary. Right at the end though, the character started telling some story about tanuki, and while I can follow it with enough effort, it just wears me out when I encounter these sentences packed with unknown words these days. Here’s a little sample:
それは世にもずる賢く、陰惨な狸の話だった。
夜の山の中でひっそりと登山隊に紛れ、メンバーに扮してはお尻を触ったり、物を盗んだり。
そうかと思えば、偽りの愛をささやいたり。
Each line has a few words I don’t know, and it was just getting dense feeling. I’ll tackle it tomorrow, refreshed. In fact, I’ll probably look at this later and go “oh I just need to remember a couple things; it’s fine.” That usually happens, cause I have the fatigue of reading up to this point on me right now. Also, the tanukis make a habit of touching butts, apparently.
No need to comment on that.
Culturally, today I learned about 肝試し (きもだめし), a sort of “test of courage” game, because there’s one being put on for the island’s children. I guess it’s sort of a common game to get kids to go somewhere scary, here it was a nighttime forest. I would’ve liked it a lot as a kid, I think.
That’s kind of a new word already, but I’ll also share 素知らぬ顔 (そしらぬかお), “pretending not to recognize.”
May 4th!
Chapter 57 today. Lots of adorable panels of Yotsuba at the mall choosing her favourite teddy bear 
I was hoping to read a second chapter, or at least something shorter, but actually I’m super tired so I’m going to go to bed early instead 
Still obsessed with 13 sentinels and ignoring all of the books I should be reading, woops. I thought I might actually finish up the game today as I was very close to the end of all but one character path…but it turns out that one character is locked until endgame at least partly because he is major exposition boy. Lots of sci-fi explanations which are tougher than the other routes, so slower going. Today also contained a lot of fun gang interactions though, they are all so adorable I love them. Favourite non spoiler bit from today was my fave himbo Takatoshi continually calling the character who first gave him yakisoba pan ‘焼きそばパンの君’ with great reverence and that character being like ‘ummm…can you stop with that please’
I need to think what I’m going to do once I finish! I should get back to the other things I’m reading but I’ve been really enjoying playing games for a bit so tempted to try another. Might see how ridiculous fire emblem 3 houses is…
The current emperor had one kid while he was still crown prince (that was mentioned way back at the beginning of the book, by the way). The mother was the 乳姉弟 (kids raised by the same 乳母, I don’t know how to say that in English; edit: seeing @NicoleRauch ’s answer, foster sister, also the kanji says she’s older) of the then crown prince (i.e. the current emperor), and later became the 淑妃.
Day 34: May 4th
What did I read?: ダイロクセンス Vol 1
How much did I read?: 31 pages
How long did it take me?: 48 min
Omg this chapter was so cute 
I think the cat illustration was foreshadowing? lol
Today’s chapter was much less…murdery xD Much more mundane. Rui, Sumire, and her colleague Kido find a little girl crying over the death of her cat - she’s upset because she thinks did something to make it mad and want to leave her 
Rui kind of makes it worse at first xD But after being sort-of baited into it by Kido, he uses his power to see what the cat saw before it died. Then he basically “tricks” the girl into thinking he has ESP and can hear her cat from beyond the grave - the whole thing was very sweet, and he’s able to convince her that the cat did love her. In the end, she’s like, I wish I could hear the cat’s voice again, and Rui FREAKING MEOWS SO SHE’LL THINK IT’S THE CAT So adorable~ He acts like a brat sometimes but he’s not a bad kid
Today…I didn’t read an Aozora short story. Or my 赤川 short story. Or 闇祓. Or 戦前昭和の猟奇事件.
Nope, I went right off into a different direction and bought the ebook for an audiobook I’ve been struggling through. I now realize why it was so difficult for me to follow along - with sentences like
ハリボテの象牙の塔で偉そうに浮かれる雑魚キャラたち、覚悟しなさい
and
自由をこの手にできるなら、死さえ厭いはしない
my listening skills had no chance. Reasonably easy to follow reading + listening though, and the audiobook is well done. I’m low on time, so here’s the plot in Japanese and into English from DeepL:
はじまりは、美人研究者による新物質発見の記者会見だった。
だが次々に明らかになる論文不正は、ついに最悪の事態を迎える。
いったい彼女は、絶世の天才科学者か、世紀の悪女か――。
モテ薬は本当にあるのか、論文の不備が示唆するものとは――。
関係者の証言を積み重ねて浮かび上がる衝撃の真実から目をそむけてはいけない!
It all started with a press conference by a beautiful researcher on the discovery of a new substance.
However, as the fraudulent papers are revealed one after another, the situation finally takes a turn for the worse.
Is she a genius of the highest order or the villainess of the century?
Is there really a “love potion,” and what do the flaws in the paper suggest?
Don’t turn your eyes away from the shocking truth that emerges from the accumulated testimonies of those involved!
It’s shaping up to be a lot more interesting / weird than the summaries suggest, but will detail that as I get further and see where it goes.
May 4 
Home Post
I played more ZTD! Progress has been somewhat slow lately between being busy with finals and the room I’m currently in being really sciencey But that’s okay! I’ll fight through one day lmao, mental energy is just limited right now.
I’ve also been looking at the golden week sales from that GameGengo video that came up and so I checked out the demo for バディミッションBOND to see if I wanna get it and knowing me I probably will It’s very intriguing! I really like the aesthetics of it and the characters and plot seem pretty cool, but it’ll definitely be a crash course in some crime vocabulary if I haven’t gotten it elsewhere by the time I play it. It’d be cool to play though since it’s something I wouldn’t be able to without knowing Japanese 
so we’ll see! It’ll probably happen sometime haha
Yayyy I’m glad it’s been helpful!!
Lmao relatable, I’m always like “damn I should read an actual book so I can actually update natively sometime” and yet here I am 13 sentinels sounds like a lot of fun! I’m sold on Takatoshi already 
This is a folktale about star people. I can’t wait to finish it. I just didn’t have time today.
New Vocabulary:
おひめ
織り姫 female textile worker, weaver
おひめ
織り姫 to make, to produce, to manufacture
はたら
働く to work, to labor
The main reason I’ve been holding back on buying books is that I don’t want my mother to judge me for buying more books when I haven’t even finished redoing my shelves yet. I’ll have to eventually (maybe a certain number max once a month I’ll be able to hang in there better than with the arbitrary by-feel thing I’ve got going now, where the only one keeping me accountable is me, and that guy’s a total pushover), but I recently got a raise, and I’ve been making more money again lately with Swagbucks and Pocket 7 Games, and I finished paying off my student loan, so I feel like I don’t have to just yet. But my parents will be in Florida for over a week at the end of this month, so if I order books with the timing that they’ll arrive then, I can get a bunch that I’ve been wanting badly all at once and that’ll tide me over for a while, I can work on my shelves, and then I can figure out a book-buying schedule!
Ah, another day of not reading any 2.43… There’s so much I wanna do and not enough time in a day to do it all!
Today I read ch 9-10 of クールドジ男子. I also looked up Hayate’s and Souma’s seiyuu to see if I knew them, and Hayate’s voiced SK∞’s Langa! (Also Komukai Tetto in 2.43, though he only had a small appearance, so I don’t really remember.) So I’ve been using a pretty similar voice for him to his official one. Souma’s didn’t voice anyone I know. So far, no one aside from the main four have been announced, but that’s to be expected.
Ch 9 follows Souma, who’s been worrying about his older brother Souta since he’s seemed a lot busier lately and has been putting off sleeping and eating. Mima, Souta’s kouhai at work, is worrying about him too since he seems a lot busier and yet still worries about others. Souma is staying with his brother for free, and so he does chores and cooks and stuff to help out, though he’s still learning how to cook. One night, me makes gyuudon, but he mixes up the sugar and salt and it ends up being so salty he can’t even laugh about it (though he does when he recounts it to his friends at college the next day lmao), but Souta doesn’t even notice! So he decides that, while Souta’s sense of taste is weird, he’ll use him as his guinea pig lmao. He gets the idea from his friends to start making bentou for his brother to take to work since he might not be eating properly there either, but since the double set of bentou boxes he buys (it’s two sets of two boxes, where you use one for rice and one for the sides, rather than have everything in different compartments in a single box) are nearly identical, he accidentally gives himself both rice and Souta both sides, so Souta has to go out and buy rice but doesn’t mind at all, calling him the best. ♡
Yeah, a bigger crush on him is totally what I need… (And then he wears casual clothes for the first time in this chapter, which also doesn’t help.)
lol omg he has his alarm set for 9 a.m. (and it’s one of those analogue ones rather than digital or on his phone), and when he reaches out to turn it off, he misses and just. falls back asleep for another hour and a half while it’s still ringing! He thinks he’s late for work, but it’s. a national holiday. Also, we meet his older sister! He’s promised to look after his niece Ririka (Ricchan) today. lol and even though Nee-san arrives with Ririka while he’s getting ready, he still thinks that he coulda slept in more since it’s a day off. No, babe, you couldn’t have.
Pfft. And then right after, she remembers, “あ‼ そうだった！けっこんしないとダメだった‼”
lmaooo Ricchan makes Takayuki-ojichan take her to the park to eat lunch (bentou have to be eaten at the park!) and they happen upon Shun out on a run. Shun stares intensely at Mima (poor Mima thinks he’s being glared at by a delinquent) trying to figure out what it is he needed to say to him, and when he remembers that it’s that Mima forgot something at the shop and takes a step toward him, Mima freaks out and thinks, “オヤジ狩り⁉” lmao you’re not middle-aged, you’re not even 30 yet! You’re barely older than me! (Middle age is what, like, 50s or something?) I get that you think he’s gonna commit an act of violence against you, but why’s that word the first one you go to?!
Also everyone thinks Ririka is Mima’s daughter (Shun even heard her call him oji-chan!). Can’t really blame them though, they do share a resemblance.
Y’know, I didn’t even notice at first that Ririka speaks entirely in kana. I guess I’m used to it from よつばと!
Tomorrow I’m planning on finishing the volume, and then it’s on to new content! I’m excited to properly meet Igarashi.
I read the Bookwalker preview for くま クマ 熊 ベアー. I’ve never been interested in 異世界 to the point where I’d seek them out (though I do enjoy the occasional one, like 今日から㋮王!, which I watched part of with a friend in college) so I dunno if I’ll read it if it doesn’t end up as a book club pick, but if it does, I’ll likely read along. It’s looking like Spy x Family will get picked this time around, which I’m excited about! I had already put the first volume on the unofficial list of books I’m planning on getting later this month. I saw some fanart for it today on tumblr and thought, “Yes, this is definitely something I need to read!”
I kicked some 魔物 butt as Zelda in ゼルダ無双. I didn’t have the time to do one of the main challenges today since I don’t wanna stay up too late as I’ve got work in the morning, so I just did a couple of the side quests, which also means not much reading.
The random, out-of-place English (I caught a porgy today and its entry is entirely in English for some reason, and there are some furniture items like that, too; names are sometimes romanized, sometimes in kana, with no rhyme or reason), plus some words that I’m pretty sure aren’t even Japanese (yesterday a character said 久朝月, and the 月 I think is supposed to be Tsuki’s name even though it’s always been written in katakana, but the first bit??) (and the game using a Chinese font), plus today they used 夜明け twice in a way that seemed incredibly out of place… Well, I’m seriously considering changing the language for Tsuki’s Odyssey back to English. I think keeping it as Japanese might be a bigger headache than it’s worth.
居候 (いそうろう) [noun, する verb] lodger who pays nothing for room and board; freeloader
教わる (おそわる) [ラ五, transitive] to be taught; to learn; to take lessons in. New reading for this one for me!
気にかける (きにかける) [expression, 一, transitive] to weigh on one’s mind; to trouble one’s heart; to be concerned about; to worry about
おやじ狩り (おやじがり) [noun] street violence against middle-aged men
出撃 (しゅつげき) [noun, する verb] sortie; rally; attack
一網打尽 (いちもうだじん) [四字熟語] round-up (e.g. of criminals); wholesale arrest; catching the whole herd with one throw
April 4th (Calendar Post)
私の拳をうけとめて! => 100 pages (98 minutes)
Almost completed last volume!
Some fun panels from today:
This is one of the strangest words I’ve run into. A word made out of the strokes of a kanji? WAT?
I’ve read through 4 chapters of the event now, so about halfway done with it. In the chapter today, they had their pillow fight. Rinze ended up being the secret weapon and was the strongest challenger. The story has been pretty cute so far, everyone in the hokura unit seems fun.
Kaho seemed to like the pillow fight a lot too
May 4
Idk why I thought about skipping out on posting today. I spent time on Spy x Family adding words to the vocab list. Shout out to the person(s) who added Missions 2-4 as well!
In non-reading events, I made banana bread and brisket mac 'n cheese today. Both tasty 
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
10 / 10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes
Thanks! I figured as much but hoped otherwise lol 
My family kindly sent me some Amazon gift cards for my birthday recently, but since they’re US Amazon cards, they’re only redeemable to my US account. Was trying to figure out if there’s a way I can use them for Japanese goods, but not in this particular case.
I’ll try to find some Nintendo games in the US eshop that have Japanese language tracks (Amazon → Nintendo ecards → games)
Day 34 
告白 ~ 24-26%
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 22 pages
Extra tired and busy yesterday, a bad combination (and I fear this trend will continue today). I did read on my breaks throughout the day, but it wasn’t as efficient or enjoyable as it would have been if I had just set aside a larger chunk of reading time with no distractions.
I do my reading mainly on my iPad, but sometimes (when I’m out, for example), my phone is handier, so I do some reading on there too. It surprised me that for this particular book the phone and iPad sometimes disagree on the percentages. I’ve read up to 26% according to the Bookwalker app on the iPad, to 25% on the same app on the phone. I chose to log the former just because it looks better. (I’m aware all of that is entirely insignificant, I was just wondering why a simple calculation done by a machine can be …subjective. I suppose it may have to do with the iPad screen displaying more text, but this is the first book where I noticed this discrepancy. )
Also read 22 pages of ゲゲゲの鬼太郎, finishing the last chapter and starting the new one, where of course I stopped halfway like I always seem to do. This too features ねずみ男. He’s what you would expect from a mouse man, extremely greedy and selfish, always scheming and trying to benefit, and of course always failing in the end. Kitaro on the other hand is this cool guy (kid?) who doesn’t care about food, money or fame, nor about Nezumi Otoko trying to thwart him at every turn.
All in all, from what I’ve read so far, I feel the first story, Kitaro’s birth, the only one you can get a taste of from the sample, is quite different in feel to the stories coming after it. It was easier language-wise, but more serious in its storytelling. There was an air of mystery and suspense, more graphic images of the monsters and ghosts, more depth in the story. So far the next stories in the book lack this extra something, and feel more like any kind of episodic cartoon where the good guy defeats the villain after some token adventures. The yokai and backgrounds are still as cool as ever, but it’s all toned down somehow. I remember reading that the first incarnation of 鬼太郎 was deemed too scary for children, and it was changed to something more appropriate. Maybe these first, scarier stories, would be more up my alley.
Some images:
I thought he was just a boy?
May 2-4
So I’ve been a bit busy so I haven’t had time to update (well beyond getting in on the interesting discussion going on).
So I’ve kept reading 坊っちゃん and one day I picked up a random manga I own and 多読 read a few pages because I was too tired to do anything else. Felt a bit cheap to mark that as having read, but knowing myself having a streak is nice and cutting myself slack every once in a while is a good way to make keeping the streak alive.
I think I’m gonna stop sharing story updates for 坊っちゃん because I’m getting into serious spoilery territory. If someone is reading my story updates and don’t plan to read it themselves, let me know and I’ll keep writing them. But no point if no one is reading them.
All I can say (considering the past couple of sentences) is that this story is pulling me in with its intrigue, and after getting used to the author voice I have a much easier time reading it. Of course, a major help is all the grammar bits I’ve gotten help with because more or less all of them keep cropping up. I’m so grateful to everyone who answers questions in this thread, my own and others. You make a difference. 
I’ve finished the first half of the story (上) and I will start 下 most likely today (5th). But first a couple of things I struggled with.
@Belerith and @Daisoujou He did move, so indeed your translation was right. Not that I doubted it, but I thought I’d let you know anyway.
この辺で一番の美人じゃがなもし。
I’m wondering about the じゃが. なもし is ですね as @Naphthalene taught me. When I try to search for it, all I get is potato…
This is used in several places by one elderly woman (if that context is useful). I could pull more of what she says with this if needed.
There was a sentence I was a bit unsure of, but since I read that one three days ago and I can’t remember where it was, I guess it will stay a bit of mystery. 
I’m almost completely caught up with reviews with less than 70 piled up ones left (I’m doing another review session in a couple of mins so don’t know how many I will do). This means I can slowly start leveling again soon. It is gonna be nice to progress again soon. I’ve already started poking at lessons (like lvl 33 radicals). But I’m not gonna start rushing or optimising for quick level ups.
Just meandering for now. ^^
Day 34 
Read: ジャックジャンヌー夏劇ー
Time: 38 minutes
Finished: 11 pages
Continued reading あらた森の蟲退治, apparently that’s the name of a new play everyone is putting on after the summer play for an elementary school. It’s about あらた森, a forest where a god lives happily together with a lot of animals. One day from a far away continent, bugs with a huge appetite come and start destroying the forest. The forest god tries to get rid of them but he gets attacked by the bugs and they injure him. He asks the god of the sky for help and she tries to recruit some birds to go down to the forest and eat the bugs, but every bird she asks refuses. Eventually she asks あらた a bird thats found only in あらた森, who agrees to go and deal with the bugs. I didn’t expect there to be the plot of a whole new play in this book.
歴代 （れきだい）successive generations; successive emperors
真っ盛り （まっさかり）height of; middle of; full bloom
くちばし beak; bill
補足 （ほそく）supplement; complement
代弁 （だいべん）acting for (someone else); carrying out (on someone’s behalf)
軽妙 （けいみょう）light and easy; lambent; clever; witty; smart
おどける to jest; to joke; to play the fool; to act indecently; to be silly over; to talk foolishly
親玉 （おやだま）boss; chief; head
難色 （なんしょく）disapproval; reluctance; unwillingness
ヨタカ Grey Nightjar
固有種 （こゆうしゅ）endemic species
実質 （じっしつ）substance; essence
語り部 （かたりべ）(professional) storyteller
ふんぞり返る to get cocky; to be arrogant
Most if not all nintendo first party games can be switched to Japanese text and voice easily! Ones I’ve tried that I know work are breath of the wild, Pokémon games, fire emblem 3 houses, animal crossing, super Mario oddessy, ring fit adventure but yeah, I think in general anything first party should be okay!
