I saw another series by the author of Happiness (perhaps the currently running one), and it starts with a… cold 
cat 
.
Looks interesting, but I have enough waiting-to-be-read mangas (as well as I want to try something else).
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I’ve been reading consistently every day, even if its just a little article. 
I picked up 「オタク侍女とギャル令嬢、乙女ゲームの世界にシブヤを作ります！」on a whim because I love Gyarus + Otome games. Finished the first chapter this morning & I love it! Having two protagonists is really cool and I like how the reality that they’re DEAD isn’t brushed over. It was actually really sad ): Can’t wait to read the next chapter
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220514 
Tanuki Scroll XLIV: こじきのほこり 
Not much time today so just read today’s Edo tale.
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
乞食「こじき」ー Beggar; begging
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I ended up not reading anything yesterday, unless you count some texts I got in Japanese. I was absolutely exhausted and went to bed early.
Today I read 41% → 47% of モテ薬. It had a “shocking” revelation that didn’t really wow me (2 of them actually) and the next chapter appears to be going back to the one sided conversation style. I think my problem with this book is that it’s just too long winded. I’m 100+ pages in now (almost 50% done!) and the plot has barely developed.
Thank you to everyone for the household word book suggestions! I appreciate it. I’ll look into them, though my 積読 pile is already quite big 
Edit: Just realized I passed 50% of my yearly reading goal! 
5000 pages is the goal, I’m at 2510!
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May 14th!
I read Chapter 7 of Yoru Cafe today. Still takes me ages to get through each chapter, but I’m starting to feel less intimidated by the amount of text, and less tired out by the time I finish. This week had a lot of cooking/kitchen vocabulary, which I already knew quite a bit of so that probably helped.
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I ordered the first set of Level 1 Graded Readers last night!
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I read the first four pages of “Hikoichi and the Living Umbrella”. NicoleRauch, you are right. This is turning out to be a good read! This also starts out with a Hikoichi being a person I don’t recognize from the other stories I’ve read about him. I can’t imagine him doing nothing but playing and losing all his money! I can’t wait to finish this story!
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Very important word I just learned: 総ルビ “having furigana on all kanji in a document”
I learned it because 本好きの下剋上 now has a 総ルビ edition! This is very exciting since 本好き has been on my wishlist basically since the first time I ever visited amazon.jp, back before I had any clue about anything. So now I have 本好き in my cart, and since I’m waiting until I finish 夜カフェ2 to place the order, this motivated me to read 5 pages even though I’m very tired from work. (And they were good pages. )
reply
@saturnine13 イェイ！ありがとう！ I love your profile picture.
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Day 44 
告白 ~ 64-65%
(Also the first chapter of Happiness, vol.2 for the offshoot club and two chapters of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん for the IBC. )
Book club reading mostly today, and only one percent of my main book (although I may still read some more before bed). I wasn’t about to join the Happiness offshoot club (not especially impressed by vampires, and the story was slow going), but there is one character that I really like, and she was staring at me from the cover of vol.2 - I just couldn’t resist her. 
(How can you not love her?)
Since I mentioned I’m not a vampire person, here’s a fun poll (I didn’t add the yokai option, or it would be unfair to the other monsters, yokai all the way!)
Vampires or Zombies?
- Vampires
- Zombies
- None…
0 voters
From today’s vocabulary I like this one:
日常茶飯事 - everyday occurence (“everyday tea rice” )
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werewolves? Or is this an undead poll? 
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Aren’t werewolves undead? Not sure, but I think they can only be killed by silver bullets?
In (some) seriousness, there’s such a variety of monsters and fantasy creatures that it’s really hard to choose favourites (or even list them all), but zombies and vampires are in my opinion on two opposite sides of the spectrum, so a good dilemma to pose. Vampire movies couldn’t be more different than zombie movies, for example, and though I like the classics of both, vampires later evolved into a genre I don’t particularly enjoy, while I still have a soft spot for a good zombie. I know other people love vampires and can’t stand zombies. I would probably have added a “both” option, though, that would also be interesting…
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Zombies and vampires
Fun question! I like both (I just like horror!) in general but I leaned vampires, though when you mention more recent entries… I was leaning on older vampire works. And mostly films, for what it’s worth. Zombies are a great chance for impressive gross visual effects, while vampires (the kind I’m thinking of) have lush set designs and costumes. Slight preference for the latter, but both are cool. I think I just prefer vampires as creatures because there’s more room to make them themselves interesting – I’m thinking of something like Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre where he made Nosferatu himself an extremely pitiable creature. Gunn’s Ganja & Hess turns it into an addiction thing, etc. Zombie movies definitely can have good subtext (good old Dawn of the Dead consumerism) but the zombies themselves interest me more as just the overarching concept than the individual creatures, I guess? It’s all good.
The really important factor is that Nicolas Cage has, to my knowledge, only played a vampire. 
I read 10,000 characters today! Love those days where it hits 5 digits, need more of them. 
It started rough though. I left off still in the middle of the aforementioned slangy fight sort of sequence which threw a whole bunch of nonsense at me. For example, 四つ巴, which is not a word. It’s apparently based on 三つ巴 (an emblem of three comma-shaped figures arranged to form a circle, but more crucially, a 3 way fight) then expanded to incorporate the extra person, heh. There was also the sentence, as a quick demonstration: “ああ、もうカオスっぷりがパない.” I got it with some internet lookups but that’s a mess of slang, the worst being パない which my dictionary couldn’t catch. It makes sense now that I see where it came from, though. The line doesn’t look so bad in isolation, but when surrounded by a ton of things written like that… y’know.
Another fun cultural reference today, that I’m happy to say I understood! They referenced, and used the line “月が綺麗ですね” . This is, if I understand correctly, a line from Natsume Sōseki himself, as the translation of “I love you” into Japanese. Sort of demonstrating how roundabout and contextual the language can be (particularly in his time, I’m sure).
Someone threw Inari! Just want you all to know he was rapidly rotating. If I could easily capture video instead, I would.
Good day overall! Today’s new word is 一肌脱ぐ (ひとはだぬぐ), “to pitch in and help.” It… sure doesn’t mean what the kanji made me expect, and the game played into that a bit for a joke too.
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Zombies and Vampires
That’s a very good point, actually. A vampire is a sentient creature, and can be very interesting to explore (you name a great example). Zombies on the other hand, they’re not really individuals, they’re just the personification of a threat. In fact, this pandemic has often reminded me of a zombie outbreak in many respects. They also provide a fantastic opportunity for social commentary, accompanied by gross visual effects and (often) comedy. Vampires, on the other hand, often focus on style and (lately) romance, which really bores me.
Nicolas Cage has played a vampire? 
(I wonder if I never knew that or I just erased it from memory).
Speaking of “acting”, how fun would it be to act as an extra in a zombie movie? I have no ambition to ever appear on screen, but I think I’d love to briefly play the zombie.
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I think it comes from the fact one would remove part of their clothing to do strength related work.
By the way, “helping with all your strength” is
諸肌を脱ぐ.
(It’s supposed to be only the upper body, though 
)
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More zombies and vampires
Oh for sure! On that note, if you haven’t seen Cronenberg’s Rabid, I watched that in the midst of the early pandemic days and it really reminded me of that kind of outbreak in a lot of ways. Good movie too, worth the watch.
But yeah it’s very much as you say – the whole zombie concept is a good vehicle for commentary and also just horrifying. I struggle even with the comedic ones a little, despite generally not being bothered by much. Even watching Shaun of the Dead or Return of the Living Dead (which it occurred to me later is a rare example of characterizing individual zombies and is really good at it), there’s something about the zombification process that hits a little close to, I dunno, having a terminal disease I think. I struggle with the comedies cause when those parts come around where a major character knows they’re turning or whatever, it’s distressing!
Vampire’s Kiss! I genuinely think Cage is a great actor but I know he’s been in a lot of terrible things, haha. He overplays it extremely hard in that movie, it’s the source of half the “Nicolas Cage losing his shit” type clips, but I think it’s surprisingly purposeful and at times he does have little echoes of the theatrical nature of silent film, Nosferatu stuff.
Oh absolutely, sounds like a great time.
Oh, I posted this as you were responding, but I much appreciate the added context, thank you so much! @Naphthalene
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Day 44: May 14th
What did I read?: クマとカラス
How much did I read?: 22 pages
How long did it take me?: 32 min
So, kind of a MAJOR development in this manga - turns out that the crow actually died??? in the city??? like before he ever met the bear??? and then he got brought back to life(?) or was otherwise somehow given a second chance by ヤタガラス to fulfill his last wish, which was to help someone 
With all the previous talk about bears being extinct, I can’t shake the feeling that maybe the crow and the bear are both dead now, and they’re just fulfilling their final wishes/desires in some type of afterlife-y place Bear no 
I hope I’m wrong
I did not sign up for these emotions today 
Good words
- つぶら - round and cute (esp. of eyes)
- 楽ちん (らくちん) - easy-peasy; easy; simple
- 横取り (よこどり) - snatching; stealing; seizure; usurpation
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Day 43
- 都道府県おはなし
I read another 2 pages if I recall correctly.
- ジョジョの奇妙な冒険
27-71
A most excellent fight! It was neat to see that physics were obeyed more in the manga than in the anime in certain ways. Plus Dio saying カエルの小便よりも下衆な it’s worse/lower/more scummy than frog piss. Like what? That’s a real… unique… insult
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Up until now, I was like, oh, what a cute story, maybe I’ll read it in the future
but now, like wth genre is it even listed as? this is sounding like it’s not the healing manga I assumed it was
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May 14
Book club day! Chapter 67 of Haikyuu. We’re still playing Aoba Jousai in the interhigh tourney.
It’s also new SxF day so I can read the next chapter of the manga woo!
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