📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Japanese Language Reading
#1105

22.7.
I read another 2 chapters of かしましめし and finished volume 1. It’s interesting, somewhat cute, somewhat philosophical (? Or the opposite of that), a weird mix between light and heavy. I liked it, but volume 1 ended on a good, hopeful note, and I don’t need to read on immediately.

I reread last week’s part of 人間失格, and am planning to read the current week’s part tonight in order to stay on top of the book club schedule. No 1Q84. D: I’ll read at least 1 more chapter over the weekend though, which will leave 2 more to read over the course of next week.

Oh, and in the evening I found out that one piece is free to read on Shonen Jump and Shueisha. Around 30 volumes will be free to read for about 2 weeks each, for a total of 90 volumes.

I read chapter 1 yesterday, and it was pretty nostalgic. I stopped reading (the German and English translations) around volume 50, maybe, so I’m not too fussed about getting them all. Who knows, maybe I’ll not get sick of it this time.

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#1106

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I finished Takagi-san Volume 2 today! Guess I won’t be reading with the book club anymore then, lol. (I’ll probably go back to help with the vocabulary sheet though, if I have time)

When reading the first volume I was slow and only understood about half of it, but with the second, could actually enjoy reading it. I think taking as much time as needed to look up each grammar point I didn’t know and to understand it for the first half of the book made all the difference.

Holidays are over for me now and I don’t have nearly as much time anymore, so I’m going to take a break with manga and focus on maintaining daily reading with Kiki. I might buy an digital manga for casual reading but won’t push myself to read it regularly. (That would be Fruits Basket; I was planning to read that next!)

Edit: Forgot to mention. I’m now on the 50th page of Kiki, so that makes 215 pages left and 162 days until the end of the year.

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#1107

Home post

July 23rd
からかい上手の高木さん (1) - 2 and a bit panels from chapter 8
チーズスイートホーム (1) - chapter 3

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#1108
some rambling in reply to that

I like the organizing phase, and posting threads, and such, but never liked doing vocab sheets and still feel too inexperienced answering language questions, so the only thing left when the book club is actually ongoing is try to make a discussion lively and if it isn’t lively enough and it’s my book club I’m starting agonizing it’s my fault and I should do something to make people talk more :smiley: Aaand even if I like organizational stuff when there are for example people who want to read faster and some who want to read slower, it’s hard to make a right decision to not alienate anyone, and other choices like this… basically I love organizing things but I don’t like how wild and unstable “people” element is :grin:
And when it’s something I already read, it’s also hard to follow discussion. Even if you reread you know all the plot already :< Basically every time I think about nominating a book I’m either “but I don’t know if it’s good enough” or “okay it’s good but now I want to read it by myself at my own pace and not wait until book club picks it” (which is カラフル’s case)
Anyway, I did run two book clubs, one unofficial and one BBC offshoot (well that one’s still ongoing) and now I’m telling myself I’m not committing to anything else :stuck_out_tongue:

Meanwhile, I had my 2nd vaccine dose today and it just hit hard. I felt better after the 1st dose. :confused: (AstraZeneca)

I did read some, but I’ll do the proper % thing tomorrow.

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#1109

I was too tired to read anything today. Of course I was still studying japanese like every day. Even though I have not finished the second Genki book yet, I already started the Tobira book.

I will add you all on bookmeter once I know how to actually use the site and have time to update my book list. Probably after I, either passed or failed miserably, my next japanese test.

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#1110

Summary post
July 23

・Read 冷たい密室と博士たち, ch. 7, part 2 & 3 (51% → 53%)

Will try to get the rest of the chapter done tomorrow. 6 parts in total.

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#1111

Main post

Day 53 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: Secret, Episode 7.

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#1112

Summary post

Day 53: July 23rd
What did I read?: ルックバック
How much did I read?: 75 pages (finished)
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 27 min

Ouch, man, the feels D: Wow. Really good. Although I have to admit, I also feel the tiniest bit frustrated, because I could just feel how much more impactful certain scenes would have been if I hadn’t had to stop and look up every other word during them -_- Oh well. One day, I guess.

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#1113

Home post

July 24th からかい上手の高木さん (1) wrote out remaining 17 pages from this volume and 1 page from volume (2) but didn’t translate them much yet so that I can start on volume (2) tomorrow while keeping my notebook nicely laid out :sweat_smile:, and then read チーズスイートホーム (1) chapter 4 as I was too tired to deal with more complex sentences.

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#1114

Today I’ve completed first chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san(2) as part of off-shoot club.
Yesterday was the usual 6 pages of Forbidden Scrollery (2)

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#1115

I keep seeing this mentioned, but nobody said anything about the plot, just that it’s good. Could someone get into more details for me? What kind of story this is? Light spoilers are okay if needed to sell it.

Summary post

Day 28
July 23

  • カラフル (18 → 25%)
  • 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…5 (23% → 32%)

Day 29
July 24

  • FukaBoku ch22 (finished 4th volume)
  • 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…5 (32% → 37%)

Re: カラフル @Axazel
I’m not sure if you remember that detail after finishing the book, but I was a little lost when the subject of protag’s highschool choice was brought up. Did I understand correctly that he wants (for now) to go to some private school because it’s easier and he’s going to put his application to only one school?
Well technically since he wasn’t attending any of the classes (or, if he did in the previous life, he doesn’t remember them) before his reincarnation, it’s a miracle he was able to get any exam points at all…

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#1116

You can read it here,

and that summary that shows up in the preview is a decent basic summary of the opening of the plot (without touching at all on where it goes from there).

a little more detailed summary

In short, it’s a mostly grounded story about two classmates bonding over manga, with things getting emotional and more stylistically unusual storytelling-wise as it goes on with events that echo the real-life Kyoto Animation arson attack, which this was published on the anniversary of (and seems intended at least in part to process emotions surrounding)

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#1117

Ah, I see! Thanks!

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#1118

Summary post
July 24

・Read 冷たい密室と博士たち, ch. 7 part 4-6 and ch. 8 part 1-2 (53% → 60%)

・Started Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活１ :caught_durtling: (0 → 6%)

Surprisingly comprehensible so far, though is barely past the intro, hehe. I’m sure there will be challenging parts. The start of a book is usually the hardest part, so was a bit surprised. I guess it’s because there’s usually more descriptions at the start, but here it was very short and then we get action. Is more straightforward. I found the writing style interesting, leaves out some actions to be read between the lines - they’re still there, just not written out.

I must remember to check out the book club threads, almost forgot.
Finally! Re:zero! Am so excited :eyes: :sparkles:

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#1119

Main post

Day 54 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: Secret, Episode 8.

The story is already getting spicy :sunglasses: This series is definitely a jump of dificulty from the other three I read, though not too much, but it definitely takes me a little longer on average to go through each episode. It’s good though, I’m able to get a lot of new vocabulary; just from today’s episode alone I added 9 new words. To be fair, I’m sometimes also adding words that I kiiiinda knew about already but was not very confident in remembering them properly, so I get a chance to go through them again to solidify.

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#1120

Summary post

Day 54: July 24th
What did I read?: ふらいんぐうぃっち Vol. 10, 地縛少年 花子くん Vol. 1, and 君には届かない Vol. 1
How much did I read?: 25 pages (1 chapter), 35 pages (1 chapter), and 25 pages (1 chapter)
How long did it take me?: 25 min, 52 min, and 1 hour 5 min

Kind of interesting, seeing all the times for each manga lined up like that.

I really felt like reading today, so…I did xD Finished the book club readings for Flying Witch and Hanako this week, and started a new series, 君には届かない. Lots of different manga series going on today, but I kind of like having a mix of different things going on. …Reminds me of when I was young and I would read like 7 books all at once, alternating between them every few pages at times (idk why I did that…I also read a book upside down just for funsies/because I could. I was odd. I say as if I’m not still odd)

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#1121

Home post

July 25th
Read chapter 5 of チーズスイートホーム (1)
Read 2 pages of からかい上手の高木さん (2) posted breakdowns

I’m super happy I was able to mostly catch up with the book club starting volume 2, and made way more progress towards that goal than I thought I could =O

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#1122

The last few days were pretty decent.

I’ve finished 帰ってきたよ、ばあちゃん from July 20th to 25th. An easy read with only ~200 pages. This is the 4th of manzai comedian Yōshichi Shimada’s autobiographical books I’ve read and this one focuses on his more recent life as an おじさん after moving back to the countryside in Saga prefecture. As always it was a lot of fun to read and inspiring at times, especially how he puts his energy into lots of different things he wants to do, like building a house in the old style, opening a restaurant and so on.

He’s written a couple of more books that I’ll read sooner or later.

Today I continued with 貝に続く場所にて (15 pages). This time it went much more smoothly. I doubt I’ll finish it in July, but at least I hope I’ll make good progress in the next couple of days.

My next literary book will probably be 推し、燃ゆ and I also have a few options for lighter books, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish four books in August.

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#1123

Main Post

Another week has passed, just finished reading through Polar Bear Café volume 3. This had a variety of chapters. Quite a few on Misaki’s apprenticeship making good coffee. Some with panda mama. But most importantly the continuation of the penguin cards and sentai show. Volume even comes with all the penguin cards in the back of the book. The difficulty and length kinda varies per chapter, but was able to read 3 chapters every day (helps 21 is divisible by 7) without too much trouble. One of things I noticed while reading is that as you go along you pick up on character traits in their speech. For instance all the penguins use different pronouns. Another example is characters using different sentence enders. It’s not only helpful, but also makes it more fun to read their lines.

I got volume 4 waiting for me tomorrow, so I can keep up the pace of one volume per week.

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#1124

I finished the first volume of もっと半熟女子 today. I will once again have to decide what to read tomorrow. The challenge is super awesome I already finished eight manga volumes.

What’s wrong with that dude? He always tells Tanaka how cute she is, but doesn’t ask her for a date. Major disappointment.

Soon I will order some books from amazon. Yeah I plan to read my first book in japanese pretty soon. But I may cheat a little bit and ask my teacher for help if I encounter some complicated sentences I don’t understand.

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