Yay! 
I’m usually bad with advertising stuff to other people, so I’m happy I succeeded for once.
Double POV happens sometimes in later volumes too, but the structure is more free deeper in the series, so not absolutely every moment gets double treatment. 
And btw, I realized that on Natively, HameFura’s level is influenced purely by me & Naphthalene
Day 7
July 2
I may or may not have been lurking in the extensive reading thread for a while which prompted me to start reading the series to begin with. Like mentioned in this thread though the extensive reading thread is kind of scary with people reading what feels like a couple of books per month, so I assumed the light novel would be way above my level. 
Your encouraging words made it feel like something I could actually tackle, so you most definitely succeeded. 
Nevermind, I’m absolutely terrified of reading it again.
July 2
Read 11 pages of 青春オカルティーン plus some tweets and youtube comments in Japanese. Some people here have mentioned how hard it is to get over the hurdle of reading long messages in Japanese since their brain instantly thinks that they won’t understand any of it anyways - same. This really pushed me to stop ignoring comments etc and actually try and read them. Sure enough I was able to understand a lot more than I thought I would. 
July 3
Read an article of NHK Easy News where I only had to look up 1 word. I remember checking that page out last year and not really finding it “easy” at all back then.
Also read 14 pages of 青春オカルティーン. The amount of text per panel makes this a really slow read but the lack of furigana also makes it excellent for reinforcing a lot of kanji readings.
Summary post
July 3 I read a bunch today! 
・New book club: 人間失格. Read about half of the first week’s portion. Am reading the free version on Aozora so I have no way of knowing how much exactly I’ve read. I thought it was going to be a tougher read, but went fine so far 
・Read Kono Oto Tomare vol. 2 I think it took me around 4 hours? 
Feels like it took a surprisingly long time. Will try to read the next volume tomorrow.
・Read a (long) chapter of SAO 8. (p 314 → 351) More battle scenes and thus vocab related to fighting. One thing I’ve found very interesting is that I’ve learnt come across both kun’yomi and on’yomi of kanji and words I’ve never seen before over just a few days. “What a coincidence!” kind of feel 
萎える “to lose strength”・萎縮 “withering”
戦慄 “shiver”・戦慄く"to shiver"
斧 “axe” I knew this one tho ・戦斧 “battleaxe”
燻製 “smoked food; smoking (fish, meat, etc)”・燻す “to smoke (something)”
June 2 & 3 updates
Finished 鬼滅の刃３ yesterday, and ナルト２ today. The last bit of that 鬼滅の刃 vol was a bit tough in places, partly because there was one character who I think was talking in a kind of archaic style or a dialect (there were quite a few vowel substitutions that weren’t just the typical shonen な->ね which threw me off a bit trying to parse things) and then a page long monologue from a character that talks entirely in katakana (even the particles!!) . Another fun volume though! I feel like it’s at a really pleasant level where it’s challenging but not so much that it feels like a struggle/not fun.
ナルト I have to admit I mainly read because I didn’t have much time today and I wanted to finish it off. It’s a nice easy read as a) I’ve seen the anime, and b) half the time if I don’t understand something but am too lazy to look it up then Naruto or one of the other kid characters will be like “uhhh…I don’t understand” and it will be described in a different way. Makes it easy to read without looking up too much. I did notice that almost every word I looked up today I had already looked up in one of the other things I’m reading…which maybe tells me I should start SRS-ing vocab…but I don’t want to/WK is enough for me rn so I’ll just keep on looking them up over and over haha.
That’s me back to only book club reads. Need to decide what’s next tomorrow (I say like I don’t already know it will be 鬼滅の刃4 instead of one of the many other things I have already bought or got free from bookwalker )
Day 33: July 3rd
What did I read?: ふたりのライオン
How much did I read?: 144 pages (3 chapters - finished the manga)
How long did it take me?: 4 hr 45 min? Or 5 hours maybe? (some rando kept calling me and leaving blank messages on my phone while I was trying to read earlier this afternoon…while that was happening I paused my timer at some point and forgot to restart it, so that’s why I’m not sure -_-)
I didn’t intend to finish this today, but…somehow that happened xD I read one chapter and took a break, thinking maybe I’d finish the rest off tomorrow, but I wanted to see how things resolved so I picked it up again.
The first chapter I read today was a very text-heavy and backstory-heavy chapter so it took me a while to work through. (I feel like I always spend lots of time on these types of chapters…my need to make sure I understand increases like 50-fold Backstory is very important to me lol) But it was worth it. Now we know how all the rumors started… Onizuka so did not deserve to have such a crappy high school experience, but the fact that he still doesn’t seem to regret it because he feels like it was the right thing to do is just 
I think his grandpa would be so proud
…On a lighter note, Onizuka apparently gets drunk in like five seconds That was quite cute.
And I love how his response to finding out Junpei has feelings for him was basically dude, why are you freaking out, that’s fine lmao, he’s so chill about it I love him so much
And it ends with them playing with the cat again and having a first kiss, how cute is that :3 Kind of wish this had a continuation, but I don’t think it does. May check out some of this author’s other work, though. The growth of their friendship and Onizuka’s character development was just sweet and heartwarming to watch
Day 6: July 4th
SO’s apartment.
Read:
気のきいた短いメールが書ける本：メール術
・仕事のお願い（4 pages)
For several months I’ve been giving myself a vacation from studying/job searching/working on weekends, and it’s been nice, but to keep up with this challenge I want to read at least a little on Sat/Sun as well. I feel like 1 section plus daily 100 catch up reviews is enough
I haven’t posted anything here for ages or updated my calendar, oops! I know I missed two days in June, so I left them empty where I think I didn’t read. Otherwise, I’ve been reading regularly still.
So, update. It’s been nearly a month since I started the challenge. I think my understanding has improved at least a little, same with speed.
I finished Takagi-san with the book club last week (thanks, all of you!) and had decided to read Volume 2 with the spin-off club, although seeing that it’s free on Bookwalker for the next five weeks, I might just speed ahead and not spend any money 
As for Kiki, I’m now at 224/265 pages left to read, and 181 days left of 2021. Dang I better speed up in the later months, hopefully I’ll have improved enough by then 
July 3rd
Moving house today (the first of many such days), so was absolutely shattered and didn’t think I’d be able to get much if any reading in at the end of the day.
Thanks in part to this challenge, I forced myself to sit down and once I started going I didn’t feel like stopping.
からかい上手の高木さん Chapter 4 page 13 panels 4 and 5, all of page 14, all of page 15, and half of page 16. All up I read 8 non-trivial/difficult panels which is much more than my daily target of 1 lately. The panels today were full of lots of new constructs, but somehow I pushed through, I’m really super stoked!
Read some more Yotsuba and finished volume 10 today. A good start for July. I don’t have any more volumes with me, so I’ll focus on reading Polar Bear Cafe volume 1 next.
Energetic Fuuka joined the party in a quest to buy a camera at the electronics shop. The faces she makes and the interactions with Jumbo and Dad are very good.
And the chapter ends on a very well done to be continued panel
Browsing the electronics store is very fun. I love how Yotsuba is opening the fridge and commenting that there’s no food there. Fuuka takes a nap, I guess that’s post exam fatigue. Which leads Yotsuba to the discovery what is probably hard rock music:
And they leave with batteries, very anti-climax… but at least the trip was fun.
Yotsuba bringing Fuuka’s bouncy ball with and discovers a fun use of it. Of course something goes wrong and she lies about it so obviously. Dad is so done with the lies and teaches her an important lesson that she probably won’t forget soon. He makes up for it by telling her that making mistakes is Yotsuba’s job. Then he sees the ball and they experiment some more with its bounciness, so everything’s good again.
Day 34
Can I count the reading section of the JLPT? Today I read 2 pages in 僕はイエローでホワイトでちょっとブルー！Luckily the reading was really kind, and I only had to look up two words. : D
July 4
Last day of vacation, so decided to read some ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 while I still had the time and energy. Ended up reading 27 pages, much more than I had hoped. Also read 3 pages of 青春オカルティーン.
Fingers crossed I can continue finding time and energy to read this much even when my vacation ends. 
I’ve been enjoying reading daily a lot but as expected it does take up a lot of time.
Read 2 more pages of IBC. Going to take a bath and read more.
I’m really enjoying reading your Yotsuba posts. <3
This seems up my alley from what you’ve written. I know you linked to bookmeter before, any chance you have the link for this too?
Day 8
July 3
Day 9
July 4
Reading section of the N3 JLPT
(I’m satisfied with it, btw. I’m not satisfied with 
listening.)
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…4 (44% → 50%)
Proud here, because I managed to read 1% in the queue to the exam site and I usually really struggle with reading in public places. I needed to convince myself I still know Japanese, because I was starting to doubt it during queuing.
Summary post
July 4 Taking jlpt mock exam was tiring 
I’m glad I decided to read a bit before that.
・Read the rest of this week’s Ningen Shikkaku.
・Finished Kono Oto Tomare vol. 3 (read half of it before going to sleep last night)
・Read the last bit of the second side story of SAO 8. (p 352 → 360) Just one side story left!
More jlpt people 
Today’s reading was a mixed bag really:
)
I finished the first volume of the アポカリプスの砦 manga. The protagonist’s group stole a car and they left the prison. Outside they visited the protagonist’s home but his parents and older sister already turned into zombies. Then they noticed something strange happening. Using their bodies the zombies are building a pyramid. Lol the zombies are so silly.
I wanted to make a poll but I’m too tired today.
It meeeeeee!! (I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’m excited to not be alone 
)
We’re on the other side now 
