・Finished Subete ga F ni Naru (97% → 100%) Pretty happy about managing to keep up with the pace of the Advanced book club
・Read one and a half chapter of Honzuki 5. (24% → 30%) Five days since I previously left off in the middle of a chapter so had to re-read a bit. One of the cons of reading lots of stuff at the same time xD
I’ve forgotten how noisy it can get with lots of people in the house, and even noisier when the tinier people don’t have school anymore. Not ideal reading conditions
And only 10 pages yesterday… it’s been a while since I read so little. That’s because I spent 3 hours watching last weekend’s climbing competition in 盛岡, which took most of my free time. I’d love to say it was listening practice, but uh I’m really not paying attention to what the commentators are saying.
Day 21
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 1.
コーヒーが冷めないうちに , 4 pages.
I started a new Satori Reader series as well as the IBC book. It has been a very productive day but boy did it take time. I’m looking forward to getting used to both stories and their styles so it doesn’t take as much time and effort.
Day 21: June 21st
What did I read?: 囀る鳥は羽ばたかない Vol 1
How much did I read?: 9 pages
How long did it take me?: 29 min
I was a week behind with this book club, but now I’m all caught up ^^ Now I’m remembering why I stopped reading this manga the first time around, though…suffering a serious case of “I know all the words but I still don’t really know what this means” at times.
Sometimes it helps if I just go on reading for a couple panels and then come back to reread the sentence again with that additional context. But not always. …I feel like I put more things into deepl today than I’d really care to admit I just do not feel secure in my understanding at all sometimes, and I don’t like that feeling. I’m hoping it’ll get better as I read further and get more exposure to the way these characters speak.
Today’s reading was once again 明日、私は誰かのカノジョ. I read 50 pages in about 1.5 hours (and looked up every word I didn’t know). I’ve said this multiple times already, but I really like this story, and the characters in it (which is probably why I’m reading so much of it each day). I’ll probably finish this manga tomorrow, and definitely left off on a cliffhanger tonight (though I’m pretty sure that my hunch about Yuki rejecting Souda and going back to her old life is going to come true – it makes me very sad). Still, this has been a manga that I’m really glad I bought on a whim.
Well, for a change of pace, I read ボーイズ・ラン・ザ・ライオット 1 today, and it was amazing! Thanks @sycamore for the recommendation. In particular, I really loved that the plot involves a transgender character rather than revolving around the fact that they are transgender (not sure if I’m making sense or not, but anyway).
While I do not like reading manga on a screen, I learned through the book walker freebie thread that volume 1 is free right now, so it pushed me over the edge, and I have no regrets about it.
Slightly more spoilery, but boy, a lot of things 迅 do are causing me a heart attack. Also, when both 凌 and him first come to see 逸香, it made me realize that they look really scary when you don’t know them
This makes perfect sense and was one of the main things I loved about it as well. And I think it makes totally sense that it was written by a transgender author because, well, I feel like cis writers are way more likely to stumble into the trap of making a characters identity their only defining feature. Whereas actual trans folks know that quite often that’s one of the least interesting things you have going on haha (or at least it’s just one part of your identity rather than all you are)
Especially some of the stuff where 凌 can express themselves through the t-shirt design in a way he’s not able to do in real life hit so hard for me as an experience I’ve had (not re fashion specificly but finding some creative outlet to say things). And yeah…I’m a little worried for 迅 too! I do love all the characters so far and I’m also really excited about the new character at the end!
Not sure how long I’ll manage to stop myself from reading the rest…it’s so tempting just to race through it to find out what’s going to happen next!
June 01: かがみの孤城 上 (63 pages) June 02: かがみの孤城 上 (20 pages) June 03: かがみの孤城 上 (90 pages) June 04: かがみの孤城 上 (40 pages) + 日の鳥１ (10 pages) June 05: かがみの孤城 上 (112 pages) June 06: かがみの孤城 上 (69 pages) ~ Finished June 07: かがみの孤城 下 (170 pages) ~ 48% June 08: かがみの孤城 下 (81 pages) ~ 68% June 09: かがみの孤城 下 (116 pages) ~ Finished June 10: がばいばあちゃんの幸せのトランク (136 pages) ~ 50% + 日の鳥１(17 pages) June 11: がばいばあちゃんの幸せのトランク (53 pages) ~ 69% June 12: がばいばあちゃんの幸せのトランク (85 pages) ~ Finished June 13: きよしこ (16 pages) ~ 5% June 14: 風立ちぬ (5 pages ~ 25%) + きよしこ (29 pages ~ 15%) June 15: 風立ちぬ (36 pages ~ 56%) + きよしこ (56 pages ~ 35%) June 16: きよしこ (30 pages) ~ 45% + やさしさいっぱいの土の上で (manga, 1 chapter) June 17: きよしこ (68 pages) ~ 68% + やさしさいっぱいの土の上で (4 chapters ~ Finished) June 18: きよしこ (44 pages) ~ 83%
New: June 19: きよしこ (48 pages) ~ Finished + とつくにの少女 Vol. 2+3 June 20: 風立ちぬ (8 pages) + とつくにの少女 Vol. 4 June 21: 風立ちぬ (26 pages) June 22: 風立ちぬ (16 pages) + ?
I’m done with 風立ちぬ! This definitely was a good read, although it feels like I need to do a bit of background reading to fully appreciate the last third. I really liked the poetic writing style, although sentences tended to be long. Feels like half of the book were descriptions of nature, though. I definitely learned a bunch of old grammar & kanji spellings, but overall it wasn’t too hard to read.
I’ve also read とつくにの少女 Vol. 2-4. I just love the art, it’s one of the most beautiful styles I’ve ever seen in manga. I could look at the cover art for ages.
What’s next?
I’ll read Yoshimoto Banana’s ムーンライト・シャドー in the next couple of days. It’s only 50-60 pages, so that should be quick. In the meantime I’ll also work on my manga backlog. My next long read will probably be Murakami’s 世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド if I’m in the right mood, or a non-fiction book.
Finished this week’s IBC and several more pages of Forbidden Scrollerly (51/153, 33.33%, nice). IBC became much easier to read in second half as there were a lot of repetitions.
Reimu has especially interesting face on the page I've stopped reading
For two days in a row, I thought I was too tired to read much but ended reading more than I had planned
I am at a point in the story where interesting things are happening and I don’t want to stop reading. It’s the first time this is happening since I started reading in Japanese \o/
Also I feel like this story is becoming easier to read, I don’t know is it’s because this part of the story is objectively easier to read or if it’s me that is making progress, but well, that’s nice !
I also recognized some grammar points I learnt this past month, and also lots of kanji I can finally read without furigana. This is very motivating
・Started SAO 8. (p. 12 → 48) Seems like this 400 page thicc book has 3 stories The first few pages were hilarious - lots of grumbling from Kirito and his silly Shakespeare-esque style of retelling one of the scenes right down to characters having lines as if in a play and the old fashioned use of language. 曰く、之、 汝 etc. Was just half a page, but I loved it.
・Also read one chapter of Honzuki 5. (30% → 33%) Lots of very specific words about the methods, tools and ingredients. I think I’d more enjoy watching rather than reading about this
Finally added some words from SAO 7 to Koohi. Now I have 98 lessons waiting, hehe…
Day 22: June 22nd
What did I read?: いつでもサメーズ
How much did I read?: 14 pages
How long did it take me?: 35 min
I thought this was going to be easy and quick like the other shark books have been, but then I ended up looking up goroawase for a while so it took way more time than I anticipated xD I feel like I learned something though, I’d heard of goroawase but I hadn’t really looked into it/how it works that much, so that was kind of fun. ^^ Also learned some random historical facts, so that’s cool too.
Started reading volume 9 of Yotsuba. Already off to a great start after reading the first three chapters and the next few chapters also seem fun.
chapter 56
Like the continuation with the candy inside the dream. Poor dad did nothing wrong. Yotsuba runs a very tight schedule and that’s exactly when things turn chaotic when something intervenes.
chapter 57
Super adorable chapter where Yotsuba gets to pick her own stuffed animal. Duralumin is a very cute teddy bear, which yotsuba can’t pronounce correctly. Dad also got his “toy” coffee machine.
chapter 58
Dad finally got his good quality coffee. Yotsuba tried some and didn’t like it, just like me. Love how she goes showing Duralumin to the neighbors and also uses a proper introduction lol. Mom giving the little cart just makes it perfect and poor Fuuka didn’t get to have any coffee for studying. Luckily Yotsuba bounces back fast and plays along with Ena, it’s all good fun.
・Read two chapters of Honzuki 5. (33% → 39%) I can’t wait for this part of the book to get done, it’s kinda boring 0:
@rikaiwisdom I decided to check out Takoboto for real, and the phone app works offline after all :3 I like the word lists, named one “Add to Koohi”. Cool tiny details like entries for verbs that are marked with を or が to mark transitivity / intransitivity, pitch accent and even has audio! Great app Again, thanks for the suggestion
Again, thanks for the suggestion 