📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

[lucylavelle]

August 31st!

Today I read chapter 34 of Mitsuboshi Colors. This was an especially fun chapter because they were playing hide and seek and they had pages where you actually had to find them in the pictures!

(Home Post)

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End of Challenge Summary: 100%

			Jul
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
				01	02	03
04	05	06	07	08	09	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

			Aug
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
01	02	03	04	05	06	07
08	09	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

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Books Completed:

• Yoru Cafe - Volume 1
• Yotsuba - Volume 12-15
• Mitsuboshi Colors - Volume 3
• Happiness - Volume 3
• Orange - Volume 1
• Teasing Master Takagi-san - Volume 7
• Shadows House - Volume 1

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Thats 10 books finished in this challenge, bringing my total so far this year up to 36.

During this challenge I finished my first novel, started several new manga series and also reached the end of Yotsuba - its been a very fun summer!

Thanks to everybody for keeping me motivated with your updates, encouraging words, and recommendations for what do do post-Yotsuba! I’m looking forward to starting Flying Witch. And as always thanks to @windupbird for organising!

Like @Thud, I’ll still be lurking around in this thread posting throughout September - these daily updates are a standard part of my day now

[Memoria]

Memoria’s Summer Readin’

August 31st :

Final day of the challenge!!! and I only read the subtitles to a youtube video while eating dinner lol but we did it! I did it! 2 months of reading every dang day. So much happened during this challenge… My cat got really ill, I was working, moved (!!!) and am now looking into getting a new job. I’m amazed at myself for keeping things going despite all the hard and busy days.

I’ll do a proper summary post later when it’s not 11:15 pm. I’m really grateful to everyone who’s been posting and lurking and doing this at the same time, though. I think I’ve grown a lot. Thank you and well done everyone!!

[MissDagger]

August 27-31
(home post)

Didn’t end up reading anything for the past few days. Partly I’ve focused on the food stuff, but also partly because I no longer read right after WK in the morning, I’ve found it harder to sit down and read. Also I got into Diablo Immortals. So I’ve been spending my evenings playing that.

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Challenge Review

Looking at my monthly calendars, I did a lot better in July than August. I got out of the groove during August, falling behind on book clubs and overall just not reading much at all. (Playing Super Mario Odyssey I did for fun and also happened to get a tiny bit of Japanese reading, but not much.)

I’m not entirely sure what I wanna do. On the one hand, I want to catch up with the book clubs I am in, because there is something extra about reading together with other people. However, I also have a few different irons in the fire right now, and for better or worse I have down prioritized reading. I do want to get reading back on track, but at least for the next month I might keep it reading overall, no matter the language.

If I get back into the habit of reading (and out of the habit of playing a very repetitive game that doesn’t bring much satisfaction) that would be grand. Some of my Japanese reading is even easy enough that I’d almost just call it reading. But for the off month, I’ll probably relax my approach and try to remind myself why I am choosing to read without any pressure to actually do it.

On the organizing front, I didn’t find my table reporting of pages and links to my updates very useful at all. I don’t think I ever used the links to my previous posts. Nor can I easily read anything into my page count because it varied more due to how much time I decided to read, I can’t see any stamina increase because sometimes I had 1 hour, sometimes I spent 3 hours. But it was fun to have icons for the books I’m reading and seeing the icon calendars. A kinda visual representation of what I’ve read.

The post template with a link to the home post is helpful, I used that link several times. So for next time I’ll keep the icon calendar but skip most of the rest.

In conclusion, July was best. August was a limping forward reading month, and going in to September I have to make room for reading or give up on my current book clubs. I couldn’t honestly tell you right now which one will happen.

What I can tell will happen in September: I have loads of house stuff. Roof renovation (basically putting on a new roof) starts in 2 weeks. My brother visits with 1-2 of his kids at the end of the month, and he will also change my heating system at that point. And then I have a very cute surprise for the next reading challenge; although I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep it quiet until then. We’ll have to see.

[NicoleIsEnough]

And we reached the end of the challenge, yay! Congrats to everybody for keeping this challenge alive and for posting all the interesting bits and pieces you encountered during your reading. I was not very active in this thread but I read most of your posts and had a lot of fun.

Home Post

Here is my statistics overview for August:

In August, I read 673 pages (my new record!). This gives an average of 23 pages for each day on which I read (I missed the challenge on two days due to bad planning on different levels). My reading speed was almost 10 pages per hour on average, and I read 2:45 hours per day on average. The day on which I read most was the 20th, with almost 39 pages. I also started getting back to reading French again! (there is room for improvement wrt my French reading, though…)

Finished books:

July:

• 詩的私的ジャック
• orange Vol. 1

August:

• Flesh & Blood Vol. 2
• 海辺のカフカ(上）
• Flesh & Blood Vol. 3

What’s next:

I’m planning to continue reading every day throughout September, and I will update my home post regularly. I might not post as often here, though.

My plans for September:

In order of priority:

• Continue reading 海辺のカフカ and 狼と香辛料 (with their book clubs)
• Read and finish Flesh&Blood 4
• Read and finish L’Etranger (in French)
• Either read (and finish early) or abandon TUGUMI

[pocketcat]

Last day of the challenge! I did pretty badly this time around. Summer social life, traveling, work stress, etc. But I also didn’t totally fail. I suspect fall and winter will do better. Here’s my little calendar for reading - I track my various things on Loop which is an Android app.

I finished 3 books during this challenge and am currently reading 3 more. I also read 2 short stories on Aozora Bunko. I completed 3 manga volumes.

I don’t track my reading times these days, but I’d say on busy days I read for 15-30 minutes and on relaxed days I’ll read for 2-3 hours. Most of the time it’s somewhere in between.

I look forward to the next challenge and even more so to next year when I think I’ll finally crack my (arbitrary) milestone of 50 novels. Big cheers to all those who completed their first novel or manga. Hope to see you here again for your second

[windupbird]

Summary Post

August 29th-31st
What did I read?: きつねくんと先生 Vol 1
How much did I read?: 8 pages, 5 pages, and 6 pages
How long did it take me?: 7 min, 3 min, and 2 min

Ugh, I’ve been so busy >< I’m making lots of good progress on work things that need to be done, but at the expense of reading lol. I have read each day, but they’ve been tiny reads. Honestly I almost didn’t read today but I didn’t want to end the challenge like that so I nominally read one small chapter of Kitsune-kun xD Not exactly finishing strong, but finishing at any rate

The end of this challenge really snuck up on me! All things considered, I did pretty well, I think - I missed 4 days completely, which is below par for my usual track record, BUT that’s ok. I still read 36 days and listened 25 days. (I sort of fell off the listening challenge at the end lol, but I feel like I went heavier on listening during the first half so it…sort of balances out?) I feel like I’ve definitely relaxed my approach to the challenge since I first started doing it, but I see that as a good thing. I’m better at “getting back on the horse” after a missed challenge day now, so I’m not as concerned about one missed day turning into missed weeks/months/years.

Of course, I want to give a great big good job! to everyone who made it this far! I feel like I’ve been a bit MIA this round, but I enjoyed reading your updates and hearing about all your awesome reading achievements I hope you enjoyed this challenge thread! As (I think) I mentioned in the opening post, anyone who would like to continue on is welcome to keep posting in this thread until the fall challenge starts on October 1st! I’ll still be popping in, and I’m sure others will too ^^ Otherwise, I hope to see you in the next challenge thread!

[Mrs_Diss]

to conclude the challenge… this was fun! i read a lot, more than i have in a long time, in any language (with the exception of forums and chats and such). i’ve gotten much better at reading overall, and have developed specific strats for a variety of situations. my grammar… still leaves much to be desired, and it’s been at least a month since i’ve done any grammar but that also is improving.

i didn’t quite manage to read every day, i missed out on 4 days. twice because i had guests, once due to a migraine, and once because i was physically exhausted after a very long hike. but i’m not going to beat myself up about that or anything.

when i signed up for the challenge i was about half-way through my first LN, やがて君になる 佐伯沙弥香について vol.1. i am now a bit over halfway through the 3rd volume. i found the 2nd volume in particular quite difficult, but with the 3rd, it’s become a quite pleasant experience.

besides the light novels, i’ve also read a bunch of manga:
隣の吸血鬼さん (vol.1 only), the anime was cute, and i wanted something easy to read, but i was a bit disappointed.

加瀬さんシリーズ (vol. 4-8), i’d started that a year ago, when it was still much more difficult, and had 2 unread volumes on my kindle. this was cute as an anime, and just as cute as a manga. it has very limited furigana, but also a relatively simple vocabulary, so it is still quite accessible. perhaps a good choice for letting go of furigana?

アネモネは熱を帯びる (3 vol.), just followed a kindle rec. for this one, because it seemed cute and i didn’t want to continue with やが君 (that second volume was hard). perhaps a little more difficult than Kase-san, and reminds me of why i prefer series which are finished, or at least have a finished story arc. but still liked it, and if the kindle ever recommends more of it, i’ll probably read it.

少女革命ウテナ (manga vol.1, the rest will follow soon!). @pocketcat mentioned ウテナ in this challenge, and i instantly went from “i’m vaguely aware that it exists” to “i have to read this!”. very pleasant read, some vocab i had to look up, but not actually that much. and like, it’s ウテナ! if you havent watched 少女革命ウテナ this is a serious recommendation. or if you struggle with how old the animation looks, but want something with similar themes, watch ユリ熊嵐, also by 幾原 邦彦.

マグナムリリィ (vol.1), it was free and looked cool, read it in a single sitting, this was actually fun and got a whole bunch of laughs out of me

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all in all i read as much manga in these two months as i did in the 18 months since i started reading in japanese. plus two volumes of LN on top of that. i guess that puts into perspective why i feel i’ve made so much progress during this challenge.

i still feel that it’s very difficult for me to assess what level i’m at. i guess i’m no longer a beginner, so maybe intermediate? ahh well, doesn’t really matter all that much, i’m never going to attempt a jlpt or anything anyway

and i’m running out of things to say. it was a fun challenge, thanks to everybody who organised and participated in it! next up, a month of writing every day… miep

[DIO-Berry]

Home

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険27

153 - end (200ish?)

Kinda fun to finish a book on the last day of this challenge . Just like with the spring one, I intend to keep going, not resting in September. I’ve already started the last volume of JoJo Part 3 and I’m having a great time with it. I think after this, I will read some of the spinoff stories yo keep chronology somewhat in tact as I have very little of Part 4 and most of the spinoffs are set after 3 but before 5

[AzusaChan]

I haven’t posted in a while but I did finish Monkeys today! It is the longest thing I have read so far with my final texthook count being just a little over 346k characters. カラス’s route was the final one and they definitely saved the best for last in that game. They had a ton of callbacks and surprisingly some emotional scenes that I wasn’t expecting. It is my favorite VN that I’ve read in jp so far (although to be fair, I haven’t read many in jp yet ) so I will definitely miss reading it every day. I’ll pick up another visual novel to read soon but not sure what yet.

[enbyboiwonder]

Home

Huh well on my TOM orders page, it says my birthday order is packaged and handed off to shipping services, so maybe it won’t take a year like last time?

Today I read the preview for VS.アゲイン, a volleyball manga with adults! It follows salaryman Hasado Tsunagu, who used to be the back-up setter for a V League team but quit for some reason we don’t learn in the preview. Since none of the stores I know that ship to the US have all 4 (or even any of them, some of them), I’m gonna see if if CDJapan can get them for me via their proxy service.

…I also caved and ended up buying some よつばと! DJs by Hideyoshico. Ay. In my defense, the folder with them in it and the folder with the JP bookstores that ship to the US are in the same folder, so of course I was gonna see it and look at them too.

In other news, I finally finished HQ vol 12 today! The 番外編 was introduced by Akaashi, Kenma, and Tsukki, with Bokuto behind them going, “無気力バレー!!!” lmao that’s great

Oh yeah, and we met that one Jouzenji guy, can’t remember his name. Terushima, maybe? Hate that guy. I’m not really looking forward to that match. And I don’t get when I see people shipping him with anyone. He doesn’t respect Kiyoko and her boundaries, what makes ya think he’d respect anyone else?

Some vocab of note:

見くびる [他ラ五] to underrate; to belittle; to look down on; to despise
不利 (ふり) [noun, な-adj.] disadvantage; handicap; unfavorable position
ガラケー [colloquialism, noun] (Japanese) feature phone
歯が立たない (はがたたない) [expression, い-adj.] unable to compete with; not able to make a dent in (e.g. a problem); not able to get a solid hit in (e.g. in a fight)
生還 (せいかん) [noun, する verb (自)] returning alive; surviving. It’s also used in baseball to mean “reaching home plate,” but that’s definitely not the way Hinata used it here lol

[natarin]

August 31 Home Post

I managed to read an a few pages of 跡を消す today, yay!! Ending on a slightly better note than I’ve been on lately I’ll probably do a more in-depth challenge end post tomorrow but in the meantime, congrats to everyone for making it through!

[ChristopherFritz]

Day 62: August 31st

からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 6 (79% ➨ 100%)

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Although I’ve been reading daily for the whole year, my plan going into the summer was to complete 30 volumes during the summer (three months).

Two months in, I’ve completed 27 volumes.

This leaves me with only 30 days to complete three more volumes. I think I can make it!

[WaniTsunami]

I finished Chapter 1 yesterday in honor of the end of this challenge. I plan to continue to read every day regardless of a Fall challenge but I like writing out my plan or what I did to remember I didn’t waste the day, good work everyone.

[omk3]

One of those days when I’m in the mood for nothing, not even reading… I don’t think it has to do with the Summer challenge being officially over, but who knows. I’ve been thinking of doing a short Grammar challenge, maybe I could start on that. Although I’m not sure how to go about it. Read a couple entries from Japanese Grammar Patterns (or Bunpro, or whatever) every day? Keep reading (not that I was going to stop) and then look up at least one grammar point I came across? I don’t know. I do think I internalize grammar (and vocabulary to a lesser extent) by just coming across it repeatedly and looking it up the first few times I see it, but I’d like to study it a little more formally too. No exercises or anything - just input. I’ll have to think about it.
To stay on topic, I have read nothing yet today, but I’m planning on finally finishing the current Tugumi chapter for the book club. This book is strange, I enjoy it quite a lot as I’m reading it, but when there’s a gap between finishing one chapter and starting the next, and especially if I’ve read other things in between, I find it hard to get sucked in again - even though I do want to continue reading it once I start. Maybe I should just read it continuously, independent of book club schedules? That’s a thought. I might enjoy it better this way.

[polv]

Sep 1, Thu of Week 10 of Summer 2022

So, I have completed SPY×FAMILY Vol.2, and also bought Vol.3. But I don’t plan to read Vol.3 just yet. (Although I skimmed a little.)

Summer Challenge 2022 Summary

Reading Challenge for this season is not a promise any more. It is highly on a whim. But in the end for my case, it’s not a daily, but weekly, thing – I planned to complete 1 volume of manga per week.

There is also the wall of text part, but I simply avoided tackling those, unless it is 1 or a few pages only (as a part of a manga). That’s a bad habit, but I always have an excuse of wanting to focus on listening first. (Which is probably already an intention, not really an excuse.)

For some not so many weeks ago, the intention of making vocabulary list changed. I made for myself for the sake of taking notes, but not really translation; before I eventually decided to share vocabulary lists. The translation of vocabularies doesn’t matter, as I can always look up with Yomichan, and not typing in translations is already a quiz in itself.

Vocabulary lists also evolve. They are not only about vocabularies, but also Kanji, homophones, collocations and set phrases; and eventually, proper nouns.

About the challenge, eventually focusing on reading is broken. I made my own topic, and weekly plans are there; not inside the challenge itself. There are other kinds of challenges as well, and probably even more in the near future.

[Zakarius]

The Tanuki Falling Leaf Party: Date 20220901

吾輩は狸である progress: 13.89%

Forgot that yesterday was the end of the challenge, might as well keep on until the next anyway, because I’ll no doubt still be reading about Wagahai-cat and his adventures.

Congrats to everyone who has taken part in this challenge! It’s great to see so many successes! Hope to see you all in the next one, or to just continue in this one until then

Japanese found with the acorns

Meowords

晩餐「ばんさん」ー Dinner; supper
暇乞い「いとまごい」ー Leave-taking / requesting leave (from work); saying goodbye
絶間なく「たえまなく」ー Incessantly; without pause
譫語「せんご」ー Talking in a delirium
曖々「あいあい」ー Faint; dim; unclear
提灯「ちょうちん」ー Paper lantern

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Replies

@lucylavelle

Thats 10 books finished in this chapter, bringing my total so far this year up to 36.

Whoa, that’s really impressive!! Congrats!

@MissDagger

And then I have a very cute surprise for the next reading challenge

I am so intrigued, I look forward to the cute!

@NicoleIsEnough

In August, I read 673 pages (my new record!)

Congrats!
23 pages a day is real impressive!

@ChristopherFritz

This leaves me with only 30 days to complete three more volumes. I think I can make it!

頑張って！
Great job on keeping up with your goal!

[lucylavelle]

September 1st!

A new month, and I’m starting it by starting a new series! I read chapter 1 of Flying Witch today, and so far it feels like its going to be a cute fun read. I had to look up a few pieces of vocab but only a small amount and other than that it was a nice smooth read for me

(Home Post)

[Sylph]

August 31

Played バリバリ for about 15 minutes and finished lvl 2 of the route I’m on.



Summer Challenge recap

During this challenge I only missed 3 days (a friend got married so it was for a good reason P:)

Mi tentative goals were:

• Play VN バリアブルバリケード : finish at least 3 routes
• Read ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖
• Follow along with VN reading club for ルーパーズ
• Finish 10 manga volumes

I’m only through 1.5 routes of the VN since they proved to take longer than I expected. I did read the book ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 from beginning to end, followed along with the ルーパーズ club and finished 7 volumes of manga. I also finished reading 夜カフェ during the challenge.

I didn’t meet all my goals but I did quite a bit and I’m pretty happy with it. I had a lot of fun with this challenge and was able to read more than usual toward the end due to holidays. During previous challenges I’d just updated my home thread, but this time I started posting (almost) daily what I’d done and it was even more motivating.

As always, I loved reading about everyone’s progress and I’m really looking forward to the next challenge. For now I probably won’t keep up with the daily updates but I’ll try to keep reading daily and I might do some updates here and there.

[DIO-Berry]

Home

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険28

start - 35

I feel like it was a terrible idea to start since I marathoned all of the new Stone Ocean episodes and spent a considerable part of my day studying or practicing Japanese. I had a headache after nearly 12h straight of Japanese lol

[natarin]

September 1 Home Post

Too sleepy to do my summary post today actually time continues to be a struggle, but I read a teensy bit of 跡を消す as I’ve been doing so… I’m out here