Manga
ニャンキーズ!! (volume 1, looking for the other volumes in a Book Off rn)
新仮面ライダーSPIRITS vol 1
My goal is to read a novel intensively on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then swap to more casual extensive reading on the other days so I don’t get burned out!
I’ll be making flashcard decks for unknown words in the intensive reading novels, and hopefully in a few months I can re-read them without looking up any words. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like I’m making progress, so I hope that will help!
Joining late this time, but so so glad to start the challenge finally. Starting late and not having a plan made me cry out, but I didn’t want to miss out on reading just because I was busy at work. Japanese first, work later. No, I’m kidding. I’ll get fired TT. I want to try really hard to do the things I enjoy whilst also doing things I need to do for survival lmao
resources
ロジカとラッカセイ Stories from Satori Reader 親がうるさいので後輩と偽装結婚してみた。 よつばと!
As of 7月3日, I can actually say I’ve read everyday.
I got 2 chapters read of Fruits Basket 9 over the weekend. Funny enough, the reading コンビニエンスストア came up which stumped a lot of people including myself while reading コンビニ人間.
And I just finished this week’s reading of コンビニ人間. I empathize with the narrator for not getting the right help for whatever ails her. She doesn’t seem to be too bothered with anything which makes her the ideal employee for a コンビニ. I wonder if she’ll get in trouble down the road for doing something that seems logical to her but offends a customer.
I’m planning to read this week’s reading of あん today as well. I’m excited to see what part chapters 3 and 4 cover.
からかい上手の高木さん Volume 13 (2% ➨ 13%)
(This one doesn’t really count as it had no dialogue, but I did spend time looking at the artwork, so that may count for something.)
Finally got to the 50% mark of 寄生獣２! I’m looking forward to getting back into reading this, it really has been too long. Just finished chapter 11 today, so I only have three more chapters of this volume.
Read chapter 63 and half of chapter 64 of シャドーハウス, which were both kinda dense.
This series started off feeling like it was on the easier end for me in volume 1, and then it felt like the perfect level with a bit of a challenge, and now lately it’s been on the more difficult end for me. Really enjoying the story though!
I’m posting a little late today, but this was the first chance I got to sit down and write about the second day of reading. It was, frankly speaking, much slower than the first one. I definitely got bogged down in being able to figure out if what I was seeing was an unknown verb ending or a new word entirely; however, the story in the second volume was still enough to encourage me to read more.
I will be dedicating more of my study tomorrow on some common verb tenses since many of them I know are more formal.
I’m doing the same but only with the Absolute Beginner Book Club in August since that’s where I’m at currently I don’t know if you’ll be joining the that one as well since you are already diving into novels, but best of luck when you do jump into one!
That’s the one I was planning on joining! I’ve read a few (easy) novels already but my level is quite low so it leans into burn out territory if I’m not careful I’m hoping Horimiya wins the vote because I already own those!
Awesome, well it’ll be nice to see you there! I really like the Idol Wife one (since it looks like it would be more at my level), but Horimiya would be a good one too!
Busy day today so only got to spend like 20 minutes on コーヒー(17->20%). Definitely have me hooked! Although not a huge fan of the current main character yet. Will read some more light novel and end the day.
I love horimiya so much honestly peak romcom for me. Only read the manga in non japanese before so I’m tempted by this to read the japanese original eventually.
My Japanese teacher recommended it to me as a somewhat easy manga for beginners, so I definitely think it’s worth it if you already love it and know the story!
For what it’s worth, Horimiya was the second full manga I read in japanese, immediately after finishing よつばと！It definitely has sections that are not the easiest; occasionally some chapters take quite a bit more work than others. But it’s all fairly low stakes stuff. If you miss a joke or skip over some dense teacher talk here and there, it’s not gonna kill the story.
If you don’t already use https://learnnatively.com/, that’s a really good resource for checking the (approximate) reading level of stuff. Things kinda bounce around as people read and review them, but horimiya has stayed at level 22/23 for a while. The current ABBC pick is level 14, and the last one before that was 20 (and had quite a few comments about being a challenge), so this would be on the harder end of ABBC level. Not to try to dissuade you from trying, though! Especially if it ends up being the book club pick you will have a ton of support for it!
But, if you already have the books you might as well give it a shot! If you’re coming from the anime there’s plenty of fun surprises and extra stuff that didn’t make it into the show, and if you’re coming from the english manga there’s some stuff that I think works way better in japanese than it did in translation.
The first two days of July I started the Spooky Summer pick 予言の島 and finished the first chapter. Still at the setup stage, it looks like our characters are happily heading towards certain doom (or not)
The club has no strict schedule, but it has one as a general guide, and I’m now wondering whether I should try and follow it or just read faster… I probably should pace myself - lots of other books I can read in between.
And I also read this week’s あん - well, up to the end of the sample, which does not quite reach the end of the chapter (and I have no idea how much is missing). I considered buying it at full price so I can keep up with the club, but then I realized the club will run till October, so I certainly have time to catch up. I’m sure there will be some kind of discount soon - right?
Meanwhile, the Mystery Club is having a run-off vote, and for now this one is tied as well! The poll will be open for 3 days, so if you’re interested, come vote to break the tie!
3/7 9 pages おばちゃんたちのいるところ (finished chapter 17 and the book), 44 pages シャドーハウス, aDoBJG か (1)
So I’ve now finished one of the other leftover books.
My next catch-up target is コンビニ人間, which I haven’t really started yet, but have partly read before.
I’m also going to have to find another easier read for slow days, since I’m nearing the point at which シャドーハウス is published to (though the next volume’s out later this month).
Today marks the end of volume 1 of ふらいんぐうぃっち and I am kinda sad in a weird way. It’s been over a year that I bought that manga and seeing how much time progressed and how many months I wasted not doing the work I want to be doing just left me feeling kinda dissatisfied
but I am gonna buy the next volume tomorrow to celebrate myself advancing finally!
Today I didn’t read anything else, but I saw Horimiya is free on Bookwalker right now, so maybe gonna check that out later
words of the day
ごったがえす - to be crowded or jammed wirh people
ラクダ -
やられる - to suffer damage
I was away from home the first two days of the challenge so I just took my regular reading with me. Especially since the main Japanese things I’m reading are of the harder kind, so need concentration and focus. Hard to get when you’re hanging out with several friends.
Oh, and you haven’t read my home post/challenge plan, I will be updating about my regular (English/Swedish fiction/non-fiction) reading too. Because I’ve tried to just do the Japanese, but sometimes I found myself guilting myself out of reading fiction in easier languages because I hadn’t read Japanese yet. And to me, that feels stupid, so to avoid the stupid, regular (mostly English) reading counts too.
This is a reread. I read the whole of the Codex Alera series around the time it came out (10+ years ago). I remember it fondly but I knew I liked the books in the middle of the series best. So it feels a bit like a slog to get through this first one, but I definitely have to reread that too because I don’t remember any details, only some of the big story moments/twists.
yesterday was the jlpt (maybe scraped a pass? we’ll see come august/september, hope everyone else did okay ) which definitely counts as reading but also wasn’t fun, so i’m taking it a bit easier today.
did one fate episode (ヴェリトール’s) which threw 汝 (you, thou, blockhead) at me. can’t even get that in my IME, tho the 汝 reading does come up. will probably do another yakuza video later, which should be 20 mins or so. edit: i did! was probably only about 15 mins of actual dialogue but there were some good words in there, favourite probably being パクる (to filch or, as in this case, to arrest, to nab).
a peachy home thread 
Prath’s Home Post 
ロジカとラッカセイ
Stories from 
親がうるさいので後輩と偽装結婚してみた。
よつばと!
からかい上手の高木さん Volume 13 (2% ➨ 13%)
ふらいんぐうぃっち Volume 12 (1% ➨ 5%)
シャドーハウス Volume 8 (65% ➨ 75%)
風の谷のナウシカ Volume 01 (40% ➨ 46%)
桜蘭高校ホスト部(クラブ) Volume 1 (38% ➨ 39%)
I don’t know if you’ll be joining the that one as well since you are already diving into novels, but best of luck when you do jump into one!
I’m hoping Horimiya wins the vote because I already own those!
honestly peak romcom for me. Only read the manga in non japanese before so I’m tempted by this to read the japanese original eventually.
Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher : 2,5 chapters
) which definitely counts as reading but also wasn’t fun, so i’m taking it a bit easier today.