I forgot to say earlier but I have read and have access to that volume so am happy (to the best of my limited abilities lol) to help out with whatever questions at any point 
Aww, well, still a cool word haha. That was me just assuming that the ‘japanese people love their puns’ rule might be applying haha
That’s excellent! I see you there staying with Santa at all possible opportunities, haha.
Still going well! Today had a real overload of unfamiliar words and sentences with grammar that took some time to parse, so that slowed me down and I thought I’d have to stop pretty short, but I did my best to really push it and made it to ~3100 characters and 250 lines. I think from here, when circumstances allow, I’m going to do my best to set my sights on about 3000 characters, as it’s clearly doable under decent circumstances but does represent at least a slight increase in amount read from where I was not long ago.
Speaking of those nastier sentences, I’ll highlight one (for context, the protagonist’s relative staying with him has been cooking him チャーハン every morning, but wasn’t around today): 朝からチャーハンっていうのもどうかと思ったけど、ないとそれはそれで淋しい。There’s a lot going on for a simple learner like myself. Like knowing how どうかと思う is a bit of an expression and parsing that out of the kana string, knowing how それはそれで works, knowing (err, using Yomichan on) さみしい with a less frequent kanji representation, etc.
On the flipside, I came across ねばならない, and that’s a nice reminder that higher JLPT level doesn’t necessarily mean harder to understand, heh. One of those points that I looked at and understood immediately. I mean it appears to be the same as some early grammar everyone learns, just expressed a bit differently.
In the absence of anything more exciting for screenshots or content, today is the day I’m finally going to internalize that たって is basically just that one usage of ても/でも , because this one catches me off guard a little too often. Doubly so when paired with どう in this way, took a little thinking.
I’m also a little way’s past the 1/3 mark on Zoo 2, and about 60 pages in, so I’m having a good time! Have absolutely seen improvement over the course of this challenge
February 18 update:
Read the third story of きまぐれロボット today. This one had a bit more words for me to look up. It was also less predictable, I would say, – more of a situation puzzle kind of story, even if a bit simplistic to be actually used that way. Overall I like how this has been going so far.
Yesterday
Just some lines in Monobeno.
Today
I think I read half a chapter in Monobeno and added lots of new words to SRS.
Yamada kun and the Seven Witches Vol.3 continued reading it (70 pages). It’s much better than volume 2 which was rather boring.
I read three pages of よつばと！ today 
Me trying and failing to meet my self imposed deadline for reading today
Day 49: February 18th
365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 14 min
Today’s color: 猩々緋 (しょうじょうひ) - scarlet
Named for the 猩々, a mythical beast reminiscent of a drunken orangutan this word can also mean orangutan, or a person who’s a heavy drinker 
Apparently this is the color of the 猩々’s blood. Popular with warriors on the battlefield.
まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 10 min
Today’s reading was about 白魚 (しらうお) - icefish, which are auspicious in the spring? There’s a famous kabuki line about this, I guess Not really getting it but going along with it anyway 
I did learn a great word from this though, 名ゼリフ (めいゼリフ) - famous line (from a movie, book, etc.); famous quote
What else did I read?
海のどうぶつが可愛すぎて!
Amount read: 5 pages
Time spent: 28 min
Sharks sharks sharks~ Today’s chapter focused on megalodon, the biggest shark of them all :o Also got to see my buddy シュモク again, sort of xD
He is not actually from this manga xD He’s from another shark manga I read in the first challenge and he’s my favorite シュモクザメ/Instagram influencer. He’s so cute 
Cutest thing of today goes to おるかちゃん in her tiny teaching hat
Look at them D: I wanna squoosh 'em 
Really glad to have よつばと！back. Sorry Death Note, we’ll catch up at some point.
Day 5 - February 18
Yotsubato vol.2 pg. 57-67
I am very thankful for the existence of vocabulary lists so I don’t have to fight to understand when Yotsuba mispronounces words haha Her adventures playing pretend are so cute though.
Is anyone else surprised by how much they have to read out loud in Japanese compared to English or their native language? The only time I remember reading out loud in English was when I was reading with someone, so this feels like a totally new experience to me. I’ll be at work muttering under my breath in this cutesy child’s voice and then laughing to myself as I read. It feels creepy as hell, but I’m too excited about actually reading in Japanese to care too much haha
February 18 
Home Post
I played some more 999 today, of course! It was lots of fun, though it did make me do base-16 math 
A wild ride all around.
Oh boy Titanic came up a lot again today I swear sometimes 紫 talks and I’m like “I think I’d be just as lost playing this in English” lmao, she was talking about how some authors supposedly predicted the Titanic sinking and that got convoluted real fast.
I did encounter a neat concept though:
So the 百万歩ゆずって here doesn’t seem to be a set phrase on its own, but more of an exaggerated version of 百歩譲る basically saying like “let’s say I’m completely wrong for the sake of argument.” This makes sense too with 一歩譲る just conceding one point rather than 100 or 1,000,000 of them. I think it’s a neat sort of range of expressions! (Also probably related is 譲歩? I’m not an etymology expert but these concepts all seem pretty linked to me) ((I also found this tweet talking about it, pretty interesting!))
Anyway I finished this puzzle section and I think we’re about to reunite with the group so 
exciting times!
It’s the weekend 
so hopefully I’ll be able to get some more good reading in! We’re getting near the end of the official challenge after all
変哲もない - ordinary, commonplace
取り憑く - to take hold of, to possess
眉唾 - dubious tale, questionable information
荒唐無稽 - absurd, preposterous
支離滅裂 - incoherent, illogical
まわりくどい - circuitous, roundabout
デタラメ - nonsense, haphazard
Very relatable, physical books just hit different you know? Reading digitally is so convenient in so many ways but like… pretty book good
Admittedly this is still the same like branch section so I haven’t had the chance to do otherwise but like… you’re not wrong I’ll be hard-pressed not to tag along with him in the future, he’s just wild. (Though honestly at this point I’m really attached to the whole little group I’ve been with, I’m gonna be kind of sad when we inevitably split up some other way, though I am excited to interact with the rest of the characters more )
My partner once said it sounded like I was chanting incantations when I sat reading books on the couch 
I do it less now, but it used to be a must for me.
Day 48:
日本語: I read some of ミステリークロック and some of 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語１.
Read-aloud: We read 4 (!!!) chapters of ふしぎの国のバード and finished v7.
中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.
I finished 七夜物語（下）last night. On Wednesday I read 34 pages in a burst to get to the end of the climactic part. Then last night, 41 pages for the wrap-up. I didn’t really want to read that much but it’s awkward to leave off with only a little bit of conclusion left dangling. The end was okay, but I didn’t love it. And I’m not sure this book really needed to be 1,100 pages (3 volumes) long.
Now I’m starting ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖, Tsubasa Bunko version with furigana. I found out after I bought this book that my library system has the full series in the regular edition. I hope I enjoy this and it isn’t too hard, because it would be nice to take advantage of that.
The last two days were minimal reading days. I usually read at night before going to bed (or in bed) but it got to a little too late and I was just super tired so I did the bare minimum… I hope I’ll get a little more done today, though it will be quite a busy day as well 
Today’s article was 『笑わない、絶対に笑わない』 and I felt like I only understood about half of it despite having very few words to look up. I might show this one to my tutor to check if it’s actually a good choice for reading practice or not. I suspect the blog’s author just writes in a more roundabout way that’s hard for me to grasp right now in Japanese.
It also made me think that if there’s a spring challenge (I hope there is!) I will switch gears into reading about business and politics. I’ve watched 3 shows recently where I’ve missed a lot in scenes where those topics are brought up, sometimes to the point where I miss major plot points. Just far too many missing words or words that are too vaguely known to be part of my listening vocabulary. Today’s article had a smattering of politics and while I don’t think that’s why I felt puzzled, it did bring the topic to mind.
Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220219 
Tanuki Scroll L: トラのあぶら
Read today’s folktale, from Kochi Prefecture!
Today’s moral: If you want to dry your clothes on a fire but the fire is too small and the fire master is too stingy with it, then tell them that you eat the big bits of bamboo so you need more fire, then, when the fire is roaring and you’re drying nicely be like “but we need tiger oil to eat it! えええなに？ you don’t have tiger oil? I best go then” and escape - you have now managed to dry your clothes successfully 
☆ Learnings ☆
とんち「頓知」ー Quick-Wit (usually only written in kana)
ビショビショ ー Soaked; Drenched
初耳「はつみみ」ー Hearing something for the first time
New Forms
ちょいと ＝ ちょっと
Though I think ちょいと is seen as a little old-fashioned, and if you ever wondered if ちょっと can be written in kanji like me then it’s: 一寸.
Names
是市「これいち」ー Koreichi
Old Places
土佐の国「とさのくに」ー An old province Japan, now part of Kochi prefecture.
Read a couple of pages before breakfast again…and then read a whole chapter this afternoon because it was raining and I wanted to know what happened next.
Yep had to do this all the time when I started reading. Now I read silently but deliberately pronouncing each word in my head if that makes sense? Particularly with kanji to confirm to myself that I know the reading.
I read しあわせのパン all week. I’m almost done with it, I should be able to finish it tomorrow (if not today ^^). That means I’ve read the whole book (200 pages) in two weeks. Not mind-boggling, but it’s okay, I’m happy about it. (Plus, I can finally watch the movie next week )
Next up is 笑わない数学者 (read the first two sub-chapters yesterday, will continue today) and then 大聖堂 (my reading partner is a bit behind so there is no rush for me, luckily 
).
Finally I will be able to continue with ifの悲劇 (which I deferred to focus on しあわせのパン).
Yes, that’s how I do it as well.
Day 50!
That feels like a cool milestone
I read chapter 15 of 極主夫道 today. I find this manga pretty difficult to read, but I really love it so I keep pushing through even though its tough! I’m glad the chapters are pretty short, because it means that I can usually read them in one sitting even though I always need to look a lot of stuff up!
I also started playing Pokemon Legends Arceus in Japanese yesterday. Pretty sure that counts as reading, but its a bit hard to measure how much I read so I’m not sure how include that in these daily logs! Going to play a bit more today though
