Woo more 999! There were multiple heavier sections today with like science things, and talking about the Titanic (again), but I made it through and got to do some fun puzzles Very curious what’s going on with all the talk about materials communicating with each other and suddenly crystallizing and such, all that’s come up way too often to not be relevant
There’s a lot of weird coincidental overlap in the things I’ve been picking to read, like doctors and mushrooms and things keep coming up, and now this:
Like hey Vanitas I guess it all goes to show that even things you think will hardly ever come up again totally will when you least expect it!
Yay words
未明 - early dawn, gray of morning
側近 - close associate
だべる - to jabber, to chat with
ひとりごちる - to talk to oneself, to mutter
冗談めかして - jokingly
やっとの思いで - finally, after great pains
Ooh, I’ve run into this before. This is actually something you can break up - adding めかして is like saying something is done with an air of X or implying X. I can’t find a good source for it in any online grammar guides, but here and here should be helpful.
Read chapters 14-16 of 極主夫道 between last night and this morning.
Four pages,chapter 51 それでも歩は寄せてくる
Animal Crossing. Played today, but I’m realizing that I’m running out of ways to make reading a challenge there anymore. I’m ~ 155 hours short of 2000 hours played, so I think I’ll keep doing core things in the game until that mark. Still great vocab training though.
It was basically asking smokers if they would give someone a cigarette if asked. 75% yes, 25% no. Reasons for no was basically that they’re expensive and reasons for yes was they expect they might need one on day in return and that they liked the taste of new cigarettes from brands they didn’t usually smoke. The article then went into the sense of community-ish feeling shared by smokers.
Today was the day of the 2-26 Incident, were, in 1936, a group of young Imperial Japanese Army officers attempted a coup d’état intending to overthrow the government.
It’s a very long article, so I’ve only managed to make a small dent in it; not to mention that there was practically a new word every other word. I also forgot how daunting Wiki articles are with their kanji use
Days like these remind me that my Japanese proficiency is probably at about 1%
☆ Learnings ☆
New Words (I'll be surprised if I even remember a quarter of these)
クーデター ー Coup d’état (one case were the Japanese spelling is actually a lot easier to remember) 蜂起「ほうき」ー Uprising; Revolt 要人「ようじん」ー Important Person 占拠「せんきょ」ー Occupation (of a territory eg.) 最終的「さいしゅうてき」ー Final; Ultimate; Eventual 帰還「きかん」ーRepatriation; Return 収束「しゅうそく」ー Conclusion; Resolution; Convergence; Coming together 総辞職「そうじしょく」ー Mass resignation 思想犯「しそうはん」ー Ideological offence; The crime of expressing dangerous ideology; Thought crime 初期「しょき」ー Early days; Early years; Initial stages スローガン ー Slogan 当初「とうしょ」ー Outset; Beginning; Start 首脳「しゅのう」ー Head; Leader; Top 台頭「たいとう」ー Rise (of a movement); Emergence; Gaining prominence 目障り「めざわり」ー Eyesore; Unpleasant sight 主導「しゅどう」ー Leadership; Initiative; Spearhead 部下「ぶか」ー Subordinate
Historic/Military Things 皇道派「こうどうは」ー Imperial Way Faction (a political faction of the Japanese Imperial Army in the 1920s & 30s - it wasn’t officially recognised by the army). 将校「しょうこう」ー Commissioned Officer 下士官「かしかん」ー Uncommissioned Officer 原隊「げんたい」ー Your unit (in an army); One’s home unit 岡田内閣「おかだないかく」ー The Okada Cabinet, the cabinet of Prime Minister Okada from 1934 to 1936. 師団「しだん」ー Army Division
Places 永田町「ながたちょう」ー Nagata-Cho - Japan’s political centre, a bit like Downing Street. 霞ヶ関「かすみがせき」ー Kasumigaseki - district in Tokyo were most of Japan’s government ministry offices are. 満州「まんしゅう」ー Manchuria, a historic name for a large region of northeast Asia.
Additional Meanings 未遂「みすい」ー Attempt - this is on WK, but it only states “attempt” which is a bit ambiguous in the outcome, looking it up 未遂 can have the nuance of “failed attempt”.
These actually come up a lot if you’re reading about business or police matters. 未遂 comes up a lot in crime novels for failed attempt to <insert bad thing here>. Many of the rest don’t seem like everyday words at all though I think I actually learned (and promptly forgot) several of those when powering through 永遠のゼロ.
クーデター I learned yesterday! It was in a book I’m reading.
Today was “Death Note” day for me. I read chapter 4 and 5 which is last weeks and this weeks assignment from the beginner book club. Sometimes the vocab just goes over my head but it was still fun
edit: also! It’s fun how level 20 on wanikani has a few crime related kanji and they just keep popping up (e.g. 犯 and 罪 )
Chapters 17 and 18 of 極主夫道 today.
Still really enjoying this manga, but I have to look up a lot of kanji to be able to read it, and with no furigana that sometimes takes me a long time!
So I posted about this in my study log, but since it’s on my mind, I’ve been toying with the idea of striking out on my own for learning kanji, without Wanikani. The amount that I read and mine from Anki makes me really miss context when it comes to WK’s sometimes overly similar vocab they teach. Thinking of toying with dropping lessons and, once the reviews fall off a bit in a couple days, cranking up the reading and Anki a little more. As an experiment, for now.
But let’s talk about reading! Today was a big impactful plot day. I eased my amount read slightly (~4400 characters and ~425 lines) because I had a ton mined and I hit a very natural scene change end point, coming off the emotional peaks I thought it was a great time to take a breath.
Today’s screenshot I’m happy about, it’s a CG that I find absolutely gorgeous, especially the colors in the background. I’m going to collapse it just in case though, because it’s kind of a big character moment. I wouldn’t say there are “spoilers” really, but in case anyone may ever read this for themselves, I don’t want to dull the impact.
But for real if that's not you this is some lovely art
This route has been pretty cute, and I’m absolutely digging it. While it may have that occasional immature sense of humor I mentioned before (there sure are a lot of mentions of breasts from one character), the main character has turned surprisingly just really sweet. He’s a good dude. Sometimes VN protagonists are just frustratingly dense. The whole thing is, again, cute. Very happy to be reading it.
Today you get a another very self-explanatory 4 kanji compound: 開口一番 (かいこういちばん), referring to the very beginning of what one says. Like the first words out of their mouth.
February 26 update:
Today was super busy, so I only read a couple pages of きまぐれロボット. Tomorrow is going to be no different, so even though I hope to at least finish the story I started, I’m not sure if I’ll manage to.
Not quite the same (as it’s definitely not a set phrase), but this reminded me that I came across what has to be for me the longest string of kanji in a sentence I could actually read:
女子高生身代金目的誘拐容疑事件概要
to break it up into words
女子高生・身代金・目的・誘拐・容疑・事件・概要
英語: Overview of the case of suspected kidnapping for ransom of a high school girl
Edit: And I came across 開口一番 literally just now while reading the same book, so thanks for that
Played a bunch of 999 today! Things are really starting to happen and I have no idea what to believe anymore Very curious to see what’ll happen
999!
Oh man so many things happened. It started out with a really sweet scene comforting 四葉 and an existential crisis about the Theseus’ ship paradox so classic 999 really.
I finished a puzzle section and 淳平 was upset about the lack of fanfare lmao
I can just see myself in that situation like “idk, die probably” lmao me too dude
Things got pretty brutal… (pretty notable spoilers ahead) ニルス is (theoretically) dead? The descriptions were super rough as always and it was a generally emotional situation, but I’m definitely skeptical. It’s been made very clear that once the explosives go off the bodies are completely unrecognizable outside of any bits of clothing and things that may remain, and I feel like that’s a very intentional fact Honestly I’m still not convinced he isn’t working with ゼロ, plus the fact at least two others must have been involved for this to happen? Very suspicious indeed
Fun language thing! We were talking about whether ゼロ was responsible for what happened, and I had to decide whether I thought they were on the ship with us. I said no since I figured they had people on the inside, but 一宮 made a pretty compelling argument otherwise:
It makes a lot of sense! If they were talking about a ship they weren’t on, they’d have used その! It’s the sort of thing that seems super obvious in retrospect, but it’s pretty cool!
Basically I’m still really loving 999 and it’s really due to this challenge that I’m playing it all, so thanks for the push! Onward
Some words
さかのぼる - to go upstream, to go back (in time), to trace back to
訝る - to wonder, to suspect
したり顔 - self-satisfied look
自嘲 - self-deprecation
藁にもすがる - to grasp at straws
猜疑心 - suspicion (of others)
ともあろう者が - of all people
Oooh that makes sense, I kinda got that vibe! Thank you
Home Post
Very curious what’s going on with all the talk about materials communicating with each other and suddenly crystallizing and such, all that’s come up way too often to not be relevant 
I 
What my writing process feels like rn😅
This color reminds me of matcha-flavored things, which are delicious.
