📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[chamellow]

Update post for 24/1 - 28/2 & Reflections | Home post here!

Continued these last few days as I have done for some time, with a few pages of ハイキュー！！ and time spent playing Animal Crossing… and with that, challenge over! And I made it every day despite work getting so busy.

When I started this challenge I said that I just wanted to read a page of anything a day, and planned to read volume 2 of レンタルおにいちゃん, and then maybe continue with something else if I finished it. However, my pace ramped up significantly because of wanting to know what happened next in this series, so, here’s the full list of things I managed to complete during the challenge:

• レンタルおにいちゃん Vol.2
• レンタルおにいちゃん Vol.3
• レンタルおにいちゃん Vol.4
• カードキャプターさくら クリアカード編 Vol.1
• Animal Crossing pretty much every day.
• A few random days of Tetris99 and Pokemon Cafe ReMix.
• A selection of articles from NHK Easy News and BARKS.

And the things I have started, but did not finish by the end of the challenge and will continue on with:

• ハイキュー！！ Vol.1 re-read.
• れつ！ハイキュー？！ Vol.1

I’ve noticed my comfort level with reading for longer periods of time has improved, which has motivated me to go back to Tobira to get stuck into grammar study again (which is going well!). I’ve learnt a bunch of new words which I’m still in the process of adding to Anki, and reinforced a whole lot more words that I’ve learnt in the last six months.

Definitely going to join everyone for the Spring challenge. Until then, I’m going to spend most of my time with Tobira, try to finish vol.1 of ハイキュー！！, and think about maybe possibly using the Spring challenge to tackle my first proper novel if I feel ready?

Thank you to everyone for your regular updates, and well done to everyone who’s reached their own personal targets! I’ve really enjoyed seeing what everyone is reading, I’ve made note of a number of books and games to try in the future. Seeing everyone’s progress has been super motivational and I hope to see familiar faces in spring!

[Beyond_Sleepy]

Home post

Day 51:

I missed yesterday because Putin decided to fuck with my head , but I read a page of よつばと！ today

[Daisoujou]

Well, there you have it. I started a few weeks late, but I was always reading daily, and unless something really gets in the way, I’m going to do my best to continue. Will almost definitely be back for the next challenge. I’ve read close to every update since joining and I’ve loved seeing what you all have been up to.

I wanted to end on a high note, and while I didn’t quite reach lofty numbers I had in mind because I was reading a bit slowly (to be fair I’ve been a little distracted, still dealing with health things a little), I stopped at~7000 characters and ~660 lines, so definitely another new highest (took me two hours or so).

Today in Summer Pockets was great. Lots of the usual cute times hanging out and being extremely goofy. Have another pleasant CG:

Also, I think one reason I love VNs as a medium is because they are willing to write things that are… just ridiculous, hahaha. The large scale and default niche audience size means there’s freedom to take some risks. And on that note, I’m going to share some real spoilers from today:

It's sure something (spoilers)

Out of absolutely nowhere, in the protagonist’s grandmother’s storeroom, he discovered a very old photo of someone who looks like 紬, and started thinking “there’s no way to know this, and it’s impossible, but I have this absolutely certain feeling deep in my mind that this IS 紬 in a photo that is many decades old” lmao. On it’s own it’s nothing THAT wild but I had no expectations at all for this game to do such a thing, and it blindsided me with how sudden it was. Right now he’s hiding the photo’s existence, but I feel like I’m in for a fun ride.

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Anyway, thank you all so much for hosting and contributing to this. I love the little community in this thread; y’all are the best. Above all else, my reading comfort has increased hugely in pure subjective feelings. It’s a lot less intimidating and more fun to do than when I started. Most of my actual progress has been kind of nebulously moving further through games, but finishing my first book was a major milestone! Hopefully in a month or so when the next thread starts; I’ll be already substantially better than how I’m ending here

[lucylavelle]

Day 59!

Chapter 23 of Yotsuba today. This chapter was longer and more text heavy than usual, so it was nice to finish the challenge by reading it in one sitting - something I highly doubt I could have managed at the start of January!

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Summary: 100%

			Jan
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

			Feb
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

Books Completed:

• The Way of the Househusband - Volume 1
• Rental Oniichan - Volume 2-4
• Teasing Master Takagi-san - Volume 4
• Yotsuba - Volume 1-3
• Mitsuboshi Colors - Volume 1

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In 2021, I managed to read 12 books. Two months into 2022, thanks to this challenge, I’ve already read 9. Feels amazing.
Thanks everybody for reading along, it’s been so much fun, and so motivating to read everybody’s updates!

(Home Post)

[Natsuha]

Today I finished the fourth volume of あさこ 80 pages. That means I will need to wait for the next volume to be released to know what happens next.

Next I started Don’t Toy With Me Nagatoro vol. 1 I just read the first twenty pages. If anyone is searching for an easy to read manga try this one.

The challenge is already over time really flies by. I didn’t read as much as hoped I would only 18 manga volumes, the prelude in Demonbane, the first five chapters in Monobeno and the first third or so in the Kanzen Master N3 Reading book. But of course I will continue reading every day until I pass the JLPT N1.

[Redglare]

Summary post

February 28

薬屋のひとりごと
Progress: 3% → 5%

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Seeing how so many of you have been enjoying this challenge, it’s making me very happy x3 Thanks for participating! And thanks again, @windupbird, for hosting the thread

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@Redglare

Y’know, I’m not ready for this challenge to end

I think my daily routine is dependent on this challenge by now I’m not ready to let it go yet, so I haven’t prepared a summary post. I’ll stick around for a bit and continue posting.

I guess I can expand on that (tiny rambling)

I’m not very disciplined when it comes to doing something for myself “for no reason”, so having this challenge and all of you participating is contributing to my motivation. My fear is that when I’m not required to post, I’ll stop reading. If I stop reading, I’ll fall behind in the book club and I’d rather that not happen (I don’t have Honzuki to blame this time, lol).

So yeah, I’m kind of anxious about randomly feeling like I don’t want to read anymore, but I guess as always with my experience of anxiety - the feeling itself is probably worse than the actual outcome, haha.

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@NicoleRauch

I think I will continue my calendar for March as I will be reading anyways

@Thud

Today ends the winter challenge, but I’ll be continuing my own challenge for the next month. I’ll post updates as we go along.

Yay! Not just me who’s planning on sticking around

[Daisoujou]

@Redglare

Yay! Not just me who’s planning on sticking around

You know, I hadn’t intended to bring it up on my own, but since I see it’s a thing some people are doing… yeah, I’m probably going to keep posting too.

Happy I’ll still have updates to read!

[BadWeather]

Summary post

February 28 update:
As I planned after yesterday’s reading, today I decided to re-read the whole eighth story of きまぐれロボット, which allowed me to catch up on some details that I missed when reading in in haste over the weekend. This is another fun, even if predictable story. Honestly, I’m still amazed that I can often predict the outcome of a short story in Japanese, even when I’m reading it with few to no lookups (meaning that I’m certainly not getting a lot of details, because not a single story so far wasn’t riddled with unfamiliar words, some of which weren’t even guessable from the context). Granted, these are stories written for kids

And, here it comes – the end of this challenge. I feel both slightly relieved and a bit sad. It’s been a great experience, which pushed me to read a novel (or maybe more like a novella? but still, my first!), three volumes of manga, and a quarter of a short story collection. Thanks to consistently reading I’m no longer intimidated by Japanese text, which was one of my goals for this challenge.

The other goal was building a habit of reading, which I consider only partially successful, because even though I read consistently, I had a hard time to carve out a part of the day to do it, often ending up reading late at night. This isn’t really sustainable in the long term, so I’ll have to think about ways to address it.

Yet, surprisingly, I haven’t missed a single day, even though I contemplated the idea on quite a few occasions!

一月	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 00
Week 01
Week 02
Week 03
Week 04
Week 05

二月	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 05
Week 06
Week 07
Week 08
Week 09

Reading everyone’s updates was both fun and motivating, to which I attribute a large part of the above streak. So thanks to everyone for reading along with me and sharing your thoughts and achievements, and congratulations to those who met their goals or just read a bunch of things – you’re all doing awesome! And I’m grateful for all the advice and book recommendations, as well as the inspiring VN chat – I’m definitely going to try one myself at some point, hopefully, in the near future.

I’m definitely planning to keep going until the spring challenge, even though I might tone down on my updates until then. To be honest, writing updates was probably the most taxing part of all this for me, but it definitely allowed me to connect more with everyone else here and build up motivation, so they were definitely a significant thing.

I’m looking forward to seeing you all and your updates in the next challenge!

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@Redglare

I think my daily routine is dependent on this challenge by now

Haha, I guess this applies to me as well, although my routine of reading is less structured than that of posting

[sumsum]

Home Post

Thank you for the great challenge! In a way I’m happy it’s over but I’m also looking forward to the next one

I started a little late and thus I only collected 45 sheep:

Jan	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 52						01	02
Week 01	03	04	05	06	07	08	09
Week 02	10	11	12	13
Week 03
Week 04
Week 05

Feb	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 05			02
Week 06
Week 07
Week 08
Week 09

One got lost (sadly) but I’m sure it’s found its way to one of you

[sycamore]

Happy end of challenge day for everyone that is finishing up their challenge today Good reading everyone

As for me, it’s been kind of a fun thing that each challenge has had quite a different reading vibe for me.

The first (summer?) challenge I read a whole bunch of manga. The second challenge I read my first two novels. And this challenge unexpectedly became the challenge of playing games! According to my switch I played over 55 hours of ときめきメモリアルGS4, and I’m now about 14 hours into Persona 4. That’s a lot of hours lol. It’s been a lot of fun! ときめき in particular I think was really pretty much the perfect game to drill a lot of everyday vocab into my head in a way I didn’t mind at all cos it was so cute and fun. I fully intend to go back and play through another route at some point.

Aside from all the games, I read 8 volumes of 呪術廻戦 at the start of the challenge, 世界から猫が消えたなら (which while it was my 3rd novel in japanese, I think it was the first one where I got swept up in the story and properly loved reading it.) and I’m currently 72% through 鏡の孤城(上) which I’m also really loving. I also read bits and pieces of other things (Kikis, よつばと) and fell very behind on most bookclubs (ハイキュー、death note), woops. Too many things to read, too little time! A situation made even worse by all the very interesting manga, books, games shared by people throughout this thread, including all of the crime fiction reccs that were kindly provided when I requested some, which I have lined up for after かがみ。thanks all!

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 59: February 28th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 9 min
Today’s color: 二藍 (ふたあい) - deep purple; reddish indigo

I think this color is super pretty, but apparently it’s a color for ~old people~ D: Am I old? honestly…yes
I like how it’s named for how it’s made - first a bluer indigo dye, then a redder one dyed over it.

Good words

• 趣深い (おもむきぶかい) - elegant; charming; refined; enchanting; tasteful
• 掛け合う (かけあう) - to throw on each other; to splash (water) on each other; to pour on each other
• 蓼藍 (たであい) - dyer’s knotweed (Persicaria tinctoria, used to produce indigo dye)​

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 4 min

Today’s reading was about 鶯の初音 (うぐいすのはつね) - the first song of the Japanese nightingale in the spring :3

What else did I read?
猫のようなナニカ
Amount read: 18 pages
Time spent: 17 min

Finished this off today - the last chapter made me so emotional, what the heck, I was not expecting this kind of drama today Luckily everything turned out ok but my god, I am too attached to the small void kitty

On a less emotional note - here’s ナニカ with a watermelon on its head

Good words

• よくばり - greed; avarice; covetousness; greedy person
• 不法侵入 (ふほうしんにゅう) - trespassing; intrusion
• 取り外す (とりはずす) - to dismantle; to demount; to take something away; to detach
• 感謝感激 (かんしゃかんげき) - being terribly grateful​
• 恐悦至極 (きょうえつしごく) - extremely delighted​
• 心境 (しんきょう) - state of mind; mental state; mental attitude

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Wow, I can’t believe this challenge is over already! Seems like it went by fast. I’ll make a summary post in a bit, but tonight, I need to prepare for something else that’s happening tomorrow

I’m glad so many people joined, because this challenge really would not be as effective (or as fun!) without all your participation! I enjoyed reading about what y’all are reading, and seeing all your successes Congratulations and good work to everyone who’s finishing up today, and 頑張って to everyone who’s continuing on ^^ I personally am ready for a break - I do plan to continue reading my daily books, but I probably won’t be posting about them. But I will definitely be here to cheer you guys on until the next challenge begins!

[tiny_river_otter]

Summary Post

Day 59: Hurrah, finished! Today we read aloud a chapter of ハイキュー！！
This was super fun, great work everyone! It was really nice to see everyone’s posts! I’m gonna continue on with daily reading, really enjoying よつば＆！and ハイキュー！！- it’s definitely been helping me to make it a habit.

[natarin]

February 28 Home Post

Well guys, we’ve done it Today was a fairly minimal reading day for me so not a whole lot to say on that front, but that’s okay because I’ve got retrospectives to do!

I played some 999 to finish off the challenge bc of course I did, and that’s put me right around 50 hours in the game which is… a lot I looked and I started right around the beginning of the month so that’s a non-negligible amount for sure. I’d guess I’m around 2/3s of the way through a playthrough? So that’s honestly making pretty good time for me, I’d definitely be way faster in English (obviously) but that’s progress baby! Considering this is the first game I’m really committing to like this, I’ll call that a success.

Progress-wise, I finished 4 manga (ラストゲーム 1-3 and the first volume of アゲイン!!) and that’s all I actually completed because I’m a chaos gremlin lmao. I’m about 100 pages into both 風(かぜ)つよ and 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ (god that feels like forever ago, I miss them) as well for novels, which is pretty wild! I didn’t really expect to be able to read 100 pages of any novel at this point so that’s something for sure. Lastly, I’m also like 2/3s of the way through the first volume of ヴァニタスの手記(カルテ), so all in all lots of stuff!

It’s really wild looking back at some of my old posts. Like I know when I started this challenge I felt like this:

@natarin

So today so far I read one whole page of 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ and now my brain hurts

but it’s still just hard to fathom how far I’ve actually come in just a couple months. The magic of consistency Seriously, if you’d told January 1st me that I’d be midway through multiple novels and close to completing a playthrough of 999… I don’t know what I would’ve thought This challenge has been an incredible experience; seeing everyone else’s journeys and sharing my own has been so motivating, I really can’t imagine being where I am now without it. Genuinely, thank you to everyone here

@Redglare

I think my daily routine is dependent on this challenge by now

This is… relatable I’m glad some of you guys are continuing, I definitely think I benefit a lot from having this structure and accountability! That said, I’ll probably be sticking around too gotta keep you all updated on サンタ’s hijinks obviously

Some (not so final) words

不憫(ふびん) - poor, pitiful
境遇(きょうぐう) - one’s circumstances, environment
脈打(みゃくう)つ - to pound (eg. heart)
右(みぎ)に同(おな)じ - like he said, same for me, ditto (at first I was like ??? why right, but it’s from like vertical text where stuff to the right is what came before, so it’s just like “above-mentioned,” very intuitive actually)
果(は)てしない - endless, boundless
絶句(ぜっく) - lost for words
とてつもない - extravagant, absurd, enormous
心(こころ)もとない - uneasy, unreliable

[valkow]

Home post

Day 58:

日本語: I read some of ミステリークロック and a bit of 冷たい密室と博士たち.

中国語

中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.

[Cruciarius]

Here is my summary. The end was pretty meak because I had a surgery, then fell ill with serious fever and after that… well, current geopolitical situation does not help, instead of reading I spend time on finding a way how to move to other place… Still, I think I done pretty well for the first time and if there will be a spring reading challenge, I intend to get 100% accountability there.
I got two nice books before the post closed, so I’ll start it soon (10分で読める伝記 2年生 and 10分で読める伝記 3年生)

結局, 丈夫な決心はとても大切ですよ。そして、あたし負けない。

Upd: I switched 失う to 負ける, cause in English there are two meanings to “lose”.

[liveunderwater]

Update February 28 a little late

• それでも歩は寄せてくる chapter 52
• ~1hr reading moments on Hellotalk
• Animal Crossing. ~2 hrs

The challenge was fun and motivating.
When does the Spring challenge start?

[Redglare]

Summary post

March 1

薬屋のひとりごと
Progress: 5% → 6%

Turns out the first two chapters were not that long! That means I’ve finished the reading assignment of the first week. I might reread a bit later, so many new words and comprehension needs some loading time. loading screen rolls in redglare’s brain

Otherwise, I will have to pick up something else to read in the meantime - I want to follow book club schedule this time.

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@Daisoujou

You know, I hadn’t intended to bring it up on my own, but since I see it’s a thing some people are doing… yeah, I’m probably going to keep posting too.

@natarin

I’ll probably be sticking around too gotta keep you all updated on サンタ’s hijinks obviously

Let’s go~!

@BadWeather

@Redglare

I think my daily routine is dependent on this challenge by now

Haha, I guess this applies to me as well, although my routine of reading is less structured than that of posting

We’ll get there eventually!

[Sylph]

Oh, no, it’s over already
I’ve been enjoying reading in Japanese and seeing everyone’s updates so much that I’m kinda sad it’s over. I’ll still be checking whatever people post in here and maybe I’ll keep updating my progress…we’ll see.

For a little February recap:

• Unfortunately I missed a bunch of days because (sad stuff) my 15 year old dog got a lot worse and after many visits to the vet and unsuccessful treatments we were advised to put her down so Japanese was not a priority during that time, but otherwise I’ve stablished a good habit of reading and I’ll probably keep it up for now.
• I read 2 manga volumes
• I’m almost done with かがみの孤城
• I’ve put the first few hours into the VN バリアブルバリケード, which I’m planning on making my main reading resource for March

It’s perhaps not as much as I wanted but taking into account all the setbacks and how busy I’ve been, I’m pretty happy I’m still making some progress. And I’ve been inspired by how much some of the people posting have managed to do! Can’t wait for the next challenge, this has been fun.

[pocketcat]

@Sylph

(sad stuff)

Totally understandable to take a break. There will be future challenges, take care of yourself first.

[Daisoujou]

@Redglare

Let’s go~!

I guess I’m back, pretending it’s not over! Read another ~5000 characters and ~465 lines today. Kind of frustrated that seemed to take me about 2 hours? There are so many words I don’t know, such that it doesn’t really feel like they’re decreasing in frequency. Gonna have to make myself not think too short term somehow. All the same, fun times. There are more possible hints at something potentially upsetting brewing in the background? But it usually gets pushed away soon enough. If things go well, apparently we’re taking a day trip off the island, so that’s neat. Kinda didn’t expect the game to ever leave this island.

A couple faces of pure judgment, here.

Learning new kanji words on my own without WK has been ok so far, I guess? I’m burying myself in a few too many anki cards considering WK has only dropped review count a bit (my norm was roughly 160, it quickly dropped to around 120, tomorrow is my lowest day at 94), but I’m getting by. In the short term, I’m remembering these words. The only downside seems to be that I feel a bit more psychological pressure that I didn’t anticipate, my dumb brain feeling like I’m doing something I’m not ready for after deciding I might be ready. Going to have to see how this transfers to longer term memories and what I think about the experience of eventually encountering these kanji in different words.

A word that interests me today is 今日明日 (きょうあす), intuitively meaning “today and tomorrow” or “in a day or two / very soon.” Mostly that あす, which I’ve seen before… but the voice actor read it as きょうあした, and while that gets recognized by my IME, in a brief search, I didn’t see evidence of that being recognized as a correct reading? I’m out of my depths though