📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

March 27 :snowflake: Home Post

I kinda finished another route today? (you were just in time @Daisoujou, I got “to be continued”-ed basically right after where I was :joy:) So yeah I started another one and went a completely different direction, and it’s been fun! Honestly the hardest part was some of the puzzles, not the language :joy:

Woo VLR things

Yeah so the route I got cut off on wasn’t going super well, as it turns out ディオ was definitely not the only killer which I had a feeling was the case, but considering he very much got killed there’s absolutely more going on there so who knows! Plus his bangle being destroyed, and 四葉(よつば) and 天明寺(てんみょうじ) still MIA, rough all around, so we’ll see how I can maybe fix that in the future :eyes:

Schroedinger’s cat huh… I get the distinct feeling this will come up again haha. シグマ keeps accidentally saying にゃ which is funny and cute but I also don’t trust Zero Escape to not make this an angsty backstory thing somehow :joy: I also have a feeling this will end up being used with the like recovery pods which… yikes, that’s a prospect

I still have very little idea what’s actually going on big-picture, but I’ve had a decent track record with crackpot theories so I’ll throw one out there: so something’s clearly up with ファイ, she knows too much and she uses a lot of weird old words, and apparently she was also kidnapped on 12/25, when シグマ was, but I’m suspecting maybe not the same 12/25…? I think she might’ve been in like cryo-sleep or something for a while, idk any details obviously but that’s my current guess :man_shrugging:

Hmm I’m thinking about K again too, I’m always suspicious with characters where their faces are specifically kept from us :eyes: it was true with サンタ’s sister, I suspect it’ll be relevant again. Also whatever experiment ruined his whole childhood is definitely relevant, I’m sure I’ll find out more later on

Ahhh the spring challenge approaches!! I’ll have to get set up soon, very exciting :blush:

Ahhh very exciting, congrats!! :tada:

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Oh yeah, now that you mention it, the VLR puzzles are kind of hard sometimes. Pretty sure, as I recall, it’s a step up from 999. I know I had some difficulties.

Also, thanks!

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…I am in the exact same position but somehow still keep buying more things to read in Japanese :sweat_smile:

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Hey, that’s really good to hear! :blush:

Just a minor heads-up that the Intermediate Book Club is starting 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん 👵🏼 (Intermediate Book Club) on Saturday just in case you (or anybody else, of course) are looking for a new book :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I struggled with this so much on the first book I read and I used the obi strip that came with the book as a bookmark which really helped. I’m surprised how quickly I’ve got used to it now and my eye goes to the right column about 80% of the time now!

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Day 87!
Chapter 40 of Yotsuba today! I’ve been looking forward to reading this chapter since the last one ended on a bit of a cliffhanger :slight_smile:
Only one chapter left in this volume. I was tempted to read it tonight, but its almost midnight already so I probably shouldn’t!

(Home Post)

Ooh, thats a good idea!

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Yeah they’re definitely more elaborate overall, I was doing the cabin area and I’m way too stubborn to not go for the gold files but absolutely no combination that made sense to me was working :joy: I got there eventually though lmao

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March 28 :snowflake: Home Post

Woo more VLR! I… have more questions than ever :joy: Still going well though!

Oh man VLR

Hmm as you would expect, playing a different route gives you very different information :joy: But like are we on the moon?? Hello?? シグマ’s what, prediction? Memory? Who knows

It seems like everyone’s having memory issues, based on all the headaches, and maybe also these situations where one person remembers the other and not the other way around? 四葉(よつば) might just be keeping secrets, idk why 天明寺(てんみょうじ) would know her though :eyes:

Also a funny - if concerning - クォーク and 天明寺(てんみょうじ) goof:

This went on for… a while :joy: concerning interaction all around, really.

I wanna play more and see what happens but alas, my brain said to go to sleep lmao, so tomorrow it is!

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Day 88!

I read chapter 41 of Yotsuba today, finishing off Volume 6 :slight_smile:
Today was a rough day at work, so a chapter of Yotsuba being adorable was a good way to de-stress a bit!
Her happy face at the bottom of page 181 after successfully using the drill to drill a hole was just perfect.

(Home Post)

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March 29 :snowflake: Home Post

VLR’s still going strong! I didn’t play a whole lot today but that’s okay, all progress is progress :grin:

Obligatory VLR things

I can’t believe it, ディオ’s really the whole circus :joy:

I mean looking at his clothes it seems obvious, but wild.

I’m still very suspicious of クォーク, and 天明寺(てんみょうじ) is doing nothing but making it worse lmao. He’s so sketchy about all of it?? Like he won’t tell how they know each other, he had a whole thing about how it’d be normal for クォーク to be in elementary school, implying he’s not?? Plus クォーク got really weird I think after talking about schroedinger’s cat or the virus or something, idk there’s definitely something up with him

It is now bedtime so I can play some more in the morning :blush:

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Day 89!

Started Volume 7 of Yotsuba today. Chapter 42 was a lovely nostalgic chapter for me as I remember making a string phone when I went to a friends house when I was little and using it to whisper messages to each other with her at the top of the stairs and me at the bottom just like this :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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March 30 :snowflake: Home Post

I “finished” my third route today! It was another one where it’s like “to be continued” so we shall see how that goes but either way progress is being made! Things were wild to say the least :joy:

Oh man VLR

This playthrough got rough toward the end, oof :sweat_smile: some things happened and uh well:

Hearing this child screaming at the top of his lungs to kill him, to let him die… ouchies man. This whole virus thing is no joke huh

On a lighter note, シグマ was kind enough to read out some brilliant prose :joy:

But the ending though, ファイ!! Bro!! I said I learned after K betrayed me but clearly I didn’t, she played me so hard :joy: It’s really true, she never promised huh. But like what did I do to her? Clearly she remembers something that current シグマ does not but like oof. It’s probably related to these “premonitions” he’s been having, they’re probably more like memories but I’m not entirely sure how to reconcile that. We shall see :eyes:

I did also get bored in between classes, and I guess I had mysteries and also @pocketcat’s ()し on the brain so I went on aozora bunko started messing with 怪人(かいじん)二十面相(にじゅうめんそう) :joy: I am truly a chaotic mess huh. But I figured out how to use yomichan with it so it’s actually really nice, I’m very intrigued by the bit I’ve read! Love a good mystery :eyes:

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…there’s also a 朗読 playlist of it on YouTube which is delightfully creepy / campy if you like listening along to text. :smiley:

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Main Post

Finished reading Avan vol 4. I think the neat part of it is that Hadler is very much like his part in the dai anime, so that makes his lines easier to read (because I know that voice). Tried to not look up that much words and I could understand most of it just fine. Been seeing some grammar pop up I’ve been recently learning so that was kinda nice. The new volume will be released sometime in July, so that will be a treat after the jlpt exam is over I’m sure.

With that being said, the winter challenge is over. I read something everyday for the past 90 days. For the coming days and months I’m actually not sure if I’ll keep it up, but I’m sure I’ll have new challenges to face. By overcoming these challenges it definitely gets easier to read the stuff at your level and gain the confidence to read a bit beyond my own level and expand upon that. Past me would be amazed at what I’m doing right now and maybe be satisfied enough to be able to read native material, of course it is not enough and there’s still much to be learned.

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Alright, tomorrow the Spring challenge will start, so here is my final report for March to finish off the (extended) Winter challenge! :blush:

My Japanese friend somewhat fell off the 大聖堂 bandwagon (because he went to Japan, so that’s totally forgivable), so I also stopped reading for the time being as I’m reading faster (in Japanese) than him (in English) anyways. Instead, I continued to read 沖で待つ which is comprised of three short stories. The first two stories I got along very well with, but the third story is entirely written in hiragana :scream: which slowed me down considerably in the beginning. Also, the story is written in a style very similar to old children’s stories (it actually very much reminds me of the Ogawa Mimei stories we read in the beginner’s book club) and it feels a bit rambly and pointless, so not yet clear what to make out of it. But I already feel that I get more and more used to parsing the hiragana and being able to pick out the sentence parts more quickly. Will finish this off first thing in April! :crossed_fingers:
In between I felt the urge to finish one of my long-standing manga, 青の島と猫一匹 vol. 3. I started this a long time ago but then put it on the backburner for some reason… pulled it out again and finished it in two days. Sweet story, as always! Plus I love the Seto inland sea, and the landscape images are gorgeous.
After this quick success, I decided that I should finish Death Note before the book club ended, so I read the second half of chapter 1 and all the rest of the volume in 6 days, which allowed me to finish one day before the book club ended :grin:
I thought that maybe I was heading towards a manga streak and pulled the next unfinished one out of the box: 聖お兄ちゃん. I reread the first two chapters (and got along much much better than the previous time around, who would’ve thought :sweat_smile:) but then my streak ended as a (non-manga) book called for my attention: 雲をつかむ話。This book is written by a Japanese author who lives in Berlin, so that’s interesting for me in and of itself, and I wanted to read some of her works at some point anyways. As it happened, the first chapter of this book was picked by the German-Italian-Spanish online reading circle which took place last Saturday, and so I read this first chapter last week in order to prepare for the meeting. I loved the author’s writing style and way of storytelling, and I’m planning to read the rest of the book after I finished my fight with the hiragana.
The funniest anecdote from the reading circle was that one of the other participants in one of my discussion groups lives in my town :exploding_head: We got in touch afterwards, and we’re planning to meet in real life at some point. Excite!

So that was my journey through the “break” (:joy_cat:) month of the winter challenge! It was great fun, and I’ll hopefully see you tomorrow in the Spring challenge thread :wink:

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Day 90!

I read chapter 43 of Yotsuba today - as always it was very cute and funny. However, Yotsuba says わかっぱ a few times instead of わかった, and I’m not sure whether thats her mispronouncing it, or a joke of some sort since she seems to think its funny, and the other characters react with things like なにそれ!?
It didn’t seem important to the story, so after a bit of time spent trying to google it I decided move on and just enjoy the story instead of fretting over it!

(Home Post)


March Summary: 100%

I guess this is my final post in this thread since the Spring Challenge starts tomorrow!

Mar
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

During March I finished:

  • The Way of the Househusband - Volume 2
  • Yotsuba - Volume 4-6

Which brings my total books read in Japanese to 13 so far this year. Thats more than I read in the entirety of last year, so I’m really pleased.
I also managed to read a chapter of a light novel for the first time, which feels like a huge step for me!
Thanks everyone for your continued support, despite the challenge actually ending a month ago :smiley:

Onward to the Spring challenge! :cherry_blossom: :seedling:

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Whoa, wondering why I never heard of this before … It looks beautiful!

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Did a double take at this because I saw someone had reviewed it on Natively the other day and thought it was you for a moment just now! But that is not your user :sweat_smile: Seeing as they mention the Akutagawa prize, assuming this is part of that book club?

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March 31 :snowflake: Home Post

I finished another ending! That’s four at least sort of done :grin: This ending opened up a “to be continued” from before so I’m going through that, very exciting :eyes:

VLR!!

Things are getting real wild, not that I’m really surprised that time and/or space are all kinds of messed up, it makes sense given a lot of the weirdness particularly with ファイ, but I’m very curious to see what’s actually going on with it.

The anguish it put me through, I chose 協力(きょうりょく) with ファイ first and she betrayed me because I betrayed her, and then when I picked 裏切(うらぎ)り she picked 協力(きょうりょく) and was so upset, and so was I :joy: I felt so bad but I had no choice lmao, you’re right ファイ I’m not that kind of person, I tried not to be first!!

I also read a bit more 怪人二十面相(かいじんにじゅうめんそう) between classes because that’s just my brand of chaos I guess :joy: still really intriguing!

And with that, I’m officially done with this thread huh? It’s been an absolutely wild ride; the winter challange really did a lot for me, and for that I’m very grateful :blush: I’m super excited to read with you all again this spring - I’ll see you in the spring challenge thread! :sparkling_heart:

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It’s pretty new, so that might be why? The first volume was released almost exactly 3 years ago, and 5 volumes have been released so far.
I stumbled across it by accident because I found a free trial when it was freshly released (I immediately fell for the cover).

It truly is! The story is lovely but very very slow most of the time. Sometimes I think the story is just there as an excuse for the author to draw gorgeous landscapes and delicious food :joy_cat:

Ah, you found us out :smile: We were reading it together, but @Myria’s Japanese is much better than mine so she could finish it faster. We specifically wanted to read something by this author, and after discovering that 沖で待つ had won the Akutagawa prize, we thought we’d give that one a go in order to be able to tick off an entry of the challenge :wink:

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