Interesting, with the title I mentioned, having ‘temporarily purchased’ it removed the expiration date from its home screen.
January 12th:
Read chapter 2 of それでも歩は寄せてくる
Noticed these kanji appear a lot in the chapter. Apparently, their definitions are:
守 = Defense
攻 = Attack
I feel like I’m close to learning these on WK since I can recognize all the radicals that make these kanji.
Last two days I’ve been wiped out, so I stuck to just the lower level tadoku readers. Level 0 is essentially “see spot run” type grammar but it’s been neat from a vocab perspective.
I learned しまうし (zebra) 、かまきり (praying mantis) 、and various cooking vocab including the lovely めだまやき (sunny side up fried eyes eggs) 
Day 12: Today I was very sleep deprived so I just read three pages of The Way of the Househusband
Day 11:
日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 30.
中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.
January 12 
Home Post
Well I read seven pages of 錆喰いビスコ today 
wild how far I can get before getting mentally exhausted when I’m invested in what’s happening! I think my like reading stamina is also getting better which is also wild considering it hasn’t even been two weeks?? Progress 
So today I started chapter two and finally met ミロ and he’s already just the sweetest boy in the world, I’m adopting him immediately. Very excited for the inevitable chaos when he and ビスコ eventually meet lmao, I love them both 
Also very concerned for ミロ’s safety omg, what in the world is he involved in?? it’s gonna hurt me I know it
I’ve already made it way farther in 錆喰いビスコ than I really ever expected to, so I’m excited to see how much more progress I can make!
控えめ - reserved, mild-mannered, humble
引ったくる - to snatch from
面食らう - to be bewildered, taken aback
あどけない - innocent, cherubic
臆病 - cowardice, timidity
円ら - round and cute (especially eyes)
威圧感 - intimidating air, overwhelming aura
他人行儀 - treating a friend as a stranger, unduly distant
剥ぎ取る - to tear off
You’d think, but they don’t come until 16 and 28! If you’re ever curious, you can search directly through wanikani’s dashboard with the magnifying glass at the top right – maybe you already know cause it’s right there, but it took me a strangely long time to realize it, personally. I use that sometimes now when I come across new kanji if I suspect it might not be on WK and I want to learn it.
Hope you’re enjoying the manga, too! Joining the book club for that here was one of the first native things I ever read (concurrent with reading Yotsubato on my own), so I have a real personal fondness for it.
I just finished 怪盗探偵山猫, reading the last 30 pages in a burst to get through the dramatic conclusion. Really tired now. I guess that took nearly an hour and a half. The writing style is really readable but this book had a ton of completely new words, plus there were a lot of words that were still in that “half-known” stage where I’ve studied it and can recall it but it’s not automatic, I have to make a bit of effort.
Oh absolutely! I wasn’t expecting such a heavy topic to be the foundation for the story, either. I can’t imagine coming across it amidst all the other graded readers I’ve seen. It does sound shocking!
I’m pretty fascinated by Mr. Schmoe and the impact he had on the community (and the way he just kept helping people throughout the years). There’s a documentary about it titled “Houses for Peace.” I’d like to watch it, but I can’t find it online, though I did find this trailer. If I find the full video, I’ll post a link for anyone who’s interested. 
Tonight I read seven pages from the magazine チーズ!, and sixteen pages from the magazine ちゃお. There were a few fun words.
スマホ------smart phone
キラキラ------glittering; sparkling; glistening; twinkling (onomatopoeic or mimetic word)
ぐすぐす------snuffling; sniffling (onomatopoeic or mimetic word)
Actually it’s しまうま - striped horse, not striped cow…
But the general intention was spot-on I‘d say 
The book looks interesting and it even has a tsubasa bunko version!
How is the story overall? Are the new words mainly based around mystery or is there another reason for the many new words?
Day 13: January 13
)I feel like reading a novel is becoming a little easier now, even though some sections are still a bit tough for me to understand. I really want to read more right now but I have to work… Maybe later today 
Update: I’ve read more than 10 pages of a novel in Japanese today and it feels so good! I’m now at the point that a big part of the vocab I’ve come across before, comes back. I only have to search for a few words per page now and that helps a lot as well 
Update 2: Oops, read 10 more pages in around 1-2 hours xD It’s so fun to be able to read sort of comfortably in Japanese that I couldn’t put down the book for the last hour at all (my tea is probably just plain cold water right now, didn’t even put the tea bag in…)
There’s an app for these! And you can flick between the Japanese and English versions. If you search for Japanese seasons on your app store you should find it. I used to have it installed on English but reading this passage yesterday reminded me to re-download it and try it in Japanese again (last time I tried it in Japanese it did not go well…)
Day 13! Read pages 161-168 of Kiki today. I had some trouble with piecing together the meaning of two sentences in a certain section but other than that, reading has been getting easier and speedier!
I’m almost tempted to move my goal of finishing Kiki before the end of February to the end of January as a challenge for myself but with my inconsistent weekly schedule, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with reading 6 pages every single day 
Today’s article was タバコの吸殻に名前をつけて“いいね”がもらえる？ 「ポイ捨て図鑑プロジェクト」の真相とは
The tl;dr is it’s a social ad campaign (people submit photos and location and name the found cigarette butts) to encourage smokers not to litter. They said 80% of those participating were not smokers. Mildly interesting but oddly difficult to read.
ポイ捨て - littering
図鑑 - identification manual. I suspect if I watched pokemon in Japanese I’d already know this one
受動喫煙 - second hand smoke
豊島 - Toshima (ward)
文京 - Bunkyou (ward)
千代田 - Chiyoda (ward) …I’ve mentioned before I’m not great with names
経緯 - details (about a story)
改正健康増進法 - a revision to a law promoting health. I’d have to google more to understand
需給 - supply and demand
可視化 - to make something visible and/or to create a visualization
道徳的 - ethical, moral
秀逸 - excellent
兆し - signs/omens
実証実験 - proof of concept experiment
Prior to this project I never realized how popular the word ハードル (hurdle) was in discussing things. I feel like I almost never hear/read it in books/tv shows/etc but I’ve seen it multiple times in my article readings already. Guess I should try to work it into my active vocabulary.
Wow, that’s not for a while then! Well, at least I know the radicals. Also, I did not know you could search for kanji in the app. I’m definitely going to be doing that more often. I have been enjoying the manga so far. I read a little bit of it in English and a lot of Teasing Master Takagi before this, so it’s a great feeling being able to read this manga in Japanese even if I only understand bits and pieces without a translator.
Also, I like your Ace Attorney updates. I’ve been a fan of that series for a while. Is it hard to understand the legal terms in Japanese?
Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220113 
Tanuki Scroll XIII: 辰子姫伝説 
This looks like a useful site for information on Akita prefecture, there’s sections on history, culture, nature, festivals and the like. I also like it that Namahage seems to be the mascot.
Today I read the legend that is associated with Lake Tazawa: the Legend of Princess Tatsuko. It’s a smaller story that is part of the larger Sanko Legend [三湖伝説 - brief summary, there’s a video too!], which consists of Lake Tazawa, Lake Hachirogata and Lake Towada.
This was a lot heavier reading than I’m used to so it’s a good test. I was surprised that I could recognise most of the words, it was mostly the longer and more complex sentences that were throwing me. It’s made my brain a bit mushy, kinda hard writing even in English now 
☆ Learnings ☆
観音堂「かんのんどう」ー A temple dedicated to the Goddess Kannon
霊泉「れいせん」ーA miraculous spring or fountain
化身「けしん」ー Incarnation
国鱒「くにます」ー A rare subspecies of Japanese Sockeye Salmon
Places
田沢村「たざわむら」ー Tazawa Village
仙北市「せんぼくし」ー Semboku City
Names
辰子「たつこ」ー Tatsuko
激しい「はげしい」ー Violent; furious; extreme
I really feel like I know this but I’m not entirely sure so I’m sticking it here.
Okay, it’s on WK, time to add some synonyms!
That’s cool! It’ll be like that, requiring more help for a while for sure; my first several manga reads were definitely a struggle. It gets better! But yeah, keep savoring what you’re managing, anyway. I want to read Takagi some day but for now I’m watching it. It seems right about at my level for listening, which hasn’t been easy for me to find, so I’m having a great time.
Thank you! It’s a great series. I haven’t found that part of it too bad – I happened to start the game directly after learning many words relating to investigating/judgment/etc somewhere in the 20s on Wanikani, so that was really fortunate timing. There was definitely a bit of upfront learning of a few courtroom terms, but with how frequently they repeat, I’m super solid on them now. I’d say the biggest struggle has just been certain individual characters. With how much they lean hard into role language each new person is a bit of a new challenge. First talking to Grossberg was surprisingly hard because he uses some sound shifts that I’d never seen before. Lotta Hart has required a few kansai dialect lookups. The waiter in case 2 was a bit of a keigo primer. Etc, etc.
Overall though, I’m quite happy with its difficulty relative to where I am. It’s very easy to find those sentences with a single unknown point.
January 13
君の名は , 7 pages.
Sleepy day, part 2.
