Day 26:
I read two pages of よつばと！ today 
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Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220202020220202 
Tanuki Scroll XXXIII: 渡辺綱と酒呑童子 
Read today’s Hyakumonogatari, from Kyoto Prefecture!
About Watanabe no Tsuna [渡辺綱] and Shuten-Doji [酒呑童子].
Shuten-Doji is just ~TOO. DAMN. HOT.~ all the women are sending him marriage proposal letters:
≪ お願いです！ わたしと結婚してくださいぃぃ~ ≫
He puts all the letters in a chest and burns them, but the combined feelings that all the women poured into those letters twists the smoke into a spirit and curses Shuten-Doji with the face of an ogre. He flees to the mountains and becomes a demon, then plans a siege on Kyoto.
In comes Watanabe no Tsuna to save the day and severs Shuten-Doji’s arm, but this just makes Shuten-Doji all the more determind. So now, by the Emperor’s request, in comes Minamoto no Yorimistu [源頼光], the strongest in the city, to go to the mountain and slaughter the demon with his* four loyal retainers: the previously mentioned Watanabe no Tsuna [渡辺綱], Urabe no Suetake [部季武], Usui Sadamitsu [碓井貞光] and Sakata no Kintoki [坂田金時] - aka, Kintaro [金太郎], Golden Boy.
They manage to trick the demons into drinking some magic alcohol that weakens them and behead Shuten-Doji, however his head flies off into the clouds shouting about his revenge, and thus the legends of his head swooping down to drink people’s alcohol is born.
*
*In a lot of modern renditions (especially games, including Nioh 2!) Minamoto no Yorimitsu is depicted as a woman. Minamoto no Yorimitsu was also known as Minamoto no Raikō and there’s sometimes discrepancies between the two: that they were actually two people - brother and sister - or that Raikō was Yorimitsu’s true female name (or vice versa). It’s kinda hard to find much about it as searching for it comes up with a lot of game-related info. Pretty much all historic info stuff I’ve read refers to him being a man, so I’m not sure were or how it started, but it’s pretty cool anyway.
I thought I hadn’t learnt any Japanese from Nioh 2, but I could vaguely recall some of the kanji names of the warriors, especially 源頼光. So yay! (Suppose it also helps that I already know about about these legends).
Also, sorry this got kinda long, I love this sorta stuff, historic figures having legends about them fighting demons is just too. awesome.
☆ Learnings ☆
New Words
ほれぼれ「惚れ惚れ」ー Fondly; with adoration
色男「いろおとこ」ー Lover; Player/Stud; ~ Sexy Man ~
からびつ「唐櫃」ー Six-Legged Chinese-style chest
生意気「なまいき」ー Impudent; Audacious; Cheeky; Cocky
Historic Places
丹波の国「たんばのくに」ー Tanba Province, now part of Kyoto Prefecture.
羅生門「らしょうもん」ー Rashomon
A gateway built at the end of Suzuka Avenue in Kyoto. Though, here (for the story) the kanji is: 羅生門, the kanji for the actual gate is: 羅城門 「らじょうもん」the story (which derives from 15thC Noh play) is altered as a pun. Here’s a copy-paste:
“The title is a pun, which involves the Rajōmon (羅城門) outer castle gate but Kanze (the author) changed it by using the kanji shō for “life” rather than the original jō for “castle” (note that 羅城門 was originally read raseimon and 生 can also be read as sei .)”
Not sure what we can do with this information but maybe it’ll come up one day in a pop quiz that’ll determine the fate of the world… Rashomon is also a Kurosawa film but different story, and I recognise the name from that but never saw the name in kanji.
Folklore Things
神便鬼毒酒「じんべんきどくしゅ」ー A magical potion said to increase a human’s power 5-fold, but make a demon weak and numb.
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Since everyone posts their updates at different times of the day, I thought it’d be fun to do a poll on everyone’s time zones. Note: The votes are public so everyone can see what you chose.
What’s your approximate time zone?
- Asia
- Europe/Africa
- America
-
DurtlingReading from space
0 voters
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February 2
星の王子さま, p. 14-17
I completely underestimated this book. I was expecting it to be easy to read but it’s kicking my butt a lot 
. There’s a lot of vocabulary I don’t know, the hiragana is proving to be a pain, and also the narration in polite です・ます is definitely a change, which I like. But I’m having a lot of fun with it so it’s fine. But yeah, 4 pages is the most I can do in a full hour, for now at least. 4 pages were enough to find the 20 unknown words I try to aim for every day (though not always possible, of course).
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February 2
本好きの下剋上 8
Progress: (43% → 45%)
The introduction of new characters is bringing new perspectives to the characters we’re already familiar with 
Like the super OP old lady who has known the shinkanchou since he was a kid and keeps calling him 坊ちゃま.
Him, with a big frown: “As I keep saying, can you please stop calling me that?”
OP old lady: “After you’ve gotten married” (Everyone knows that’s not gonna happen, so she’s not going to stop calling him 坊ちゃま).
Mayne: tries her best not to roll on the floor laughing
笑わない数学者
Progress: 42% → 44%
Managed to understand descriptive part 
Now I’m on ch. 5 part 3. I dunno how many parts there are. Maybe @NicoleIsEnough knows?
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I did not know, but luckily I have a book where I can check such things 
Chapter 5 is divided into 6 parts.
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Thanks for checking! 
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I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now. Could you share what exactly your setup for VNs looks like? I remember you mentioning Yomichan, which is a browser plugin, right? Did you somehow hook it up directly with VNs, or do you use the browser in parallel with reading a VN? If the latter, do you somehow copy the text from the VN, or how exactly do the instant lookups work?
February 2 update:
Read chapter 9 of よつばと！ today. よつば is always funny, often in unusual ways, but this chapter was a ride 
I haven’t seen anything this ridiculous in a while.
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Really appreciate everyone’s nice comments! Glad you’re enjoying the screenshots, cause I certainly like posting them. 
Love to see it! Having more people playing this stuff is exciting for me. And I can’t wait to hear what you think over time, such a good series. The digital root was kind of a weird concept for me, so I’m glad you were able to follow the description in Japanese, haha.
From a reading perspective, middle of the road, kind of? Nothing too despair-inducing, though I’d say I struggled more than average. It was, surprisingly, conversational stuff this time. Some of those blocks of kana still throw me off… it’s hard to describe; I should’ve taken a screenshot of the kind of line I mean, but there are times when it’s just a mass of なんs and particles and the like and it’s hard to directly turn that into words – I think there’s a certain layer of intuition for those kinds of sounds and conversational indirectness that I just don’t have yet. Perhaps even mixed in with sentence parts that serve more to replicate real life fillers or otherwise soften the text moreso than add meaning. Does that make sense?
All that said, today was an exciting mixup, and I ended up with a bunch of screenshots I wanted to share as I went along… I’m just going to collapse this section and indulge myself for those interested, because as you’ll see, it’s a bit of a special occasion.
Today's experience
First, I came across this image and wanted to share it early. It’s the former mountain path in the evening light – I love what this VN does with times of day. It’s, as you may expect, a very summer-oriented experience, but the altered vibes of otherwise familiar places make me think how cool it would be to see this art in other seasons.
But then I realized I couldn’t just share that, because I came across an upside-down man.
And then, of course, we played ping pong.
It actually entirely slipped my mind that this visual novel has minigames, so this was a fun surprise. It’s totally optional, but on a first play at least, I had fun. You can see those circles behind him – basically a ball comes at the screen and you click the circle it’s heading towards, scoring better based on your timing. The circles change in size, shift around, and grow to 5 instead of 3. It’s a simplistic clicking timing game, but it’s fun. I’ve always loved rhythm games, sunk tons of my life into Rock Band and Guitar Hero and the like.
I did well, apparently, I think! I did hit the ball a whole lot of times, and he seems impressed. For now the plot is starting to move on, but I suppose I’ll be coming back to this in the future.
Oh yeah, I should add a word. Definitely 死力を尽くす (しりょくをつくす), to make frantic efforts. Also the name of the ping pong mode I played haha.
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Oh yeah, sorry, you posted this as I was typing my update. Instructions I followed are here if you get interested in doing it, but the overview of how it works is:
I use textractor, a text hooking program to directly extract the game’s script as it plays. Then I use a browser addon clipboard inserter combined with a page someone has set up for this purpose to automatically copy and paste the text from the texthooker into my browser. From there, yeah, it’s Yomichan for quick hover lookups, and I have Yomichan configured so that at the click of a single button, it creates an Anki card for the word along with the sentence it was mined from. All of that takes a little bit of upfront setup, but once you’ve done that, there’s really only a minute of opening everything along with my game, and otherwise I don’t have to think about anything at all (though when you start a new game, getting the texthooking right can be slightly finnicky).
(I should also note texthooking doesn’t always work – you may or may not be able to find people talking about this prior to getting a game? Some of it’s engine related so I want to say the more gameplay heavy ones don’t, but I’m honestly not sure. I get the impression it at least works frequently enough to be the go-to thing people learning from visual novels do most of the time, anyway. Ace Attorney didn’t work with this setup so I instead had to rely on game2text, one of those programs that just analyzes the image and does its best. It performed… well enough to be helpful, but I definitely had to clean up a lot of its results and/or do a little manual searching too)
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I technically live in America, but my sleep schedule is very messed up to the point where it would be a healthy sleep schedule if I lived in Australia 
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Today I finished the first of 28 chapters in ものべの visual novel. I’m really enjoying it. It’s not that hard but there are still lots of words to look up and add into SRS.
Also read 60 pages of Domestic Girlfriend vol. 3 manga I may update this post with a vocabulary list tomorrow.
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Day 33!
I read chapter 3 of よつばと！ today.
It was a fairly smooth read. Had to look up a few bits of vocab, but not a huge amount.
What I’m finding most difficult, is that Yotsuba’s speech is often written mostly in kana, so it sometimes takes me a little while to work out what some words are, because I’m more used to seeing their kanji version!
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I picked Asia, but I’m in Australia
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Day 32:
日本語: I read some of 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語１, a bit of ミステリークロック, and some of からかい上手の高木さん. eta: oh, and some ヨコハマ買い出し紀行!
中国語
中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean, one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学, and a bit of 孩子最爱读的中国民间故事.
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Day 33: February 2nd
365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 17 min
Today’s color: 砥粉色 (とのこいろ) - a beige-yellow sort of color, I’d say
Named for 砥粉 (とのこ), which Jisho defines as powder made from dried clay used as a polishing powder, filler material, etc. - the book mentions it being like powder that comes off a grindstone when you use it to sharpen stuff (I think is what it was saying )
Good words
- 砥石 (といし) - whetstone; grindstone
- 粉末 (ふんまつ) - fine powder
- 下地 (したじ) - undercoat; first coat
- 研磨 (けんま) - grinding; polishing
- あらゆる - all; every
- さかのぼる - to go back (in time, to origin); to date back to; to trace back to; to make retroactive (can also mean to go upstream - I like the kanji for this, it’s 遡る)
- 石器時代 (せっきじだい) - Stone Age
まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: I forgot to time~ probably like 5-10 min
Today’s reading was about 恵方巻 (えほうまき) - a big uncut 巻き寿司 roll that you eat on 節分 to bring you luck.
Some fun words today
- 丸齧り (まるかじり) - biting into a whole fruit (or in this case, a whole maki xD) - it wasn’t written in kanji but I like them, look at that cronchy kanji in the middle lol
- 恵方 (えほう) - favorable direction; lucky direction
- 太巻き (ふとまき) - big fat 巻き寿司 roll (that’s the technical definition xD) As I was writing this, I realized that the phrase “maki roll” is completely redundant lol wow, like this is one of those naan bread/chai tea situations isn’t it
What else did I read?
海のどうぶつが可愛すぎて!
Amount read: 6 pages
Time spent: 31 min
I love this so much already excuse me, but is there really not an orca emoji? Imagine an orca emoji here
You open the manga and you are immediately greeted by the author, whose name is my favorite thing
It’s a mash-up of “Orca” and “Matsuo” (the author’s real name), but it comes out like Matsuoka with an “orca” and you guys probably don’t know this but Matsuoka is already one of my favorite names and orcas are some of my favorite sea creatures so - basically, he’s perfect, I love him already 
Then he hands things over to his orca friends, who are similarly adorable, to introduce us to all the sea creatures. I only got through some of the introductory pages today, but this page made me chuckle
Some good words
- 利き (きき) - dominance (e.g. of left or right hand)
- ヒレ - fin
- シャチ - orca!
- 学名 (がくめい) - scientific name (of a species); binomial name; Latin name
- 知名度 (ちめいど) - degree of familiarity; popularity
- 王者 (おうじゃ) - king; monarch; ruler; champion
- 生き残る (いきのこる) - to survive (delightfully logical lol)
- まずない - seldom; rarely; scarcely
- 未知 (みち) - not yet known; unknown; strange
- ほうっておく - to leave alone; to leave as is; to ignore; to neglect
- ぶっちぎり - (establishing a) big lead; (winning by a) huge margin; breaking away (from the field)
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Tan-chan couldn’t settle very well, so I switched back to Pokemon Special yesterday since I had to keep putting the book down. It’s easier to find your place in a manga than it in a book with a sea of text.
2月2日 ~ Day 33 / Back to Home
Pokemon Special Vol 1 page 173 of 200 (chapter 12 - 14 pages)
While reading this chapter, I encountered two interesting things. The first is 秘伝マシン is read as ひでんマシン and that’s not even the author’s choice, but it was the original furigana. I’m assuming it refers to the HM or Hidden Machine moves in the games. If the author purposely chose that word because it sounds like the English “hidden,” I’m very impressed by his creativity. Considering many of the Pokemon names in Japanese are also English words, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was not a coincidence. The second interesting thing was when looking up 密林, I noticed it was listed as slang for the Amazon website on Jisho. I wonder how that came about?
As for this chapter’s summary, Red decides to pay 3000 yen to enter a bicycle obstacle race because he was enticed by the “hidden machine” prize. He uses a very cheap bike he got from the fan club president for free, but he falls behind early on in the race until he passes through a thick forest (which most of the participants decide to avoid due to the wild bug Pokemon that occupy it). At first Red is at a good pace passing through the thick of the forest and using Pikachu and Fushigidane to keep the wild Pokemon away, but when he stumbles into a Spear’s (Beedrill’s) nest, he gets attacked and narrowly escapes.
He manages to catch up and falls in third place only to find a Kabigon (Snorlax) blocking the way. The other two participants ahead of him are at a loss on how to proceed, but Red’s quick thinking has him using the honey that Fushigidane ran into during their encounter with the Spear to lure Kabigon awake. Kabigon chases them to the finish line and Red finishes in first place and wins the one million yen in products. Unfortunately, during the chase, Kabigon wrecked the tent so the winnings came out of the cost of repairs plus an all-you-can eat buffet that Kabigon dines on. In the end, the whole thing doesn’t feel worth it, lol.
Vocab for Reference - New words are bolded
出場・しゅっじょう・participation (e.g. in a tournament)
方々・かたがた・people; (all) persons; everyone; ladies and gentlemen
主催・しゅさい・sponsorship (i.e. conducting under one’s auspices); promotion; organizing; organizing; hosting; staging
走破・そうは・running the whole distance
優勝・ゆうしょう・overall victory; championship; winning the title
途中・とちゅう・on the way
位置・いち・place; position; location
優勝賞品・ゆうしょうしょうひん・winning prize
秘伝・ひでん・secret (recipe, medicine, etc.); mysteries (e.g. of an art)
釣られる・つられる・to be lured; to be enticed; to be drawn in; to be caught up in
さっぱり・not in the least (with neg. verb); not at all
引換券・ひきかえげん exchange ticket; claim tag; coupon
すっかり・all; completely; totally; entirely; thoroughly
置いてけぼり・おいてけぼり・leaving someone behind; abandoning someone; marooning someone
食らう・くらう・to be on the receiving end (of something undesirable); to undergo (trouble)
固まる・かたまる・to gather (together); to assemble; to huddle together
順番待ち・じゅんばんち・waiting one’s turn
渡る・わたる・to cross over; to go across
別名・べつめい・another name; different name; synonym
障害物・しょうがいぶつ・obstacle
競争・きょうそう・competition; contest; rivalry; race
障害物競争・しょうがいぶつきょうそう・obstacle race
切り抜ける・きりぬける・to cut one’s way through; to tide over; to struggle through; to get over
違反・いはん・violation; offense; offence; breach; transgression; infringement; contravention
逆転・ぎゃくでん・reversal (of a situation); turnaround; turnabout; turning the tables; sudden change
順位・じゅんい・order; rank; position (e.g. in a race); precedence
一気に・いっきに・without stopping; without pausing; without resting; in one sitting; at a stretch; all at once
密林・みつりん・close thicket; dense forest; jungle
地帯・ちたい・area; zone; belt (of land)
うようよ・in swarms; crawling with
絶好調・ぜっこうちょう・in perfect form; going swimmingly
失敗・しっぱい・failure; mistake; blunder
終盤・しゅうばん・endgame; final stage
先頭・せんとう・head (of a line, group, etc.); front; lead; forefront; vanguard
海パン・かいぱん・trunks; shorts (e.g. seaside use)
熾烈な・しれつな・fierce (fight, competition, etc.); severe; hot; hard; bitter; keen; cutthroat
争い・あらそい・dispute; strife; quarrel; dissension; conflict; rivalry; contest
猛烈・もうれつ・fierce; intense; severe; violent; strong; vehement; terrific; terrible
絞る・しぼる・to narrow down (one’s focus); to whittle down
果たして・はたして・as was expected; just as one thought; sure enough
散々・さんざん・thoroughly; completely; utterly
釣る・つる・to lure in; to tempt; to attract; to entice; to allure
食いしん坊・くいしんぼう・glutton; gourmand
一か八か・いちかばちか・sink or swim; all or nothing; hit or miss; make or break
地点・ちてん・site; point on a map; spot
拍手・はくしゅ・applause
修理代・しゅうりだい・cost of repairs
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No affiliation whatsoever with either of these shops, just went searching for “pointer bookmark” cause I’d seen them in the wild: actual pointing finger and flower based. I know you’re in Japan so Etsy shops in US/UK probably aren’t the best option, but maybe your local bookstore has something like those?
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