February 2nd (Day 33) 
Another short update today: I’ve read the first half of chapter 3 of 1Q84. Wish I had the energy to read more.
February 2nd (Day 33)
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February 2nd
Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report
Yesterday: Read up to page 179, finished chapter 25.
Today: Read up to page 186.
Tiny read today, couldn’t manage more and it’s getting late.
Replies
@Cathm2 ,I’m sorry to hear that, my condolences. 
@MissDagger I haven’t seen any of Zelda Ocarina of Time randomizer tourneys as I simply didn’t know about them. You may have just shown me a new rabbit hole I can explore – do I dare? 
I’ve only seen some Ocarina of Time (and other games’) speedruns on Awesome Games Done Quick/Summer Games Done Quick and those were already bonkers and entertaining with all the frame perfect wall skipping, bomb sliding tricks, generating medallions through bottles filled with bugs and whatnot. If some of these past zootr tournaments can be found on a Twitch archive or something, I may give it a watch one fateful weekend.
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Word or expression of the day:
羽を伸ばす - (はねをのばす) - to let your hair down, to have fun after a period of work or stress
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２月２日 (Home Post Link)
Read:
- ホリミヤ ch 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 + おまけ, volume 15 done!
One of my favorite single panel jokes in the series
They barge into a conversation that’s already happening, and then immediately drop the topic after this. But i think it gives some excellent insight into the types of conversations we can expect 宮村 and 会長 to be having in their free time
Word of the Day:
肩車「かたぐるま」ー giving someone a ride on one’s shoulders
ヨルシカ Replies
I’d be lying if I said that ヨルシカ wasn’t one of the reasons I decided to start learning japanese seriously 
I played 言って, 花に亡霊, and だから僕は音楽を辞めた a ton in various rhythm games, and then back when I still worked mostly night shifts, the line「 青空だけがみたいのは我儘ですか。」from ヒッチコック hit pretty hard. When I started learning songs for karaoke, those were some of the first ones I practiced
For some reason I remembered listening to the albums back then and thinking that they were styled more as singles albums (i.e. not meant to be listened to in any particular structured order), but driving around with them the past few days I am changing my mind, especially for だから僕は音楽を辞めた. I am really loving all these little almost-ambient insert songs, especially 4/10.
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Finished 推しの子第２巻 on the bus.
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Day 32
I finished the first volume of Kindaichi Shounen. The conclusion was awesome pretty much everybody was a victim of the situation. If the murderer actually did know how his dead girlfriend felt, he may have not become a murderer. Some of the dialogs at the end where incredible.
After finishing volume one I started the next volume right away. It’s the case playing in that strange town.
2531 pages read 17469 to read
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February 2nd!
Today I read chapter 8 of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun.
I’m enjoying it, but finding it a bit tough in places - I often struggle a bit with 4 koma stuff though. Not sure why!
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Home 
February 2nd
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険8
72 - 83
I was starting to get worried that I was lacking motivation to read Part 2 of JoJo, but Lisa Lisa has finally been introduced, so hopefully I’ll be more interested in reading now lol. I’m pretty sure her intro page says info that gets contradicted later. Also, hopefully I’ll have more reading time tonight since I don’t have work tomorrow. I ran out of time again lol but this time because I was excited to make my lunch for today.
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Day 31: January 31st
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ
How much did I read?: 3 pages
How long did it take me?: 23 minutes
Day 32: February 1st
What did I read?: Nothing 
Day 33: February 2nd
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ
How much did I read?: 7.5 pages
How long did it take me?: 50 minutes
I love how immediately after I was like, I’m gonna try to read an hour of this every day!, I proceeded to do…not that. 
The reason I did not do that is that work is DUMB and I hate people. But I got some good reading time in today. Enjoying the book so far 
Also I just learned a fantastic new word, it’s my favorite: 魔法瓶 (まほうびん) - IT’S JUST A THERMOS but I am absolutely referring to thermoses as “magic bottles” from now on
4-koma is HARD and I don’t know why either They feel so dense imo
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Not me happen to be reading the chapter in my graded reader about romance and Valentine’s day customs in Japan when my crush at work is standing close to me. swoon
I did understand about 70% of it before going through the vocab section though so that’s great.
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I agree with @NicoleIsEnough in that it all evens out in the end. I don’t even know how many books I’ve read at this point because some people would only count novels, some would count anything without pictures, and some would throw in manga and kids books 
I’ve read somewhere between 30 and 100+ books depending on which measure is used. Define whatever metric works for you and your goals and that’s the important thing. For me it’s a vague page count which varies wildly based on medium. I’ve also shifted to a basic “minimum 5k pages a year” goal, though, and don’t have much interest in tracking beyond that.
My spreadsheet, for the record:
I don’t have any reading to report 
I’ve been super crazy busy lately and that won’t be changing for at least another two weeks. I’m going to try to push through this week’s 半落ち tonight and also read ahead in 七回死んだ男 as neither of those I’ll be bringing with me.
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Woof, today’s bit of 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 was really tough. I had to do a lot more look up than yesterday. There was 六地蔵（ろくじぞう） and 錦鯉（にしきごい）. 賑やか（にぎやか） is one of those words I keep forgetting I know, but I get tripped up every time I see it. It doesn’t come up enough for me to really know it yet.
I am gonna read it one more time before I put it down as “read” on Natively. I got about 50% of the story that 東堂さん was telling, but if I give it another read I can probably get it right. I don’t remember this part of the movie as clearly, so I am trying to string the images together.
EDIT: Having finished 推しの子 earlier, I think I am gonna treat myself to some Stardust Crusader viewing on the way home. I am kind of burnt out from today not having much to do. These days are really frustrating because I get more tired by having nothing to do. T-T
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February 2 Home Post
Started off with some 山猫; the general setup for this book is coming together and it continues to be very intriguing poor 勝村 always getting caught up in some nonsense haha, the trials of a protagonist. I also played some more Steins;Gate which was fun! I think I’m getting more used to the general writing style though it definitely will not hesitate to throw some weird specific terms at me Thinking about it the glossary entries are probably good practice for more informative-type writing, god knows I never seek that sort of thing out on my own lmao. Yay variety!
I agree 100%, it’s been a while since I’ve messed with it (mostly because I found it exhausting haha) but I definitely remember 4-koma feeling like a lot more work than other manga. I feel like it is a density thing, just by nature of having to fit an entire little narrative/joke/whatever into only four panels, it makes sense that they’d necessarily feel more dense. Also trying to figure out specific jokes like that can be rough It really has been a while though, perhaps I should try again sometime!
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Read 極主夫道 1 on the bus. It was a super quick read I didn’t expect. But it was safer than watching JoJo on the train X.X (Stardust Crusaders ep 31 is a no go on public transportation).
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February 2
My plan for reading more manga was to take it easy and read like a chapter a day but it turns out that doesn’t work for manga where things are getting intense and the endings of chapters are super cliffhangery. What I’m trying to say is that I finished Vol.8 of 青のフラッグ and with that the entire series. I loved the series but have some conflicting feelings about the ending.
Super spoilery ending thoughts on 青のフラッグ manga
Like srsly, don't read this if you want to read the series at some point
The whole reason I started this in the first place was that it was supposed to have a good portrayal of LGBT characters, and I’d say it did that, but up to the second to last chapter it seemed that the hetero relation was the cannon one, which was a bit disappointing but it was a nice relationship too so it was fine and it made sense. But then in the last chapter they decide to do a full 180 and just tell you that they broke up for no particular reason AND THEN it’s implied (they won’t even show it outright) that the two boys end up together. Which would have been a great ending if they’d shown how that relationship developed at all, but they didn’t, and you have to wonder if this was just terrible decision making of if in spite of the message of the manga they were not allowed or didn’t dare actually show a homosexual relationship. Wasted opportunity in my opinion.
And then there’s the somehow more worrying bit that the character written very much as a lesbian ended up with a husband!?!? I’m always rooting for more bisexual characters but this was not it, I think she showed some very specifically lesbian struggles and it just seemed like a last minute cop-out. Idk.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still loved the series and the characters but I think it could have been handled so much better if they really wanted that ending for them.
That took up all my reading time for the day, so nothing else was read.
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Don’t think I posted yesterday, sorry if I did.
2/2 5 pages Spy Family
3/2 6 pages Spy Family (finished mission), 2 pages 夜カフェ
I’m not reading as much as I should and am now behind in most clubs. I’ve got plenty of time off but I think it’s because I’m using that time to sort my house out in the 2 weeks I’m home. It is looking neater. Current house sitter leaves tomorrow morning, next arrives in the evening. Hoping the cat likes him.
I suspect I’ll ironically read more once I’m away from home. Which is from Sunday morning.
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ひよ恋 Volume 1 (28% ➨ 37%)2 月 3 日
コナの大冒険 第 38 話 
Kona becomes a hero!
Vocab
- ズルズル slowly slipping or drawing back; slithering
- 擦れる [すれる] to be rubbed
- 巣 [す] nest
- 狙う [ねらう] to aim at
- 気付いた時には [きづいたときには] by the time I realized what was happening
- 飛び掛かる [とびかかる] to spring at; to leap upon; to swoop down on; to throw oneself upon
- 無我夢中 [むがむちゅう] being absorbed in; losing oneself in; in a trance; feverishly
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3rd feb
forgot i had some stuff to do today that i should really have done earlier so even though i started my day earlier i still managed exactly the same amount of reading as normal. ah well. with that volume 4 of 蟲師 has finished! (except the 後書…) the previous two chapters were clearly written in an easier style to deceive me, cos this last one was rough (joke). loved the relationship between the two main characters though, it’s rare to spend this much amount of time with the same couple of characters. relationships were a big theme in this volume in general actually, or at least a consistency. this chapter also had more kid ginko which is always welcome!
words that stuck out: 五月雨 (さみだれ, early summer rain. had heard this word before but only just today realised what it was), 滝 (たき, waterfall), 近いうちに (ちかいうちに, before long)
also found some unexpected (separate) paper advertisements from 2003 which i had no idea were in the book even tho i’ve been reading it for a week, so that’s fun. somehow i don’t think they’ll let me mail order those full colour volumes of akira anymore
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Feb 3, Fri of Week 6 of Winter Q1 2023 
- はたらく細胞 Black Vol.8 Ch.45-46
Tomorrow! Today is just busy.
Words of the day
- 補う = to compensate for; to supplement. 補い合う = to complement. Single Kanji with longer Kana just takes time to recall…
- まかり通る = to go unpunished; to force one’s way through. Full Kanji is 罷り通る
- 悪習 = bad custom
- 制御 = governing; regulating
- 僭越 = audacity; arrogance. In context as 僭越ながら
- 屈強 = brawny; sturdy
- 装填 = loading (a cannon; a gun)
- 分化 = specialization; differentiation
- 併発 = concurrence; coincidence / complication on top of a disease
- 欠陥 = a defect
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The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den
February 3rd
新書太閣記 progress: 06.61% // Volume I: 76.65% 
Lots of dense, descriptive sentences today, took quite awhile to get through them.
Words found under the kotatsu
抹香「まっこう」ー Incense powder; incense
沁々「しみじみ」ー Keenly; deeply; earnestly // (also: 沁み沁み)
隊伍「たいご」ー Rank/line of troops; formation; array; procession
螺鈿「らでん」ー Mother of pearl
駿馬「しゅんめ」ー Swift horse
萌黄「もえぎ」ー Colour of a freshly sprouted onion; light green-yellow // (also: 萌葱)
金襴「きんらん」ー Gold brocade
Kanji
耳朶 ＝ 耳たぶ (earlobes)
Forms
寔に ＝ 誠に「まことに」(indeed; really; absolutely)
聟 ＝ 婿「むこ」(Husband; groom; son-in-law)
Character Name List
Probably some spoilers, but this is a historic novel, so can spoilers really exist for things that have (for the most part) actually happened 
Volume I: 1535 - 15??
(Currently 1554/5)
日吉「ひよし」- Hideyoshi (as child)
Nicknames: 猿「さる」/ 針売り「はりうり」
Family
木下弥右衛門「きのした やえもん」- Father
– – 乙若「おとわか」- Old friend (serves under 織田)
筑阿弥「ちくあみ」ー Step-father
大政所「おおまんどころ」// also お奈加「おなか」ー Mother
おつみ - Older sister
小竹「こちく」- Baby brother
加藤清正「かとう きよまさ」// also 弾正「だんじょう」- Ojisan (only distantly related (before marriage))
– Married to: おえつ (sister of お奈加)
Friends & Acquaintances
仁王「におう」- Big kid friend
於福「おふく」(Nickname - full name: 福太郎「ふくたろ」) // 楊景福「ようけいふく」(Chinese name/birth name) - Timid kid friend (older than Hideyoshi)
– 五郎大夫 「ごろ だゆう」// 祥瑞「しょうずい」(Chinese name) - Father
– 梨琴「りきん」- Mother
捨次郎「すてじろう」- Previous servant to 五郎, later the adoptive father of 於福, and owner of a tea ware shop - and employer of, and master to, Hideyoshi
Hachisuka Clan
蜂須賀小六「はちすか ころく」(also 正勝 「まさかつ」) - Head of the Hachisuka clan
– 七内「なない」- Younger brother
– Married to 松波「まつなみ」
– – 亀一「かめいち」- Son
Retainers:
稲田大炊助「いなだ おおいのすけ]
青山新七「あおやま しんしち」
長井半之丞「ながい はんのじょう」
松原内匠「まつばら たくみ」
Others:
国吉「くによし」- Gunsmith/blacksmith
渡辺天蔵「わたなべ てんぞう」- Deserter - Nobushi (Nephew to Koroku)
難波内記「なんば ないき」- Spy disguised as a Komuso
仁田彦十「にった ひこじゅう」- Subordinate
(蜂須賀正利「はちすか まさとし」- previous head of the Hachisuka clan)
Saito Clan
((questionable) Alliance with the Hachisuka clan)
斎藤 道三「さいとう どうさん」- Head of the Saito clan
– 斎藤義龍「さいとう よしたつ」(also: 高政「たかまさ」) - Son
明智 光秀「あけち みつひで」(common name: 十兵衛「じゅうべい」) - serves under Dosan
– 又市「またいち」- Underling / foot soldier
弥平治光春「やへいじ みつはら」- Retainer (cousin to Jyubei)
– 明智光安「あけち みつやす」- Father
Oda Clan
織田信秀「おだ のぶひで」- Daimyo
– 織田与三郎「おだ よさぶろう」- Younger brother
– 織田 信長「おだ のぶなが」- Son (Successor to the Oda clan)
(Married to the daughter of Saito Dosan)
Retainers (Under Nobuhide rule):
平手 政秀「ひらて まさひで」
林 秀貞「はやし ひでさだ」(common name: 新五郎「しんごろ」)
青山 信昌「あおやま のぶまさ」(common name: 与三右衛門「よそうえもん」)
内藤 勝介「ないとう しょうすけ / かつすけ」
Others:
市川大介「いちかわ だいすけ」- Archery master/instructor
平田三位「ひらた さんみ」- Master of military strategy
Shiba Clan
斯波義統「しば よしむね」- Head of the Shiba clan, at Kiyosu castle
Imagawa Clan
今川義元「いまがわ よしもと」- Daimyo
Retainers:
松下之綱「まつした ゆきつな」(common name: 加兵衛「かへい」)
飯尾豊前「いのお ぶぜん」
多賀能八郎「たがのう はしろう」(nickname: 能八「のうはち」)
Takeda Clan
太郎義信「たけだ よしのぶ」- Commander
(Married to the daughter of Imagawa Yoshimoto to tie the clans)
Non-affiliated
上泉 信綱「かみいずみ のぶつな」(also: 上泉 伊勢守「かみいずみ いせのかみ」) - Founder of the 新陰流「しんかげりゅう」school of Kenjutsu
– 疋田小伯「ひきた しょうはく」- Disciple
– 神後五六郎「かんご ごろくろう」- Disciple
塚原 卜伝「つかはら ぼくでん」- Kensei; legendary swordsman
Historical People
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阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (700s)
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白楽天「はく きょい」ー Chinese poet (Bai Juyi / Bo Juyi) also known as: 白楽天「はく らくてん」in Japan. (Late 700s)
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道元「どうげん」(or 道元禅師「どうげん ぜんじ」ー Japanese Buddhist Priest, writer & poet (also known as 栄西禅師「えいさい ぜんじ」) (Early / mid 1200s)
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空海「くうかい」ー The one and only Kukai or Kobo Daishi - a Buddhist monk. Posthumously given the title of: 弘法大師「こうぼう だいし」born as: 佐伯 眞魚「さえき の まお」(late 700s / early 800s)
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源頼政「みなもと の よりまさ」ー Prominent poet and warrior (1100s)
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平 重盛「たいら の しげもり」ー Military commander and court noble, claimed to be an ancestor of Oda Nobunaga (Mid-1100s)
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桓武（天皇）「かんむ（てんのう）」ー 50th Emperor of Japan, claimed to be an ancestor of Taira no Shigemori, thus ancestor to Oda Nobunaga (Mid-Late 700s)
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