📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2023 ☃❄

:raccoon: :books: The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den :snowflake: :raccoon:

February 5th
新書太閣記 progress: 06.98% // Volume I: 80.95% :ear_of_rice:

Words found under the kotatsu

警固「けいご」ー Being on alert; watchman; guard
咄嗟「とっさ」ー Moment; instant // 咄嗟に「とっさに」ー at once; immediately; spur of the moment

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 :thinking:

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

堀田 道空「ほった どうくう」- Chief retainer
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
春日丹後「かすが たんご」- Military commander

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
  • 阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (700s)

  • 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)

  • 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)

  • 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)

  • 源頼政「みなもと の よりまさ」ー Prominent poet and warrior (1100s)

  • 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)

  • 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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February 5th!

A good reading day for me today! I read the final chapter of Volume 1 of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and the final half-chapter of Cells at Work.

I’ve been struggling to keep up with the amount of bookclubs I’m in for the last few weeks, so finishing two of them is a relief :slight_smile:
I’d like to read more of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun in the future, but for now its a fairly tough read for me, so I’d like to come back to it at a later date when I can enjoy it a bit more.
Thanks @windupbird and @natarin for reassuring me that I’m not the only person who finds 4-koma unusually tough compared with other manga!

(Home Post)

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:snowman_with_snow: :snowflake: February 3-5 :snowflake: :snowman_with_snow:
Home Post

3rd: Novel in English :books:
4th: Novel in English :books:
5th (today): Orange :tangerine: and BU$TAFELLOWS :moneybag:

This first week of February have been very uneven for me. It almost feels like I have either read in Japanese or in English. I did reread Hideaway by Nora Roberts over the 3rd and 4th, and today I did the weekly reading of the Orange club and inched on a little with Bustafellows.

I seriously, honestly, need to dive deep into Bustafellows and read like crazy because I’m probably not even halfway through chapter 2 and the club is finishing chapter 4 this coming Thursday, and I would really like to catch up so I can also catch up with the other VN club (right now it looks like I might just have to read that one in my own time :sob:), and then I have Loopers to get back to, to read with TobiasW…

And yet, I don’t spend very much time with Bustafellows, despite enjoying it. I’m trying to allow myself a bit more ambiguity when it comes to reading it. But unlike a manga series while I’ll easily and quickly be able to reread at another time, I don’t see myself rereading a 35+ hours VN (at native speeds) later on. Too many things I want to read…

If I ever did reread Bustafellows it would be when I could read Japanese at the same speed I can English and Swedish, and I am a slow reader overall, so even then it would probably take me longer than 35 hours…

All that to say, it is hard to let too much ambiguity in, knowing I will probably never reread this and get that clarified.


Zootr reply

I mostly watch the zootr tournaments that uses what is now called the standard ruleset (or a small variant on that), previously it was called accessible or even glitch-less, except it isn’t glitch-less, just very few allowed. Bomb jumping (I’m not sure that is what it is called but my brain is blanking) and flame storage are allowed, and one clip in Shadow Temple. I think those are all the glitches that are allowed. (I might have forgotten another one place glitch.) Also certain tricks can be allowed or not per tourney (aka there is a glitchless jump that is banned in this latest standard tournament; KZ skip; also fire arrow entry (instead of din’s fire) to shadow is banned in standard as a whole).

So if you like a lot of the glitches, I would say to watch zootr bingo, or DDR I think have some of those, etc. Zeldaspeedruns is the main twitch channel (they also have zeldaspeedruns2, zeldaspeedruns_3 and zeldaspeedruns_4 (I think that is the correct way), but also silvergauntlets/thesilvergauntlets (I’m unsure because I haven’t watched anything on that one) is an off-shoot from that. On youtube, you have zeldaspeedruns and the silver gauntlets (this one still an offshoot). The extra twitch channels came about because they had too many things they wanted/needed to restream at the same time, so more channels were needed. :joy:

So yeah, there should be loads of good archive videos to watch. If you want to try standard, I would recommend watching any of the previous seasons grand finals matches, although the commentators might forget to explain how things works and use loads of acronyms. For this current season, they are really good at explaining themselves more.

The one that I started on (I think) is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpe2L5hlW6E&t=11113s&pp=ygVFZ2FtZXMgZG9uZSBxdWljayB6ZWxkYSBvY2FyaW5hIG9mIHRpbWUgY28gb3AgcnVuIHdvb2RlbmJhcnJlbCByYWlrYXJ1 which was the co-op run I mentioned earlier, but it suggests I only found zootr in August 2020, and I definitely feel like I’ve been watching longer than 2-3 years. It would suggest my first live tourney was season 4, which definitely feels wrong. Maybe it just feels like I’ve been watching longer, but I definitely feel like I followed season 3 at least live too, but maybe I didn’t…

Actually, looking into Games Done Quick archives finds me a video from April 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edCqnOqKm2E), which I can see possible as my first, because then I would have just missed seeing season 3 live, so I would have watched it about 1-2 months after it finished. Now that feels correct.

So soon to be 3 years for me and zootr watching. @pm215 Seems I might have remembered wrong earlier quite how long I’ve been watching. ^^

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Summary post

Day 36: February 5th
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ :penguin:
How much did I read?: 10 pages
How long did it take me?: 58 minutes

Not really much happening in the book right now :sleeping: ← No but I literally took a semi-nap in the middle of my reading session because it’s so bright and nice outside and I was super full from lunch and I was wearing this soft blanket hoodie thing and I was tired because I went to bed late and woke up early for no reason. It was nice, I was comfy :relieved:

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February 5th

:snowman: Home post :snowflake:

Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report
Yesterday: Continued up to page 236.
Today: Read up to page 273, finished chapter 27 and ‘special navigation’ 27.5.

A rather mysterious ending to chapter 27 but at least we got to see Cait Sith again. As for 27.5, I barely got the gist of it and I may look through those pages again tomorrow to see if it was due to me being tired after a busy day or if I generally don’t quite get it.

Replies

@Redglare
I learned this Kanji through the Kodansha Kanji learner’s course-Anki-deck as ‘ページ’ too, so I third @enbyboiwonder 's and @Naphthalene 's explanations. (As I had learned it as ‘page’, I even immediately added ‘page’ as a synonym to the ‘geoduck’ radical when I first encountered it. :sweat_smile:)

@MissDagger
Thank you for your thorough explanation, recommendations and the sources on where I could watch the archived videos! :smiley:
In that case, I’ll probably watch one of the current season’s standard tournaments first and at one point one of the more glitch-exploiting bingo ones. Though, I don’t know when I’ll find the time to watch them…maybe one weekend this or next month. :melting_face:


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Word or expression of the day:
持て余す - (もてあます) - to be too much for one, to be beyond one’s control, to not know what to do with​

Honourable mention(s):
隠れ家 - (かくれが) - retreat, hideaway

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February 5th (Day 36) :snowflake: :cat2:

Home post :books:

For some unknown reason I’ve been incredibly tired all day and could barely keep my eyes open, so I read just a little bit again. Or so I thought. Apparently I read half of chapter 4 of 1Q84 in the little bit of time I allocated for reading today! That was surprisingly fast. I can’t tell whether it’s because of the chapter being easier, or whether I am just getting used to the writing - but I am very pleased with this :3

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Zootr reply because I can't shut up about it xD

Either of the two I specifically linked to, should also be good for explanations and such if you want them, since Games Done Quick doesn’t do zootr all the time, they’d have to explain what is going on. Especially the SpikeVegeta and Phant video might even be the first time zootr is showcased on GDQ so that one should be explaining everything. As that one was my gateway into watching zootr and I don’t remember being confused but rather enjoying myself a lot.

More techniques, glitchless strategies and such, have been discovered since then, having been almost 3 years ago, but should be good. Another one you could pick would be the first match in season 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A7Z41mSVaI. I seem to remember that they definitely made sure to explain things extra for that one, and I know most commentators in later matches do too, but as its the first official match of brackets, there is that extra ambition to be welcoming to new watchers. :slight_smile:

And when you’re ready for more chaos, you can try random settings league, when a lot more get randomized than the items between themselves, songs between themselves and temple rewards between themselves. But I suggest having a pretty good knowledge of the game and the common things for zootr before trying to watch that madness. Super fun madness, but madness nonetheless. Especially the first few seeds you watch, so much to learn. :joy:

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Day 5 :black_cat: home thread

世界から猫ガ消えたなら: ch 1 (月曜日), pg 12/230

another 2 pages done. this time I kept my bookwalker copy open while I read so I could use the dictionary on there and it saved a lot of time. I might be able to read more pages / day this way

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more zootr...

If you’re watching live on twitch then I have found that the commentators/chat are also always happy to answer newbie questions about what’s going on. Plus you can play the occasional audience-participation bit like “guess where the keys will be in the treasure-chest minigame” :slight_smile:

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:bookmark: Home post // Feb 5 :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake:

・薬屋のひとりごと3 (¨7% → 20%)

Okay, maybe (ぺーじ) wasn’t the best example :sweat_smile:

I found more of the words I was thinking of

image image image image image image image

image image image image image image
imageimage image image image

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February 4 :heavy_check_mark: :fox_face:

狐火の辻, 38-43%

February 5 :heavy_check_mark: :dancer: :zzz:

おばちゃんたちのいるところ , 93-100%
死体は眠らない , 38-51%

Yesterday I only managed to read relatively little, and finished the 何を chapter in 狐火の辻. The next chapter is called 何で :eyes:

There is a man there that keeps using あたし for himself. Does anyone know in what circumstances this is natural? It keeps throwing me off. The book is set in modern times (there’s even youtubers), so it’s not some historical usage.

Today I finished the Wild Ladies with the club. And then I read some more of 死体は眠らない before I forget who killed who and where all the bodies are :joy:

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Day 34
I read some Tsugumomo vol.3 unlike the first two volumes this volume is not that interesting.

2644 pages read 17356 to go

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The thing that is tricky with Manga is how much writing to imagery there is. I read Berserk at lightning speed, then got to volume 24 which is a giant lore dump that took me about 4 hours to read. I had been reading about 2-3 volumes a day at that point so it was earth shattering to feel so tired after just one volume xD

JoJo has really good picture:dialogue ratio. Idk why but JoJo is like exactly my level reading/listening wise, so I have been enjoying it a lot more that other stuff atm.

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For sure, I wonder if I can find a character count now lol

I think it’s because JoJo doesn’t usually drone on and on about the same thing, even when the dialogue is heavy. Also, it’s easy to skip/zone out on the history lessons if feeling overwhelmed

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Yeah I got frustrated with One Punch Man because they had a tournament arc and introduced each contestant but their intros got longer and longer to the point I dropped the series entirely because it wasn’t fun or interesting. I want to just skip it but even after 8 character intros disguised as biographies, it soured my interest in continuing because now I felt like I would be missing some key details to the story.

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:chocolate_bar: :love_letter: 2月5日 :love_letter: :chocolate_bar: (Home Post Link)

Read:

  • 夜カフェ ch 4 ( pg 43 → 53)
  • 三ツ星カラーズ ch 2 - I didn’t think that could possibly be what the chapter title meant, and then I got to the end of the chapter and was rewarded
  • 新完全マスター pg 10, 11 - today’s reading was a little easier, and I got the comprehension q right! the grammar lesson was kinda brutal, some more formal writing particles において and によって and stuff are gonna take some practice

Word of the Day:
雪平鍋 「ゆきひらなべ」ー aluminum saucepan with a handle (usu. wooden) and often with snowflake-style embossed pattern (aluminium)​
image

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February 2nd
It was a very busy day, so by the end of it I was feeling very tired and just did Aomi Japanese.

February 3rd & 4th
And then on the next day, I got sick, and the day after that I was still feeling rather sick, so on both days, I, again, just did Aomi Japanese. :upside_down_face: I wasn’t bedridden-delirious-fever-dreams-sick, but I wasn’t feeling very motivated or clearheaded enough to tackle understanding Japanese.

Kind of unhappy with this inauspicious start to February, since I was a little disappointed in how the second half of January went in terms of Japanese-reading productivity… I had been thinking something along the lines of “February is the shortest month of the year! So I can definitely manage to read everyday at least for this month! Right?” But uh, no, apparently, eheh. :sweat_smile:

February 5th
What did I read?: 魔女と猫の話
How much did I read?: 7 pages
(Continued 3rd Story )
How long did it take me?: 1 h 25 min

But anyways, although still sick, I’m feeling better and am back to reading again! It was a rather pleasant reading session~ I felt like I didn’t have to look up too many words this time.

Replies

Ha, ha! XD But yes, I would recommend it~

Oh, that looks cute!

On that note, there was a promotional leaflet in another cat manga I bought, and through it, I discovered that that manga, as well as 魔女と猫の話, were both serialized in a magazine called ねこぱんち, which, as you can guess, is just chock full of different cat manga! 0_0 My wallet did not want me to know about this! XD

Oh, Japanese music is a big reason for me wanting to learn Japanese too! That and manga! XD There just aren’t enough reliable translators covering the music and manga I’m interested in.

I didn’t know that their songs got featured in rhythm games! That’s pretty neat. And ヒッチコック is another really great song too! ヨルシカ’s songs are so good on both the emotional and writing-style level… Very lyrical, in both senses of the word! I love all the wordplay in them. That’s one reason why I personally don’t like to listen to their music in the background very much, because I feel like I’m seriously missing out if I’m not following the lyrics, ha, ha! :laughing: And my listening comprehension and translation speed isn’t good enough to understand them just by ear.

I’ve actually started learning some of their songs too! I’ve started both 嘘月 (that wordplay!) and 夜行. But I kind of lost steam with them, since I’m not very good at singing high or making my voice do what I want it to… :laughing: Sometimes I sing the lyrics I learned of 嘘月 to my own melody for fun (which… probably won’t help me learn the proper melody for them, come to think of it… :thinking:).

[As an aside, have you seen the anime movie 泣きたい私は猫をかぶる? Three of ヨルシカ’s songs got featured in it, and I thought it was a pretty interesting little movie. It’s on Netflix in at least some countries.]

Oh, the songs in だから僕は音楽を辞めた are definitely supposed to be connected! I don’t know if you’ve heard about it already, but both the だから僕は音楽を辞めた album and the エルマ album tell a story together (in conjunction with two works of prose “Letters to
Elma” and “Elma’s Diary”). Roughly speaking, the story is about the relationship between a man (Amy (apparently they didn’t know this was a girl’s name… :sweat_smile: Maybe it’s supposed to be the French Aimé?)) and a woman (Elma), and how it falls apart, due partially to Amy’s inferiority complex in respect to his ability as a songwriter. Amy goes on a journey which ultimately ends in his suicide. Elma then retraces his journey to come to terms with everything. That might not be 100% accurate, since I never took the time to go down that rabbit hole since I know it will be a deep, time-consuming one, but it’s the gist of it. A reply to this Reddit post contains a link to a Google doc with detailed info about the entire thing, including translations to the letters and diary entries.

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ヨルシカ stuff

Yeah! I’d read about this in something, but for some reason thought it only was applying to only some of the songs in general and not like a whole concept album (maybe i got it mixed up with YOASOBI?a lot of their songs are based on short prose stuff, but i think they’re mostly independent). I didn’t read them in english because I wanted to read them in japanese, but kinda forgot to do that :sweat_smile: maybe I’ll have time soon, though

YES! I thought it was really cute, almost trying to do a ghibli-style thing. Definitely definitely a kids movie, but I enjoyed it a lot!

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After a weekend off my my routine, I am not back on and read the next section of 夜は短し歩けよ乙女. Easy section today, and wrote down the words I didn’t know, and there weren’t a lot. Learning the history of 電気ブラン and how miraculous its creation is, but 東堂さん can only get 偽電気ブラン. 乙女 wants to experience drinking it. And uhhh yeah. That’s pretty much it.

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February 5 :snowflake: Home Post

Pretty solid reading day today actually, read like 36 pages of 山猫 which was a lot of fun! Things are really picking up :eyes: Having read another book in the same series/by the same author is definitely helping it feel more comfortable, and I think I’m now more on board with the general vocabulary tendencies of this volume, so it feels pretty smooth! Good times :grin:

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