Day 36: February 5th 
からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 11 (10% ➨ 17%)
orange Volume 6 (64% ➨ 81%)
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The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den 
February 6th
新書太閣記 progress: 07.31% // Volume I: 84.74% 
Managed to finish two chapters today.
Words found under the kotatsu
襤褸「ぼろ」ー Rag; scrap; tattered clothes; defect; shabby; run-down
金子「きんす」ー Money; funds
じゃじゃ馬「じゃじゃうま」ー Restive horse; unmanageable person
夕立雲「ゆうだちぐも」ー Cloud that appears when rain falls (cumulonimbus cloud)
(Cumulonimbus cloud as a word is: 積乱雲「せきらんうん」)
愚図愚図「ぐずぐず」ー Slowly; dawdling; lingering // (Mostly seen as: グズグズ)
天稟「てんぴん」ー Natural talents
後塵「こうじん」ー Trailing dust; dust left by someone rushing ahead
惣領「そうりょう」ー Eldest child; first born; child who carries the family name
揶揄う「からかう」ー To tease; to make fun of; to poke fun at
鹿毛「かげ」ー Fawn (colour); bay (horse colour)
草履取り「ぞうりとり」ー Servant in charge of carrying footwear (for Lords etc.); sandal-bearer
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」
Name serving Nobunaga: 木下 藤吉郎「きのした ときちろう」
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 信長「おだ のぶなが」- Leader of the Oda clan (Married to the daughter of Saito Dosan)
– 卯月「うづき」- Nobunaga’s faithful, old horse
– 織田信秀「おだ のぶひで」- Father and previous leader of the Oda clan
– – 織田与三郎「おだ よさぶろう」- Younger brother
Retainers (Under Nobuhide rule):
平手 政秀「ひらて まさひで」
– 五郎左衛門「ごろうざえもん」(nickname: 五郎左「ごろうざ」) - First son
– 監物「けんもつ」- Second son
– 甚左衛門「じんざえもん」- Third son
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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5 Feb
かがみの孤城（下） 82% → 96%
Unfortunately had to stop before finishing!
6 Feb
かがみの孤城（下） 96% → 100%
Aaand finally finished the novel 
I loved the second half. I can say this is the first Japanese book to make me shed tears, lol.
My speed definitely improved a lot from when I started the 上 book. I also had to look up a lot less words in the 下 one, even being able to read it without a dictionary (though I used the Bookwalker dictionary quite often in the last chapter).
From now on I’m going to continue reading 世界から猫が消えたなら！
27 Likes
February 6
Home Post
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 
BU$TAFELLOWS 
Last night, in a listening effort, I started a new playthrough of the Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild, hoping there was a bit more voice acting, but apparently I remembered correctly that there really isn’t much. xD So mostly it will be reading if it is Japanese practice at all. I have a feeling the memory cutscenes have audio, but first I have to get to the stage where I unlock those.
I’ve been wanting to replay this in Japanese partly because BotW 2 (or Tears of the Kingdom, same thing different title) is coming out this May. (Anyone beside me that is probably gonna have to earmark something like 100+ hours in May and through the summer to that game? xD) I guess I want to see if I can play the next one in Japanese, but only if I feel like my comprehension will be 95+%, which from what I’ve seen so far is looking unlikely. But that’s fine, not everything that could be Japanese practice, need to be. ^^
And yeah, so I played a bit more BotW today, just some reading practice today, not a single line spoken. Also quite a bit of text that disappears by itself in old-style Japanese so I didn’t have a chance to read it in time. (Another reason I’ll go English for BotW2 almost assuredly.)
I also made sure to have extra time to play Bustafellows today and… I didn’t play as much as I should have. Finally got to another choice in chapter 2 and I think I quit right before the next choice coming up, but my brain was starting to get fed up. I think I did a bit better about looking up less, but still so far behind… 
23 Likes
February 6th (Day 37) 
I’ve finished the second half of chapter 4 and read the first two pages of chapter 5 of 1Q84 Book 1 前編 :3
23 Likes
February 6th
Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report
Yesterday: Read up to page 273, finished chapter 27 and ‘special navigation’ 27.5
Today: Continued up to page 184.
Didn’t have a very productive day and the same applied to today’s reading. 
Replies
Sounds great to me – I’ll keep both options in mind when I find the time to watch my first Zootr tournament. I’m certainly looking forward to the chaotic ones, though. I may watch one or two standard ones and then jump into one of these. In terms of my knowledge about the game, I don’t think I’ll need to do any extra research as I think I know Ocarina of Time like the back of my hand by now (watched plenty of play-throughs ‘live’ and online, and played it myself several times). 
You mentioning playing BotW in Japanese just reminded me of my poor attempt:
I tried using BotW as a bit of reading practice myself around two and a half years ago. It was my third play-through and I wanted to do a Master Mode run in Japanese to test the waters on how much I could understand. I’m was (and still am) at a beginner to pre-intermediate level meaning that the first two hours with the old man doing the expositions on the plateau and all the weapon names and descriptions already kicked my butt and made me utterly exhausted from all the looking up. I kept it in Japanese, took a lot of screenshots for future reference and reading practice but I didn’t look things up after the first 5 hours anymore and didn’t understand almost anything as a result. Maybe one day I can go back to it or its sequel and understand most of it. 
I hope that your play-through will be enjoyable and that you will understand a lot – even if it’s not 95%. 
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Word or expression of the day:
入り組む - (いりくむ) - to be or become complicated
22 Likes
February 6th!
Today I read a chapter of Orange. This series continues to pull on my heartstrings!
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２月６日 (Home Post Link)
With all the ヨルシカ talk recently, I was digging around online and found out that they have a new album coming out in a few months, and that the title of this album comes from an older short story! So, of course, I went and found it on aozora and worked my way through it. The album title is 幻燈 （げんとう）and it comes from the opening line of やまなし. I’ve seen some people translating this as ‘magic lantern’ like a literal magic lantern, but I think in the story it makes more context as being a projector slide used with one of these. We have two very different vivid descriptions of how the surface of the water reflects light and objects at different times in the year, the first being in the summer with bright dazzling daylight and flower petals, and then in the winter with moonlight.
Read:
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やまなし (宮沢賢治) - After reading through it once, then watching a video with narration/illustrations, and then trying to pick apart a few particular spots that weren’t quite making sense to me, I think I understand most of the things that are happening, but I don’t quite understand the “why” if that makes sense? There’s some allegory here that I think I just don’t know enough to connect it to (which seems to be the same experience for some of the reviews on bookmeter lmao). I did also find a paper talking about the significance of the works of 宮沢賢治 as either zen buddhist parables or extremely veiled political allegory, but I don’t have access to the journal Of course, I’m also curious how this is going to relate to the themes of the album when that comes out, but that’s not for another 2 months. It does contain what i’m fairly certain are some made-up words, so be warned if you want to check it out
- 三ツ星カラーズ ch 3 - starting to kinda figure out the speech styles (and catchphrases) a bit so this one felt a bit easier. I like how much weird jrpg terminology 琴葉ちゃん uses
- 新完全マスター pg 12+13 - thankfully mostly stuff i’ve seen before today
- i might do some 夜カフェ later but やまなし kinda took it out of me for today
Word of the Day
クラムボン ー literally no one seems to know what this means. clam boy? but what does it refer to? seems to be anyone’s guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Home 
February 6th
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険9
start - 15
I fell asleep at my kotatsu (several times?) and was just exhausted yesterday. Looks like a busy week ahead >-> not sure how much time I’ll have for reading.
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Finished chapter 4 of 魔女の旅々. It was overall interesting so per day I read more than usual. Word of the chapter is probably 旅の占い師.
Elaina is definitely quite an interesting character.
21 Likes
Arlo. Arlo was one of the characters who’s used 俺. And there’s nothing about any of the situations that he’s used 俺 vs 私 vs わたし vs わし (still going to think of that one as a typo, because, like, what) for it to make sense that he doesn’t just use one?? Remmy’s also one who uses 俺, but I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen him use anything else.
And today I met Ack, a robot cook who speaks almost entirely in katakana… Lovely.
Anyway, I didn’t just play ポルティア today, though I did do a lot of that (and will continue playing after posting). I also did a bit of book club reading, reading mission 27 of SPY×FAMILY.
Some vocab of note:
もらう [他ア五] to have in one’s pocket (a fight, match, etc.); to have in the bag
或る (ある) [prenominal] a certain…; some…. Until today, I’d thought this was just a different, possibly expression, usage of 有る, but nope, it’s a totally separate word.
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Today’s 夜は短し was alright, no struggles. Only 9 unknown words.
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February 6th
What did I read?: 魔女と猫の話
How much did I read?: 4 pages
(Continued 3rd Story )
How long did it take me?: 41 min
I never really talked about what this story is about, so here’s what’s happened so far: Chise doesn’t like the attention that having a black cat (which is rare) and being a 夜-type witch brings, and wishes to be more ordinary. So she tells her cat Sei to keep his distance from her, even as she works on her practical exercise: helping a woman with a case of insomnia. But after she gets to know the woman more, she begins to feel sorry about her halfhearted efforts to help her and finally decides to work together with Sei.
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February 6 Home Post
Read some more 山猫 today, but it was a sleepy day so not as much as I would’ve liked, I wanna know more about what’s going on!! 
Tomorrow’s a new day haha.
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Last night I opened my DragonBall Manga that I bought last year and read for about 15 minutes. A lot of words I didn’t know but from those I knew and the pictures, I got the gist (extensive reading).
Today I did 30 minutes of graded readers. I noticed that I was reading faster and understanding the story despite not knowing some of the main vocabulary, so reading does really improve reading lol (intensive reading).
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Glad to see you feel improvement despite not having 100% concept of everything. That is something I only recently really internalized in my own reading. I am still going back and grabbing words that stuck out and looking up but I try to read the first time uninterrupted unless its a words that keeps popping up that regardless of context I can’t get. Luckily with Manga a lot of that context is given visually too.
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Finished Steel Ball Run Volume 4. So I think I’m gonna do My Hero then 推しの子. From there I’m gonna just read 推しの子 until I’m caught up with the volumes. Jojo is probably gonna be my main manga in a couple weeks. But I’m gonna be Jojo’d out by Saturday since I’m on the last leg of Stardust Crusaders. Which I don’t wanna do.
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Finished My Hero Academia 37. I couldn’t stop reading it, so many big moments X_X
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February 6
Read this week’s chapter of オレンジ and then some この本を盗む者は. I wanted to play some B$ as well but I was weirdly tired so I went to sleep early. A wise decision for once (probably).
22 Likes