I read 3 sub chapters yesterday because the 2 I had were super short (9 pages in total). Finished the remaining two today but the first couple in Chapter 4 are so short I think I could do this today to.
I’m trying not to burn myself out but these smaller subchapters are too manageable. Gahh!
Home 
January 14th
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険6
35 - 89
I fought off the sleepies last night 
but starting on page 90 there’s a nazi history lesson and then fictional nazis being awful. I didn’t feel like letting nazis be my last thought before sleep. so f that, I stopped before it. kinda feeling like I should’ve continued reading odd parts. I know Part 7 is nazi free
Day 14: January 14th
What did I read?: マグメル深海水族館 Vol 1
How much did I read?: 49 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 3 min
Finally, some real reading 
As much as I adore tiny shark, he’s not exactly challenging reading practice lol Today’s chapter focused on ラブカ (I love the Japanese name for these, it just sounds so appropriate to what the creature looks like if that even makes sense). Koutarou gets to go beyond his janitorial duties in this chapter when the aquarium director sends him to pick up a frilled shark that accidentally got caught in some fishing nets. The mama shark has died, but with the help of the fisherman, Koutarou’s able to take one of the eggs she was carrying back to the aquarium to hopefully be saved and raised there. In the end, the lil baby shark inside the egg lives, so we can imagine it has a nice future ahead of it 
I love how this manga looks at these less popular/less “conventionally attractive” sea creatures with such a fond lens. Like they’re not the sea creatures you’d think of as the ones people typically “care about,” but the characters do very much care about them, and by extension you care about them too. You always hear about people saving whales and dolphins and such but the characters care about trying to save these lesser known creatures with the exact same passion and warmth, and there’s something about that that’s just very lovely 
Some less gushy and more random thoughts:
Also while I was googling ラブカ I accidentally found this book called ラブカは静かに弓を持つ and I kind of want to read it now 
The cover is super pretty 
January 14th
What did I read?: にわにはににん
How much did I read?: 8 sentences
(Continued あとがき)
How long did it take me?: 1 h 3 min
Reading this あとがき is giving me the pretty clear impression that it’s definitely manga, not books, that are the right thing for me to be starting off with… 
I’m still interested in reading it, but this speed (or should I say, slowness XD) is a wee bit demoralizing, eheheh. Being able to turn pages more often feels like I’m making more progress, even if it might amount to the same wordcount. And it seems the あとがき is written in a more literary style as well, so that’s probably another factor.
Day 14: January 14th 
ARIA The MASTERPIECE Volume 6 (0% ➨ 11%)
I picked this series kind of at random.
The premise is that there’s a strong baddie who has his sights on a certain town, so a fairy goes out in search of a candidate to become a magical girl able to stop the baddie.
However, no one in the town can see him, meaning there are no candidates to become a magical girl and save the town.
Until…
Okay, so maybe he had a little too much to drink and didn’t notice this candidate might be a little old for the part.
But she readily signed a contract with him.
On top of that, the baddie has already reached town.
And is already destroying buildings.
And is turning people into display figures.
Insert magical girl transformation scene.
The fairy lucks out on the result of transformation:
As it turns out, the villain has a very believable backstory, and an elderly magical girl has the vast life experience needed to be able to handle such an opponent.
I’m looking forward to reading more.
からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 10 (59% ➨ 66%)
January 14 
Home Post
It’s BU$TAFELLOWS time! 
I think I made some solid progress on chapter 3 today, though it’s always hard to tell haha. Some wild times as always! I’m also back in town with my full book collection now, so we’ll see what chaos I get up to 
Day 14 Progress:
お隣の天使様 5.5 SS冊子 - 4.44% → 6.95%
スロー ループ - 13話 二巻完成!!!
Today was just one of those shitty days where you think you got an adequate amount of sleep but every fifteen minutes you just start randomly nodding off and closing your eyes. Accordingly the reading was pretty awful too.
Word of the Day:
➳ January 15th.
What: ピーチガール volume 2
Pages: 20
Time: 15 minutes.
Sunday is my laziest day. But I did some more reading.
The characters in this series are so annoying! I like that the main character has attitude, but she’s unable to control her emotions and actions. When the villain (her ““friend”” who’s always copying her and trying to steal whatever the main character wants) riles her up, she falls into the trap immediately. So what happens? She loses her temper in front of her boyfriend, making herself look like the villain instead. Tbh the guy is stupid too because he’s not listening to his girlfriend and believes the lies of the scheming friend instead. The drama of it all!
15th jan
more カノカメ to round out the weekend and oh man what was this chapter started off normal and then there was an extended haircutting scene??? for some reason??? was so out of left field. i also think i like rintarou more than yuki, which for a yuri manga is a slight problem
also congrats to people for finishing their first books/manga!! big milestone 
January 15th
Card Captor Sakura volume 6 – progress report
Yesterday: Began reading Card Captor Sakura volume 6, finished chapter 23, read up to page 82
Today: Continued up to page 145, finished chapter 24 and chapter 25.
Part of me wanted to finish today’s reading session a bit sooner. However, I decided to power through two chapters after all because there was plenty of dialogue (Yue’s introduction, about Yukito’s situation, Sakura forgetting everyone associated with the Clow Cards and guardians should she fail the trial etc.) and I wanted to spare my future self with less time during the week a bit of a headache.
Congrats to both of you! 
That’s a big step towards being able to read more Japanese content – and I hope that these will be the first of many more manga volumes/books to come.
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Word or expression of the day:
偶然 - (ぐうぜん) - coincidence, chance, accident
Honourable mention(s)
始終 - (しじゅう) - continuously, from beginning to end
天変地異 - (てんぺんちい) - natural disaster, cataclysm
Day 12
I started doing my japanese test, that means I have less time for reading. Only read a little bit of Bakemonogatari vol.2.
1203 pages read 18797 to go
Read two more sub chapters so 4 in total today. I’m done X_X
1 月 15 日
Sadly could not keep up with the challenge the last two days because travel plans got in the way. By the end of the day, i was just too tired i could barely even get WK reviews and lessons done! 
Today on the plane and on the bus ride, i just read through Hikaru Utada’s lyrics for First Love and 初恋 (a bunch of times). If that even counts as reading… 
I am surprised how much kanji i can read though with just the spotify lyrics.
Jan 16
かがみの孤城 40% → 42%
I haven’t posted in a few days. It’s 1am and my eyes keep closing, so I’ll leave longer reading to tomorrow.
The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den
January 15th
新書太閣記 progress: 01.89% // Volume I: 21.95% 
Short read today!
密接「みっせつ」ー Intimate; close; near
攀じ登る「よじのぼる」ー To climb/clamber up/over; to scramble; to scale; to claw your way up
火縄「ひなわ」ー Fuse; cord
物蔭「ものかげ」ー Place hidden from view; cover; shelter; hiding place
Forms
辷る ＝ 滑る「すべる」(to slide; to glide; to slip)
(Not seen this one before, it looks a lot cooler than the 滑る version)
for easy referencing later, because these will take some remembering
Also probably some spoilers, but this is a historic novel, so can spoilers really exist for things that have (for the most part) actually happened 
Main
Hideyoshi: 豊臣秀吉「とよとみ ひでよし」
– – – Childhood name: 日吉「ひよし」
– – – Childhood nickname: 猿「さる」
Volume I: 1534 - 15??
日吉「ひよし」- Hideyoshi (as child)
Nickname: 猿「さる」
Family
木下弥右衛門「きのした やえもん」- Father
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
Others
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
今川義元「いまがわ よしもと」- Daimyo
斯波義統「しば よしむね」- Daimyo (head of the Shiba clan) at Kiyosu castle
阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (around 700AD)
白楽天「はく きょい」ー Late 700s Chinese poet (Bai Juyi / Bo Juyi) also known as: 白楽天「はく らくてん」in Japan.
道元「どうげん」(or 道元禅師「どうげん ぜんじ」ー Japanese Buddhist Priest, writer & poet (Early to mid 1200s) (also known as 栄西禅師「えいさい ぜんじ」)
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 to early 800s)
Congrats, great going!!
This is great, congrats!
It’s awesome to see how many people these threads have been helping!
I wanted to take a break today - read a little less. But I couldn’t help myself, I had to have a look at チュベローズで待ってる AGE32 Read the first chapter, then skimmed through the first page of the second chapter - and I had to stop myself there because I would’ve just kept reading Man, I’m really looking forward to the discussions.
Since I spent less time on my Japanese reading, I decided to do some Russian (which I’ve been neglecting this past week). Read the first part of Морфий, almost finished the second part, too - but then my eyes said no. Just when things were starting to get interesting!
I am still shocked at just how much of the content I understand :3 Though I really need to sort out my reading skills. Every now and then my brain decides to read a random letter as it would be in the latin alphabet, and then words stop making sense 
Ah, how did I miss your post earlier? Congrats to you too! 
January 15th
Home Post
Reading 僕だけがいない街 Vol. 1
Started reading 僕だけがいない街 and in about an hour i read 26 pages so it’s not a bad start. This part was full of N3 grammar or so which is the level I stopped at back then so it was great to see all these grammar in the wild and revise them that way. Vocab is a lot tougher compared to yotsuba and had to look up lots of things but thats what I’m here for, real challenge starts now
Btw I was wondering is there any meaning behind the use of other forms of kanji? 十分 means enough or sufficient etc… and has another form which is 充分, encountered its other form in the manga and I was wondering if there is a reason behind using the other form or not…
違和感 = uncomfortable feeling, sense of discomfort
踏み込む = to break into, to step into (e.g. someone else’s territory), to get to the core of
掘り下げる = to dig down, to dig into (a matter), to investigate or get to the bottom of
Home post // Jan 15 
・ 本好きの下克上 16 (63% → 66%)
Ah, it was a nice weekend. I hope everyone had a nice weekend too 
I skipped Tuesday and Thursday this week as I’ve been busy/tired and I’ve started reminding myself that sustainable study habits involve being kind to yourself too I’m still only reading an episode in Satori Reader per day (I’ve caught up with ジャム屋さん and started on the one about the mice), but I’ve ordered some manga !
I meant to order のんのんびより, ヨコハマ買い出し紀行, and にわにはににん but I forgot to add のんのん to my order and the last two had to be shipped separately (Amazon.co.jp) and just the additional shipping cost equaled the total cost of what I actually ordered - shipping included So I’ll save those for another time 
Sorry @Greya - it would have been fun to both read the same manga:/ But thanks for the reply and the recommendations!
January 15
Home Post
BU$TAFELLOWS 
Novel in English
Am I the only one who still types December XX but have so far managed to catch it each time? 
And now I can finally reveal I have been traveling. Yes, that mysterious busy period have been travels. I don’t like to announce when I’ll be away from my home for a longer period of time. So…
It was partly a work trip, so the more common busy definition does apply. So I had a trip to the US. Las Vegas more specifically. With 1-2 night layover in London each way. (Friend’s parents live in London so I could stay with them. Very, very nice people.) Those days where I only read English? Yeah, those were the busy work days, basically. I also missed completely one day during that.
But now I’m home. I read some Bustafellows at my 5 hour layover in Stockholm. And then I read some novel in English on the last flight.
Might or might not read more today, but dang. I’m so done with travel. Two trips less than a month apart? Cannot recommend. -.-’
Also jetlag always hits me on the way back from America, so while my two nights in London have dealt with that a little. (There was literally no planes between Stockholm and my local airport yesterday, so I had to stay two nights.) First night in London I went to bed exhausted at 10 pm, woke up at 2 am, still tired but basically couldn’t get anymore sleep. Last night I thankfully got a full 8 hours.
But I’d forgotten my local grocery store closes at 20:00 on weekends, so I couldn’t get fresh food. Suddenly I can’t put off a grocery store visit for a few days. Merp. 
Enough about me! Now replies!
Well done you both!
