📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2023 ☃❄

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

January 26th
新書太閣記 progress: 04.40% // Volume I: 50.96% :fire:

A samurai was trying to explain about the lineage of a certain lord and how this ties in with the lineage of another lord… it was all very confusing. Though I managed to understand the purpose of the mission and finish the chapter at least.

Words found under the kotatsu

「らい」ー Hansen’s disease / leprosy

Forms
吩咐 = 言いつけ「いいつけ」(order; command; instructions)

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:

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: 1535 - 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
– – 乙若「おとわか」- Old friend
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」

– 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
(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

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

Shiba Clan
斯波義統「しば よしむね」- Head of the Shiba clan, at Kiyosu castle

Others
今川義元「いまがわ よしもと」- Daimyo

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)

22 Likes

Jan 26, Thu of Week 5 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

  • Death Note Vol.6 Ch.49-52 (end volume)

I want to read this series when I want to and get urged by expectation, rather than being slowed by feeling difficult to understand or the book club. Also, I skimmed ahead, to Vol.9. There are 12 volumes, btw, so feeling slow.

Words of the day
  • メット = helmet
  • (おお)ざっぱ = rough; sloppy; crude. Full Kanji is 大雑把(おおざっぱ).
  • 目敏(めざと)い = sharp-sighted. The second Kanji is from 敏捷(びんしょう) or 鋭敏(えいびん).
  • 格下(かくさ)げ = demotion. Opposite is 格上(かくあ)げ.
  • 筒抜(つつぬ)け = being overheard; being leaked of secrets
  • 機動隊(きどうたい) = riot police squad. 機動(きどう) = mobilization; quick to respond.
  • 脱帽(だつぼう) = admiring someone greatly. Taking of a hat off to/for someone.
20 Likes

Haha, my first thought was “isn’t that the same fairytale?” but then I thought that Sleeping Beauty must be the one where she pricks her finger and sleeps for 100 years, right?
(The German names are Schneewittchen (= basically Snow-white in old-fashioned German) and Dornröschen (= Thorn-Rosie, perhaps?) so the name didn’t ring any bell…)

Given this setup is a staple in fairytales, I don’t blame you :laughing:

11 Likes

I started reading more regularly during my commute, and since the only book club I’m part of right now is 半落ち, which doesn’t provide enough reading material for a whole week, I needed a new book and decided to read 闇祓. It’s from the same author as かがみの孤城, which I have not read. I’m 12% in now.
Anyway, it starts very school-focused, but has lots of creepy vibes. Also 告白 vibes, which was also set in a school.

One part of the book makes me think, wow this is too much „I‘m a highschool girl and i have a crush on my 先輩 and omg he noticed me! He walks me home every day! I talk to my two best friends about everything kyaaa“
But on the other hand everything makes me think, there must be a huge plot going on where all her friends actually hate her/are jealous of her and they sent someone into the class to bully her.
I also think the 先輩 part would feel less weird if he had a personality. I hope he finds one somewhere during the book (maybe I’m too harsh at 12%)

I like the writing style and the emotions. Emotions are good. In the beginning she thought something like „everyone calls me a 優等生 but I don’t think they mean it as a compliment“, i felt that.
I could do with less „I think I’m in love“ and more dread and despair and fear. I really really hope there will be an insane plot twist where everyone turns out to actually hate her, and they were only pretending to like her all along. But we’ll see what happens. Or maybe we’ll see everything from the perspective of the bully/creep at one point and his story is gonna be super sad, like neglected by his parents, everyone is mean to him, etc.

27 Likes

:snowflake: Day 26, 26th of January :snowflake:

:open_book: Back to my Home Post

Really quick story before bed. In this story we see a necromancer and his undead army gearing up to fight the king. It seems this is the wizard from before with his mouse assistant.

They kept saying ゴゴツ and I completely forgot it was the name of the wizard.

18 Likes

Starting a little late but here we go :smiley:

Jan
01
02 03 04 05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
Feb
01 02 03 04 05
06 07 08 09 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28
28 Likes

I’m sure you all know that I’m in urgent need of new books because what’s a tsundoku of just 15 books after all. Anyway, I just so happened to visit the Bookwalker site which I don’t check every few hours, as I honestly answered in the poll, and lo and behold, four books are on sale at 70% their regular price, and while the first two are out of the question for me because their covers are just too light-novelly, the other two are intriguing. Actually, I already had my eye on the last one, ユートロニカのこちら側, which is a dystopia written by the latest Naoki prize winner, 小川哲. And the other one, 人間たちの話, is a collection of SF short stories that seem to be mostly absurd and humorous, with strong scientific basis and emphasis on the human factor. I think I’m sold. :thinking:

21 Likes

Yeah I’m already there.

5 Likes

:bookmark: Home post // Jan 26 :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake:

・ 封印再度 (63% → 71%)

Went to sleep early last night, ended up reading a bit. Almost done with chapter 7 now.

20 Likes

Ooooh, wanted to read something by him anyways :joy_cat: but his winning book is a bit pricey still, so this comes at the perfect time :+1:

Also I guess @Myria might be interested in the author and the topic? :wink:

9 Likes

Compulsive readers book club? :wink:

7 Likes

Sounds like, eh? :joy_cat:

But I won’t be able to start straight away, need to squeeze in another volume of Flesh&Blood first :innocent:
So, in two weeks would be good for me, but of course the club can start earlier and I’ll try to catch up :+1:

6 Likes

I won’t ruin anything but the book changes radically (in good way in my opinion) by the end of the first chapter and it also doesn’t stay in a school setting (also a good thing imo). I really, really liked the second section but ultimately the book was just super stressful for me to read at the time so I put it on pause. Plan to resume it eventually.

9 Likes

January 24-25 :heavy_check_mark: :tumbler_glass:

チュベローズで待ってる AGE32 , 63-88%

January 26 :heavy_check_mark: :tumbler_glass::dancer:

チュベローズで待ってる AGE32 , 88% - finished

おばちゃんたちのいるところ , 78-83%

So the last few days I devoted to getting チュベローズで待ってる out of the way finishing チュベローズで待ってる. The second volume was…well, all over the place. I did enjoy the last bit, but in a trashy entertainment sort of way. It almost felt like a relay novel, with the second volume being written by a different author who wanted to have fun twisting everything the first one had started.

Today I also read the first of this week’s stories from the Wild Ladies. I left it for late this week, but if I read the second one tomorrow I can still be (barely) within schedule.

Great, I’ll make a thread soon, probably tomorrow. I’m not sure when I’ll start reading either.

Okay, now I’m intrigued (as long as you’re talking about the book itself and not something in your own life that caused you stress). Could you tell us more?

23 Likes

I touched on this a bit before I think when recommending the book to you, but the driving force of the book is making you feel uncomfortable. Like a sympathetic discomfort for the characters. And for me some of it hit too close to home while I was dealing with real life stress and so I decided to retreat to junkier reading :sweat_smile: What I did finish was interesting though. I remember asking my tutor several cultural questions to understand which character actions were “normal” and which ones weren’t (she had also read the book).

It does have a supernatural element though, which thinking now I believe isn’t your favorite.

11 Likes

Yes, on the surface it has elements that I generally avoid, mainly school-age protagonists and a supernatural element. But none of these bother me if handled well. And while the beginning described by @Myria sounds like something I’d better avoid, your description makes it sound like something I’d like. Feeling uncomfortable in particular is something I’m always looking for in fiction (and never in real life, but it can’t be totally avoided). So we’re sure it’s not for a younger audience then? :eyes:

11 Likes

Day 25
I passed my japanese test which was the lower intermediate one from japanesepod101. They still have two more tests a upper intermediate one and an advance one. It is a first step towards the JLPT.

I continued reading Tsugumomo vol.2 the girls are so silly. That was funny Kukuri lost the fight against the protagonist and ended up naked. Your own fault for wanting to fight.

Also read some Kindaichi Shounen vol.1 but only a little bit. Nothing really happened just character introductions.

2058 pages read 17942 to go

18 Likes

:snowflake: :red_gift_envelope: 1月26日 :red_gift_envelope: :snowflake: (Home Post Link)

Read:

  • ホリミヤ ch 94
  • 夜カフェ pg 29 → 35, finished ch 2
  • 月の光 4800 → 9800 done! - finished up the story. Cute little vn, kinda sappy and cheesy (in an endearing way) music was solid, I liked the art a lot. nothing really… happens? at least at a surface level. Which I think is probably why it’s rated pretty low on vndb. There’s a lot that’s left unsaid but is clearly implied, but it’s two kids who recently graduated high school and have no experience with love/romance beating around the bush trying to find a way to communicate their feelings for each other. Kinda expect that it’s gonna be clumsy, indirect, and full of missed opportunities. It ends with a 希望の光 though, which was nice :blush:
Good Words

ホリミヤ
塩のみ「しおのみ」ー nothing but salt (ingredients, lit. equivalent of だけ)
具「ぐ」ー ingredients (new meaning for me)

I used to make these by opening jisho tabs for all the words i looked up in a text but now all my words go straight to anki instead, so maybe I switch to just picking a few ones that are really good words lmao

22 Likes

Don’t wanna ruin @Myrias fun, so spoilering but it’s not really spoiling technically:

After the first section with the high school, the second section deals with a woman in her 30s navigating both having a career and being a mother. After that section, the section I stopped on is about workplace harassment.

So I definitely don’t think it’s aimed at a young age bracket.

11 Likes

Finished Subchapter 2. I tried to speed read a little bit because my thoughts were racing faster than my reading so I thought if I tried reading faster I wouldn’t lose focus as easily. It worked out better than I thought, but I would try to jump to conclusions but luckily they cleared things up about certain interactions later so I wasn’t as lost in the end. Still got everything that happened.

Also read a chapter of 推しの子 and that manga is really fun. I can’t wait for the adaptation!

17 Likes