Read about half a short story last night, since I went to bed late and I also wasn’t sure what novel I wanted to read next. (I’m trying to not start new series… Which is hard because my preferred genres tend to be a lot of series, but I want to finish books I already own.) I read the rest of that short story today.
I also read about two scenes of BU$TAFELLOWS. While I’d love to say I will read more after dinner, I think that is unlikely. It is very entertaining, and I felt like more of it went smoothly, although there were patches of extra hard sentences (read super lookup heavy).
I’m also finding a lot of vocabulary is shared between Loopers and BU$TAFELLOWS despite them being fairly different. The amount I’ve read of Loopers are more slice of life stuff with some sprinklings of other things, while Bustafellows is more mystery so far. So my theory that there is general vocabulary shared between many (if not all) VNs that are different from say manga and such, seems to hold out. Although I haven’t really read mystery manga.
Anyone know of any crime/mystery, like police detective, manga? (I have crime/mystery novel recommendations so was wondering about manga specifically.) Outside Conan, I guess. (I’ll be honest and say I have zero interest in reading Conan, I’m sure it is good. But the whole thing about Conan being a teenage boy changed into a kid just makes it sound annoying to me. If he’d still been a teen, I would have totally tried it.) I was thinking like crime TV shows (CSI, NCIS) and police procedural crime novels.
I know of Death Note which would fit that in some respects. I haven’t read the whole manga, nor watched the whole anime, so I can’t say exactly how well it fits what I’m looking for. (Although I’m not necessarily looking for crime/mystery manga with supernatural elements. It is okay if they are there, but I’m perhaps more looking for ones without.)
Casually resuming my updates, I don’t even remember at this point what I did and when . Will try to post actively again now that I’m a bit more relaxed and hopefully rebuild some consistency.
Read 9-nine-'s content for the club’s Week 5.
I’m encountering a fair amount of vocabulary I got from Loopers and うたわれるもの in 9-nine-, I guess each medium/genre/whatever has its own characteristic language as a whole. That’s also the reason I suffer whenever I pick up an article or a book, been focusing on games for too long and I feel that I need to broaden my horizons a bit. I spiritually die at the sight of a Wikipedia article .
Not exactly police procedural, but you might want to have a look at ミステリと言う勿れ. I haven’t read the manga (but I’ve heard good things about it), but I’ve watched the show. The main character is a very observant student who just wants to mind his own business, but he ends up solving mysteries left and right, almost against his will. There is a lot of police presence, at least in the drama, but as you can imagine they aren’t usually as capable in solving crimes as the protagonist…
Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report Yesterday: Resumed reading Aria volume 3 from chapter 24 (page 110) and read up to page 115. Today: Continued up to page 128.
Nice to see a tiny bit of backstory which explained why Aika decided to become an Undine. On another note, Alicia is indeed invincible when it comes to provocations, complaints etc. as she will literally laugh it off – or ‘ara-ara it off’.
In today’s story we experience the assault of the undead horde on the castle walls. The elf from last time appears ans uses an arrow to make a vulcano errupt, killing the army instantly… talk about OP characters.
In the next story we are celebrating the victory. The travelers from before are contributing the music and entertainment.
Second to last story we are in the green frog hotel and explore the room of a magic user staying there. There are some animated / interactive pictures here!
In the last story we go to the house of the evil wizard. We’re exploring it for treasure like a choose-your-own adventure; with clicky parts!
And that’s all for the DrDru stories. At least the ones not under construction. Tomorrow I’ll deliberate over whether I’ll start with the Tile World Chronicles or do some Tadoku books.
Spent the morning reading for a bit. Finished chapter 8, now there are just two chapters/weeks left.
What to read after that? I’m thinking Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 3 or maybe Eugenia. I’m also planning on joining この本を盗む者は book club, but I’m terrible at pacing myself. Maybe it’s better if I stay behind schedule and catch up after I’m done with whatever book I’ll be reading in the meantime.
Day 27
Started the next volume of Tsugumomo and continued reading Kindaichi Shounen vol1.
Is it just me or does the story telling in Kindaichi Shounen kind of resemble the one in Detective Conan? The main character is put into some kind of situation, all characters are introduced and a murder happens. Or maybe all of mystery novels are told like that.
Finished chapter 26 of チュベローズで待ってる AGE32… Just looking at my last update on here - I didn’t realize its already been five days since I’ve started it I’m not even that ill anymore… And the chapters really aren’t that long… I’m just not enjoying the book at all. Perhaps it’s time to quit and move on before I stop reading altogether.
I’m undecided as for what to read next, but there is a couple of books that I’ve been perusing, and I very much miss reading 海辺のカフカ. We’ll see.
It gets kinda more interesting further down, but it’s also very very crazy in a way that most of us didn’t like, to phrase this carefully
I didn’t enjoy the second volume either and considered dropping it a few times… so my apologies for having roped you into this
There’s also a small group reading 1Q84 - we’re currently almost about to start Book 1 Part 2, and it will probably be another week or two before we fully embark on it, so I guess you could catch up to us by then if you like.
Today I read a chapter of Mitsuboshi Colors, and a chapter of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun.
I’ve caught up to the start of this weeks reading of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun now, so I should be back on track as long as this week isn’t too hectic for me - but I’m definitely maxed out how many book clubs I can handle!
I think Shibatora is one. At least, I remember that the main character was a police officer. There was even a drama. However, the main concept was that Shibata, the MC looked like a kid so he could go undercover as a student and solve crimes that way. So I don’t know if you’d like it.
I recommend giving the first volume a try just to see what it’s like. The volume contains three full cases, so there’s no mid-case cliffhanger at the end of the volume.
The main aspect you get with Conan being a kid (while still having the intellect of an adult) is that adults won’t give him the time of day on the clues he finds. This gives the reader a chance to piece together the clues Conan notices along the way, before his reveal at the end.
That said, if you’re not interested then there’s no reason to check it, considering you could get sucked into reading a series that’s over 100 volumes long!
Lately, I’ve been watching the American television series Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996). It also uses this format.
Day 27: January 27th
What did I read?: おでかけ子ザメ2
How much did I read?: 29 pages
How long did it take me?: didn’t time
I still didn’t have any bright ideas for what to read next yesterday, so I finished off tiny shark instead of trying something new I’m obsessed with this page full of sea puns, it’s so cute and I understood it Whatever this show is, I love it
Day 28: January 28th
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ
How much did I read?: 5 pages
How long did it take me?: 32 minutes
Does anyone else remember when this was like…super popular for a hot second I bought the light novel back then and just never read it. It was a highly aspirational buy at the time lol, it was definitely above my level and way too long for me to try and tackle by myself. This was like…literally 2018, holy fork In any case, what possessed me to pick it up now, I do not know, but I like the little penguins running around in the page breaks and I’m pleasantly surprised by how easy a read it feels. …The fact that I have the furigana version helps, but still. The grammar is like…easily comprehensible most of the time, it feels like I’m reading rather than slogging which is something I’m not accustomed to with novels. So far it’s mostly been the main kid talking about his town and becoming super えらい, I look forward to the appearance of the penguins lmao
Cool expression I learned today: 百聞は一見にしかず - seeing is believing; one eye-witness is better than many hearsays; a picture is worth a thousand words
Again not a super major reading day, I think my weekends being unintentionally busier than my weekdays is really throwing me off Hopefully that settles down soon, but I did play some Genshin Impact for the sake of it anyway. Finally actually met Venti which was fun, one of the few characters I have any prior concept of haha. But oh boy does him being a bard do some interesting language things, especially in the actual narrative cutscenes, oof.
It’s been a while since I actually read it since I got distracted by other things (who could imagine ), but I really enjoyed what I read of 囚獄のヴァニタス! From what I remember it’s like episodic mystery stuff with an overarching plot as you do, definitely some supernatural elements but unclear exactly how at the point I got to? It sounds like the sort of thing you’re looking for though, main character is a detective guy, other ~mysterious~ characters and dynamics, pretty boys cool aesthetics, all the important things
I was pretty tired today and brain wasn’t functioning very well, so just a lil read today (these chs are like 15 pages long now) and then rewatched some episodes of 小林さんちのマイドラゴン with jp subs to relax a bit.
Read:
ホリミヤ 98, 99, 100, volume 13 done! - there was a chapter about オマケ but no オマケ in the volume. 3 more volumes to go, really closing in on the end here… slowly but surely.
I have mostly been reading through people’s posts in the morning in a daze before getting out of bed/having some coffee, so I apparently glazed over some stuff
January 28th
What did I read?: 魔女と猫の話
How much did I read?: 3 pages
(Continued 2nd Story )
How long did it take me?: 31 min
Today I noticed that the cat in this particular story speaks only in hiragana. Which is why I spent several minutes staring at a single sentence, before I could figure out what on earth I was looking at.
I finished the reading for 七回死んだ男 and might read a smidge more of この本を盗むものは before bed. Pretty tired though so we’ll see.
You lasted longer than me. I got 3 chapters in, saw the others’ reviews and noped out. First book was a delight, second book…who knows what happened.
I read the first few volumes and it is fun and the shows follows it pretty closely, but I stopped on one very drawn out plotline (that the TV didn’t get to) and I just kind of got bored and haven’t resumed it. I wanna say it was about a family curse or something? Obviously not a real curse (not a fantasy series) but you know, people thinking they’re cursed.
I thought the manga adaptation of 十角館の殺人 was a fun read! I don’t read much manga, but some dramas I watch are based on them. Here are the mangas of some shows I’ve liked: 掟上今日子の備忘録 - super smart woman whose memory resets every time she sleeps solves tricky cases within time limits 金田一少年の事件簿 - there’s a billion tv adaptations of this and seemingly a billion manga versions as well. 心霊探偵八雲 - I read the novel version of this (which I think came first?) and enjoyed it. It’s a college student who can see ghosts solving crimes
I actually can’t think of any true police procedural manga It’s all 名探偵 type stuff. Googling a bit is ハコヅメ which was made into a show. I wanted to like it for the lesbian vibes (so rare in Japanese tv dramas!) but it just bored me. Maybe the manga is better. There’s a ranking of police manga here but that was the only one on the list I recognized.
Thank you so much for your daily summaries that was very fun and interesting to read
You’ve made me realise I need to update the site index. Part 5 has actually been proofread a month ago !
The Tile World Chronicles stories are much harder. It’s going to be a very big leap/ If you want to give it a try I’d recommend starting with Aryn’s rescue as it’s the easiest one.
January 28 
If he’d still been a teen, I would have totally tried it.) I was thinking like crime TV shows (CSI, NCIS) and police procedural crime novels.
. Will try to post actively again now that I’m a bit more relaxed and hopefully rebuild some consistency.
I’m not even that ill anymore… And the chapters really aren’t that long… I’m just not enjoying the book at all. Perhaps it’s time to quit and move on before I stop reading altogether.
１月２８日 
Which is why I spent several minutes staring at a single sentence, before I could figure out what on earth I was looking at.
It’s all 名探偵 type stuff. Googling a bit is 