Eutronia is coming strong, and I like it! At 36% right now.
この本を盗む者は - this is a bit too crazy for my taste. It feels outright boring because it’s so unpredictable that I feel I cannot even expect anything, so the whole tension of reading the story is gone. I keep telling myself I should at least make it through the first chapter and see what the second chapter is like, but … uuuhhh…
世界から猫が消えたなら - Sauna day again! This time in another town and with (Japanese) friends, which was great fun. And they liked it, yeah Regarding the book, it’s super-sweet and funny and sometimes a bit ridiculous and sometimes deep, which makes for an excellent mix! Plus, it’s super easy to read for me (I’m guessing there is maybe one unknown word per page on average, which feels amazing.), so 5/5 will definitely buy again. (Luckily I have another book by the same author, so I will not run out of sauna material fast, I guess.)
Infinite Jest: I don’t read much of it each day, but it’s very intriguing. The second chapter has nothing to do with the first one, and I’m very curious to see where this will eventually lead to.
Plans for this week:
Continue Eutronia
Read 誓い, one of the Flesh&Blood side stories (but written by the original author). This one gives us deep insights into one of the characters that we haven’t gotten from the main series yet, so it’s cool stuff.
Oh, 1Q84! I guess my reading companions will soon have caught up to me, so I will tend to that book as well in between.
And mebbeee I can read a bit further in この本を盗む者は?
Infinite Jest will also be on the stack again.
Overall stat (as of Sunday): 1310 pages read, 8690 to go!
20/02/23: 1Q84 Book 1 前編 (a page)
21/02/23: 1Q84 Book 1 前編 (84 - 91%)
22/02/23: 1Q84 Book 1 前編 (91 - 100%)
I’ve been a little busy these past few days, but I’ve managed to finally finish 1Q84 Book 1 前編!!! Aaaa! There goes my second Japanese book. Or at least half of it Anyways, now it’s time to dive into Book 1 後編 - I believe I still have some catching up to do. Hope the second half is as good as the first because I’ve been enjoying this a lot :333
Technically spoilers, but only of stuff that’s written in the back-of-the-book-blurb:
The plot of the book is that due to a ‘book curse’ on her family’s library the protagonist gets dragged into adventures where her home town has been magically transformed into an alternate universe that is basically a pastiche of a book genre; each chapter is a different genre.
Ah, that makes sense! I plan to read this book after I’ve finished my current one, so being aware of that is going to be helpful Thanks for explaining!
The last couple of days I finished another chapter of ユートロニカ, which was my favourite so far. And then today I resumed 半落ち after what felt like ages. Reading went slowly, but it was once more a rather unfocused day (I can’t wait for this stupid month to be over). It looks to be another interesting chapter and I can’t wait to read on tomorrow.
Yes, maybe. On the other hand, it really feels like an authentic Japanese story of old, so there’s that. It probably just happens to not match my taste right now.
Also, I was expecting the next chapter to be based on a different book with a different genre, but I’m still wondering whether I can make it to that point
Happy to hear that you like it as I’m the person who roped you into this endeavor
Day 52
I finished the third volume Kindaichi Shounen. Even though I didn’t like the setting this time the conclusion was not over the top like in the first two cases. I prefer this a little bit more realistic style. Continued reading Tsugumomo which is not that fun I already read I think up to volume 23 in english so I already know
what happens next.
Furthermore I played the japanese beach volleyball game I have. It’s fun but I’m pretty bad at it.
Today I read chapter 57 of Shadow’s House. I struggled a bit with this one, but I was falling asleep a bit as I read so thats probably why!
I’ll skim through the chapter again tomorrow before starting on chapter 58 just to make sure I’m confident I understood everything that happened!
I read the MP100 DJ あねのはなし。About my sister. about Reigen and his sister on pixiv. It was pretty cute. If I have the chance to get the physical version (not too expensively), then I will.
I read 4 pages of この本を盗む者は, leaving off on pg 39. I’m thinking my suspicion that Mashiro is the kitsune whom Tamaki is rumored to have summoned/hired/whatever to guard the books in Mikurakan might be correct. Anyway, I dunno if I’m in the minority or not, but I’m really liking this book so far. This is more my brand of weird than おばちゃんたち lol. I just haven’t really had the spoons lately to read much by way of novels or even manga. MTaP is easier because there’s less time reading than not, and when I do have to read, it’s usually only in small chunks and at least somewhat spread out. Even though yesterday I suddenly got a bunch of quests right after another…
As usual these days, I also played some きみのまち ポルティア.
This chapter reminded me of the song Free Falling which til is by Tom Petty. Funky because Araki sensei liked Tom Petty enough to name a Part 1 character after him. Further funkiness is that the song seems to have come out in the same year as this volume was released… It might be that the timing is just off, or that Araki was one of the first people to get and listen to this album and then indirectly reference it in his work. I wouldn’t rule it out since a later character’s ability is called Gold Experience after Prince’s The Gold Experience and they also both came out the same year. JoJo casually hitting me with the music history without actually trying to.
Since the 3ds store is going offline soon, I figured I’d dig out my 3ds and see if there was any stuff on the store that I might be interested in getting for japanese learning. Unfortunately, I forgot that 3ds is region locked so cant play/download any japanese games normally. So, like any normal and sane human being, I spent the next 3-4 hours “de-nintendoifying” my 3ds to play out of region stuff. Not a particularly difficult process, but it is fairly involved, and also time consuming since my sd card adapter has a pretty slow transfer speed.
Then I was on a roll, so I finally replaced the screen digitizer in that japanese ds lite I got last month, replaced the caps on my gamecube controller analog sticks, moved some of my japanese gamecube games I was playing on dolphin to a physical drive so I can play them on my wii, just a ton of game related qol stuff. I’m like a little squirrel hiding away nuts for the winter, but will forget where 90% of them are and will never touch them again. The process itself is kinda fun so I don’t mind too much I just love tinkering with things
Read:
ポケットモンスター オメガルビー idk if you can call this reading, but I played up to where you can pick a starter and have been soft resetting to get an 色違いキモリ. Alpha sapphire was a game I played all the way through when I was learning french, so maybe, against all odds, I can actually focus enough to finish a game I start in japanese
三ツ星カラーズ ch 20
Word of the Day:
避ける 「よける」ー to avoid (physical contact with)
A bit of an interesting one today; for birthday shenanigans I went to an arcade which had bunch of rhythm games, including some which were completely in Japanese that I was able to use pretty confidently! So that was cool, always a good feeling but now I am very tired and I must sleep
I read this week’s この本を盗む者は and I liked it a lot! Unfortunately it seems like I am the only person really digging it. I just like fun silly books about kids who like (or are going to learn to like) books I guess I wonder if this means everyone would likewise dislike 本を守ろうとする猫 as the vibe of that book was quite similar, although I don’t think the vocab stretched quite as wide.
Hard relate. I’ve done this with so many things on my laptops. I hate getting new computers because I have to remember how I set up various key bindings and oh right I downloaded specifically this version of something because it was the last one compatible with some other random thing I was playing with. And so on.
I think it would depend; I wouldn’t go as far as saying I dislike この本を盗む者は, so much as that the structure seems to mean that a lot of each chapter is basically zero-stakes no-plot-development no-worldbuilding – they go into the book world, wander around it having encounters that are meaningless outside the book world, and then when they find the stolen book everything resets. So I’m interested in who the thief might be, whether the shrine is involved, where this book curse came from, who and what Mashiro is, and the book is giving me basically none of that. I’m not much interested in pastiches of $genre, because I’d rather go read the actual genre which does it better and with actual stakes involved. Chapter two might end better, though…
(Mild spoilers up to middle of chapter 2.)
I finished Week 2 of ABC’s この本を盗む者は at last, which is also the end of the free sample and I’m really considering dropping it. I’ve kinda enjoyed it but it hasn’t really captured me and (mild chapter 1 spoilers I guess) it feels like the whole issue was resolved in this chapter, which I guess not really but I’m not sure I’m down for something episodic like that where things are just reset every time. I’m also busy with other things that I enjoy more and this books seems to be more expensive than average for some reason? Ugh, I really hate leaving things unfinished but I think the best choice for me right now is to leave it here for now and maybe consider picking it back up if reviews are good when I don’t have so many things going on. And maybe I should learn to leave things unfinished anyway.
On another topic, I played BU$TAFELLOWS ~1.5h and I’m really enjoying it, wild stuff left and right. I had to force myself to stop and go to bed after a crazy development because I knew if I continued I’d never sleep.
As a physical book, it’s more expensive because it’s hardback – the paperback edition hasn’t been published yet. Maybe ebook pricing tends to track with paper prices for newer books too?
Regarding the book, it’s super-sweet and funny and sometimes a bit ridiculous and sometimes deep, which makes for an excellent mix! Plus, it’s super easy to read for me (I’m guessing there is maybe one unknown word per page on average, which feels amazing.), so 5/5 will definitely buy again. (Luckily I have another book by the same author, so I will not run out of sauna material fast, I guess.)
The plot thickens 
Anyways, now it’s time to dive into Book 1 後編 - I believe I still have some catching up to do. Hope the second half is as good as the first because I’ve been enjoying this a lot :333
Sounds very out of context to me, I’m clearly missing out on something.
Thanks for explaining!
It probably just happens to not match my taste right now.
２月２２日 
I just love tinkering with things
