I think Seasons was about snow, specifically how poetically pretty clear snow against a clear blue sky contrasts. I forgot the words for it
Conbini was trash to the end. It was very mid as far as spice quality goes. I almost want to send the feedback card in detailing what I thought was bad, but then it might affect the mangaka… I’d rather just convince editors to let artists make what they want rather than push certain tropes and points, but then there’s the risk that the artist actually wanted to make this this way…
Another chapter of ダンジョン飯２, up to date with the anime. Not sure if will read ahead or just keep pace/catch up with the anime going forward, but it seems a much more manageable pace than trying to completely read it, because it is by far the toughest read I’ve had to date (though frustratingly I can’t count it for a Natively bingo square).
More ダンジョン飯 scanning, up to vol 8 now with no signs of slowing. This absolutely overloads my brain but I have to know what happens next… god I need a sale so I can afford the eng versions lol.
I read 8 Level N5 articles on Watanoc and 8 pages of Crystal Hunters. It’s up for nomination in the Absolute Beginners Book Club, and I couldn’t wait once I read a bit.
Progress:
Suzuki and Sakura’s Long Distance Relationship → Episodes 1 - 7
ルリドラゴン → Week 1 of ABBC
Spanish Short Stories for Beginners Volume 2 → Short story 4 titled “Historias de Guerra”
I moved on to another series on Satorireader, which I’m finding way less challenging than 聞き耳のラジオ because of its length. I’m afraid I’ll get used to how short the episodes are. I thought I was gonna stick exclusively to reading Ruri Dragon but I’m using a physical copy and not having instant look ups is limiting. So I’m only doing that when I actually have time to sit down with my laptop so I can go through the vocab and grammar list on the ABBC. I’m also continuing to read at least one short story from Spanish for beginners book!
On a different note, I learned a new word in English from my Satorireader series: lascivious which according to Google/Oxford Languages means feeling or revealing an overt and often offensive sexual desire. That was kind of a surprise…
Words of interest which may contain spoilers
旅行代理店 - travel agency
行動力 - ability to take action, energy, dynamism
航空券 - plane ticket
ぼったくる - to get ripped off
売り切れる - to be sold out
～てちゃう equal to ～てしまう meaning to do by accident / to finish
Caught back up with the ABBC and finding the short chapter format of Shikimori really nice to just pick up and read for 15-20 mins a day.
I’ve had a hard time with Anki this week - lots of vocab coming back from earlier in the month now that I just stare at and nothing comes to me at all. I think part of the problem is I only created Japanese->English cards, so I was never testing free recall of the words. I’m going to add English->Japanese and see if this helps with overall retention.
Also, because my focus had been on vocab mining, I think my actual reading time per day has been quite low for most days, so I’m starting to track it now for more accountability. I’m going to help increase it by roughly splitting my time like so:
25% - new content where I look up the majority of words (this is pretty much the only thing I was doing previously and I think it was burning me out)
25% - new content where I will look up 1 or 2 words max
50% - re-reading of familiar content, to help build up my speed and also to reinforce vocab and grammar that I’ve already learnt.
I will give this a go for a few weeks and see if I can see any improvements
So, today I started reading and translating the first two chapter of Aryn’s rescue, and it was great fun! Not too hard, but still challenging for me! I’d say, everything went pretty well today
Today I read 2 episodes of Akiko, a chapter of 小さな森のオオカミちゃん and the rest of this week’s ふしぎ駄菓子屋 lookups for the book club. I spent some time exploring podcasts in Japanese too. Daily life stuff like the 4989 American life is understandable which is really cool! But a short story podcast I’m more interested in is still just out of reach, but I’m getting there
I’ve read a bit of Alice 19th, but the bite sized portion I had time for in 20 minutes felt rather unsatisfying. Probably because I stumbled on a few panels that I could probably term the hardest so far in the manga. So looking up a lot of words and still not feeling like I really got the point one character was making. I think I need to dig up the volume 2 in English and sit down and compare the translation to the Japanese until I can start untangling all the little bits I’m vague on so I can understand what the Japanese is doing.
The sentences perfectly managed to include all the little gritty details in grammar, particles and such that I kinda know, but when you throw them all together I can’t figure out how to put together the blocks of the sentence, so I feel like I have all the puzzle pieces, I kinda know what they mean, but I can’t for the life of me put them together to show a clear picture. Only a vague one I know I’m as likely to have gotten backwards or completely wrong, actually probably more likely wrong (in some way) than right.
Tired of having an empty bingo board, and because I’m only counting orange+ level stuff, I can’t even check off my “volume in one day” from reading one yesterday I could count today as my volume in one day, but I think I’ll use this for “workplace setting” instead.
Read:
ヲタクに恋は難しい volume 1 - much much slower to read than やがて君になる I’ll admit there were some panels that I really just gave up on; there’s quite a bit of net slang and references to stuff I only partially caught. The scan quality on my edition is pretty bad too, which makes looking up some of the dense kanji a challenge, and reading the rare furigana sometimes actually impossible. Still a cute series, I think I maybe like the pacing of the anime better in this opening part.
how many pixels do you like in your “furigana”? たろう
Have some social plans later so wanted to get my reading in earlier today
So today I Little Army volume 2, and for the first time, all of it. Partly motivated by the desire to check that box off on the Natively bingo which I joined recently, and partly because volume 1 ended in a very unsatisfactory cliffhanger. However, since Natively bingo has a one book = one bingo rule, I might end up using it for the “in TBR pile the longest”, since the next longest after this one is Made In Abyss volume 1 which is a lot higher on Natively level (Granted at this point Little Army is graded solely by me on Natively). I’ll probably go read Happiness volume 1 for the “in one day” challenge, especially since I’ve been recommending it to all the first book readers based on other people’s experiences so far.
As for the book, well… Content wise Girls Und Panzer has always been a bit “the power of teamwork prevails” in its plot, and this is no different. But I think it’s lacking compared to the anime tbh. The main series has a wide and interesting cast, while this has basically two characters of any depth. And there is a tank fight in volume 2 but it’s honestly pretty short and basic. There are other Girls Und Panzer manga as I understood it, but those are higher level.
Language wise, apart from the tank battle chapter, it’s been pretty managable, as it’s honestly mostly focused on problems between school friends and family. The tank battle chapter had a lot of tank related vocab which you probably don’t know. Like volume 1 is there alongside Horimiya and Shikimori in difficulty, but I think the tank battle chapter makes volume 2 meaningfully more difficult.
Nice and smooth reading. I can guess a lot of things I don’t know and I spot some grammar points I’ve worked on along the way, so it makes me feel my work is paying off.
・サイレント・ウイッチ V (86% → 100%)
・サイレント・ウイッチ VI (0% → 3%)
Percentages get messed up when they add 50 pages long previews of completely irrelevant stories which have nothing to do with the book I’m reading. Mukatsuku At least I’m glad I downloaded the next book so I could continue reading on the train.
奥日光 episodes 46-62 (finished) Regarding Satori Reader, I’m having some new, conflicting thoughts; I’ll have to spend tonight considering them, and then I’ll post my decision tomorrow in my study log.
Started また、同じ夢を見ていた with the Natively LN book club. Tough going so far timewise, but it’s okay.
Scanned another two volumes of Dungeon Meshi and realised I randomly had volume 6 in Eng on my shelf (despite otherwise only having vol 1 and 2…?) so might go over it again in parallel. Or just keep scanning Dungeon Meshi volumes idk.
１日２７月 
I could count today as my volume in one day, but I think I’ll use this for “workplace setting” instead.
I’ll admit there were some panels that I really just gave up on; there’s quite a bit of net slang and references to stuff I only partially caught. The scan quality on my edition is pretty bad too, which makes looking up some of the dense kanji a challenge, and reading the rare furigana sometimes actually impossible. Still a cute series, I think I maybe like the pacing of the anime better in this opening part.
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ガルパン：リトルアーミー２
Manga
Chapter 5-8
152 pages
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Sakura and Suzuki on Satori Reader, ep. 10 to 13.
At least I’m glad I downloaded the next book so I could continue reading on the train.