i got back to galileo! the natively level on 1122 might be a bit low, i think. the text itself is mostly fairly straightforward moment to moment but it’s very naturalistic and there’s lots of stuff that goes implied. ghostwire tokyo continues to throw the most random collection of words at me. 放物?? really??
today’s random article was this one on the upcoming professor layton game (from way back when they announced it in 2023). weirdly my first time seeing the jp logo and it’s cute that they made 蒸気 look like a steam train.
阿呆なんや
This book is almost definitely the easiest thing I’ve ever read adjusted for current level so obviously I had to binge it and finish
Still not as good as the first one but it was a lot shorter
I can’t get a hold of that which I wanted to read, not sure when exactly I’ll be able to since it seems to be a case of ‘sit and wait for that rare opportunity when it pops up somewhere at a good price’ kind of thing, and I didn’t want to keep waiting and end up missing another challenge soooo… going to read 地獄変 (Hell Screen) by 芥川 龍之介 (Akutagawa Ryūnosuke) instead. Will see how long that takes me and go from there.
October 9th
地獄変… 初め！
Wild ゐ found!
There’s mention of 大威徳明王 or Yamantaka / Vajrabhairava, a Buddhist deity ‘the destroyer of death’, but the furigana is given as だいゐとくみやうおう instead.
And the use of this thing: ゝ
And the use of this thing too: ／＼
Had to look these up.
ゝ is for repeating hiragana, reading about it it reminds me that I have seen this one before, I just completely forgot about it
These days it’s only really found in names, it’s most common modern usage is probably by the Isuzu automobile company (いすゞ自動車株式会社)
The ／＼ or 〱is used to repeat the word right in front of it - it has its own name too! - くの字点.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read something old, it’s going to take awhile to try and get my head around all these old-ities.
Now bought Vol.1-3 with 40% off coupon, and still with doubt for the future. (Also, still, money.) (Also, I bought too early for 40% coinback for over 1500.)
I’ll give this a try but sometimes I like to read as the last thing I do before going to bed so I’m just going to post about the day before instead of the current one to make things easier. Recently I’ve been in a manga reading mood but I don’t have a lot of money currently so I’ve been trying out various manga apps that have differing amounts of free content available (I do also have some manga I own already that I’ll get around to eventually, but for now I felt like trying something new).
To that end
2025/10/08
One chapter of Dandadan (each chapter can be read for free once in the official ジャンプ+ app)
One chapter of the Nijisanji manga (I don’t watch them at all but the manga is free in the マンガワン app and at least I know the names of a few of them, mostly because of @Redglare)
Finished chapter 1. Heh, the character started cooking and then I got the urge to bake brownies. I can’t remember last time I made brownies, you could say I never bake. I happened to buy brownie powder mix yesterday. Got cravings recently Perfect timing now.
Fun fact: It’s possible to do this.
Random
tetris
block
Thanks! I wonder how many of those days I’ve actually read.
I read a few chapters of My Love Sstory once again today, almost finished the weekly reading (I am trying to go slow to get as much grammar as possible).
The will to read is a bit struggling though, for no particular reason since starting this challenge I am actually reading much less lol (I think because I see it a bit as an “obligation” ?)
I will work on this mindset but also on my schedule, as I keep starting to read so so late, which is not helping, and will get back with results! If anyone can relate, feel free to share.
I think alternating intensive reading with ewww grammar work, and light and fast reading ハピネス might help as well
I can relate to having issues with putting off reading until much late to the point it affects sleeping hours.
For me the cause varies:
I used to dread the task of sitting down to read (because reading was difficult?).
a) I don’t feel dread anymore, but when I’m not feeling motivated to read, usually it happens when I’m not enjoying any of the books I’m reading (just drop the book then, even if you bought a whole series and it’s just the second book, find something else) or I’m struggling to find something I want to read. Those are reading slumps.
Consuming too much other (social) media like youtube, forum, i.e. not making time for reading, letting myself be distracted from what I really want to do. Put away phone, close distracting tabs, find your zone of uninterupted focus.
This ties into the previous point: Having other tasks being more fun than reading. What I try to do then, prioritize getting reading done before I allow myself doing other (more) fun stuff.
Stress and/or fatigue. Just go to sleep, hopefully you’ll have more energy the next day. Eat well on a regular basis, getting proper nourishment helps with energy level. If you’re not very active, exercising helps too.
(As an optometrist: Make sure your (reading) glasses have the right prescription As a nearsighted person, sometimes I find it less straining to read on my phone without glasses.)
How to improve motivation for reading depends on what’s hindering you from reading. Not to say it’s easy and straight-forward, nor that this list is exhaustive – these are just some observations I’ve made from my own reading (slump) experience.
Edit:
Sounds like reading is starting to feel like a chore? Maybe this isn’t relevant, but you don’t have to post every day – some people post weekly or whenever they can/want to – some people just update their homeposts. Sometimes I read more in bed after I’ve posted and I just carry it over to the next update without necessarily mentioning it.
little bits of everything. haven’t decided on a next english read so i’ll edit that in later. should probably be mort (terry pratchett) considering that’s been on my physical tbr since like 2021… edit: i in fact read two-thirds of the critical role vox machina origins comic cos that’s been on my tbr for even longer
no, i use an adblocker but that’s about it. i thought it might be that i was accessing them from an old link so went in and checked a random selection of other (new) articles and they all loaded fine. there’s a pop-up that comes up saying ‘parts of the site may not work outside japan…’ etc. but clicking ‘proceed’ there doesn’t cause any issues for me well, except videos
饿殍：明末千里行 
– end Ch.
Home post
Perfect timing now.
is it blocking you from the site entirely?