4月25日(土)
夜が明けたら、いちばんに君に会いにいく 110/283
Hello everyone, been reading every day and really enjoying it, really happy to be participating in this challenge which is definitely a part of my motivation to continue reading everyday.
I’ve been continuing onward with a variety of Tadoku readers (for art-history oriented readers, I really loved this one!! Wish I could find more like it). I also finished よつばと! 4 and will be starting the fifth volume.
This week I did have some challenges getting through a Sakura Tadoku reader, 大晦日の小さな事件. I couldn’t figure out what was going on during the story’s denouement : it involved a friendly meeting of former samurai that suddenly turned serious when a gold coin went missing, and then suddenly one samurai was like, well, guess I’ll commit seppuku, and i was like, hold on, wait, what? I had to read through the passage multiple times and, still not understanding the sequence of events, I finally resorted to consulting Google translate. Not my proudest reading moment so far but having an English translation allowed me to understand the sentence structure better and I was able to grasp the sense of the story.
I also recently downloaded a kids’ novel, 夜カフェ, and am thinking about jumping in soon. I am always interested in Japanese learners’ “first novel” recommendations. This one’s Natively reviews indicate that it’s quite easy to get through, albeit not very interesting. So we’ll see how it goes! Obviously if anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears 
I remember liking the first vol of 夜カフェ, but after that—or maybe after the second volume, I don’t remember—is when it started going downhill for me. That being said, I don’t remember it being overly childish or anything as some kids’ books can be (a kids’ book but not a Kids’ Book, as I like to put it), so it wasn’t a chore in that respect.
(My first novel probably wouldn’t be a good one for anyone but me lmao. It was 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部, which is a josei, more of a teen/young adult reading level, and most of the characters speak 福井弁, which is similar to but not quite 関西弁. I’d already seen the anime multiple times, so that helped with understanding, and my enthusiasm carried me through where I had difficulty. While I care less about genre and age bracket than about the actual story and thus have read other kids’ novels—and have at least one more in my 積読 pile—I’m not sure what I’d recommend for beginners. The book I felt had the easiest language [さいとう市立さいとう高校野球部 —not a kids’ book] would likely still be difficult for beginners because our MC is hella ADHD lmao. I love him, but the first volume especially is probably at least half digressions. It’s entertaining as all hell, though. Hmm, perhaps あの空はキミの中 〜Play ball, never cry!〜 ? It’s about a girl playing on her school’s boys’ baseball team, and I don’t remember the language being too difficult at all. It’s got a mix of words that never get furigana, ones that have permanent furi, and ones with furigana that recurs every few pages/uses [as opposed to every chapter if at all in books for older audiences]. I liked it a lot)
Thank you for these recommendations, and the reassurance in the choice of 夜カフェ 
Your distinction between kids’ book and Kids’ book rings true to me, haha - it wasn’t my intention to put down children’s literature in general, but finding the kids’ books that are interesting for adults to read, too, can be a challenge. Recently I was happy to discover this list of children’s books compiled by the Japan Foundation that someone else had shared on Wanikani which has lots of things I’d be interested in reading.
Oh, no, I didn’t think you were putting them down, and I completely understand. I have/had a bunch of middle-grade readers, I believe they’re called, that I loved when I last read them in middle or even high school but have difficulty reading almost two decades on because they’re very firmly written for their intended age group. (Or, in a couple cases, that I would have loved had I read them back when I bought them but unfortunately just went straight into the to-sell pile…) It’s nice finding ones that are friendly to older readers as well. Sometimes you just wanna read something that’s easier/simpler without being too simple, y’know? I still have a few of those old series that, happily, fell into the latter category, and in fact I’ve even bought more recently. I think I read a larger percentage of kids’ books in EN than in JP
Day … 25? Maybe?
Okay, I lost track for a little while, family stuff last week (should be all good now pending my dad having a final scan next week for reassurance) and I didn’t get any reading done for a couple of days. Then I just read subtitles a bit more a couple more, but today I was back, and I read properly.
とんがり帽子のアトリエ Vol.2 - Read from pages 120 - 145! 
April 22
I’m still lazy and just read manga magazines. Of course I probably read more things I actually forgot about. Sometimes people write me messages in japanese but I don’t think it’s worth to mention it in this thread.
Home post // April 25 
・ 後宮食医の薬膳帖 1 (8% → 9%) Page 25 → 28/320
Tiny read. The vocab is much inspired by Chinese. Especially names all have Chinese readings.
☆４月２５日☆
・15 pages of 宝石商リチャード氏の謎鑑定 夏の庭と黄金の愛, reading through the prologue and leaving off on pg 23
・6 chapters of ダイの大冒険
・Wii 取扱説明書 準備編
Well, most of the 説明書, anyway, and I actually coulda skipped more than I did, but eh. There was a hiccup where I thought the AV cables were different, but it turned out I just wasn’t pushing them in all the way like I thought I was. I may be weak, but I’m absolutely still capable of breaking things accidentally or otherwise, so I’ve kinda got anxiety about using too much force with things like that. Anyway, I got it set up and confirmed that DQ Swords works. I have no idea if DQX Online, which came with the Wii, will, so I suppose we’ll see eventually. I mean, I did successfully connect the console to WiFi, but if the game can’t connect to the server outside of Japan…
Finished vol 15 of ダイ大!
Yeah, I started the next JR volume w/o finishing any of the other novels I have started. I need to know what kind of boyfriend behaviour Seigi unwittingly gets up to tbh. And when he finally gets a clue.
This one follows the same format as the last volume, except the chapters are labeled “Day 1” “Day 2” “Day 3” in French. I wonder if that means ドール is French for 黄金, then. I don’t care enough to look it up, though. I hate the French language, sorry.
In any case, I’m glad the ruby’s working. I dunno what I did wrong last time
４月２５日
HUNTER x HUNTER 1 pgs 1 – 38 / 192
No グランディア today ‘cause I went to the movies. If the Speed Racer rerelease is playing near you, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Ahaha yes!! Retro buddies! I love it!! This is a weird thing to say about a video game console, but the MiSTer is so useful. I’ve been tempted / inspired by @enbyboiwonder ‘s DQ adventures, and Grandia’s been intriguing me lately, I figured I’d give it a shot. I haven’t played Chrono Trigger either, maybe someday we should do a game-along for it…
4月25日
読み終わった本： 2巻
home post || 
natively
| status | name | natively lvl |
type | pages / sections |
time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29% |  |
ケサランなにがしとスープ屋さん 1 | 17 | manga | 40 → 53 | 22min |
Read chapter 3 of ケサランなにがしとスープ屋さん１ for this week’s ABBC. Felt very comfortable to read and the chapter was super cute. Didn’t have it in me to read much else 'cause I’m super tired.
Today was National Independent Bookstore Day in the US, so two friends and I did a local indie bookstore crawl. One of the local shops organized a 9-store crawl with a punch card, and we managed to visit 5 of them before crashing out. We weren’t really trying to do all nine, but it was kind of wild going into these tiny shops that were super packed with people. I also realized just how many little bookshops there are here; I knew there were a lot, but when I started inventorying the ones I know of that weren’t part of the crawl the list got staggeringly long! Love it!!!
Anyway, I picked up two queer space operas I’d been wanting to check out at the queer bookstore and the sci-fi bookstore (new fav place), and a gardening book at one of the other shops. No Japanese language books, unfortunately, though I did see that the manga shop has a monthly conversation practice night hosted by a native Japanese speaker, so… 
After 5 hours of book shopping, I went home and spent another two out in my garden plot fighting back the weeds that have popped up. So much for my grammar study weekend… though I do feel refreshed and ready for the week!
Curious to see how you like this one. As much as I love manga, I’ve been feeling the urge to try reading some prose…
This sounds interesting, thanks for the tip!
2026/04/25
A few pages of manga
２０２６年４月２６日(日)
 |
Book | Natively lvl | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
からかい上手の高木さん ７ | 16 | 1 - 22 |
 |
ギャルと恐竜 ３ | 16 | 1 - 12 |
April 23
Today I was not as lazy as the previous days. I got back to playing 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡III. Still pretty much at the beginning of the game. I’m sure it will take some time until the game gets interesting.
Finished 名探偵コナン volume 8!
With this volume, I’ve read 200 books in Japanese!!! 
12 of which are novels
