７月２６日
夏子の酒 1 pgs 327 – 336 / 451
July 23-26
I found a secondhand bookstore was having a 10% off everything summer sale, so I had to go of course. They had so many good 100 yen tagged books that I got 61 vols of manga for 90 yen a piece. Somehow I still have shelf space… I am a very happy camper and I really wanted to read this バカ犬 manga after previewing it. I read it pretty fast considering that I pretty much only have time for work and chores on Fri/Sat. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it for folks looking for spicy bl.
In other news, I’m continuing with Mushishi and Dungeon Meshi. Yesterday I went to Namba and went to the BOOKOFF there. I was a bit mad because they no longer sell 100 yen books and instead, they raised it to 120. I decided not to buy anything unless it was volumes missing from series that I’ve started… and low and behold, they had volumes 3 and 5 of Meshi! So I got them since it’s still a bit rare to find Meshi in these sections. I was really surprised though that their JoJo sections were tiny compared to usual. It seems they’ve been wiped out recently. The bookstore with the sale that I went to had about the same size collection of JoJo as always.
Congratulations 
And to myself too as I read this and instantly understood it…^^
7月26日
読み終わった本： 漫画3巻、読み切り0作, 連載漫画2話
home post || 
natively
| status | name | natively lvl |
type | pages / characters |
time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59% |  |
愛でたいセンセイ 1 | 20? | manga | 77 → 95 | 44min |
Picked up 愛でたいセンセイ１ where I left off to read another chapter. This is a re-read for me in Japanese this time, and I’ve been trying to see how much I can read while doing minimal lookups. Today I got hung up on チョロい, which I kept wanting to read as チョコ as in chocolate, but which actually turns out to mean easy or simple. Anyway the whole theme of the chapter involved that term, but once I moved past it by reading a HiNative explanation of it, the chapter got much easier.
Anyway, after reading from my physical copy with only a few lookups, I stopped my reading timer and went back and read through it digitally doing lookups for the terms I didn’t know. Definitely helped clear a few things up but my initial readthrough was pretty darn good! And also, the fact that I could verify the meaning by looking up vocab and not needing to reference an English version is still cool in and of itself.
Anyhow, this feels like a good compromise of challenging myself to read without relying on lookups but also being able to clarify things later. Might continue to do this for the rest of this volume!
No forget, just tired lol.
2026/07/26
Three pages of 人生全部賭けても、銀の魔女に勝ちたい
２０２６年７月２７日(月)
 |
Book | Natively lvl | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
ギャルと恐竜 ５ | 16 | 115 - 124 |
 |
ケサランなにがしとスープ屋さん ２ | 17 | 43 - 58 |
July 27th
笠松紫浪 全木版画集
Read pages 54 - 60 - the book mentions about some of Kasamatsu’s travels around Japan to gather inspiration of places to draw, it was a good test for Japanese place names! I knew the prefectures mentioned but the individual place names got rather difficult. I think my favourite was 犬吠埼, I like to imagine that there used to be a dog there that barked at everyone and that’s how it got its name 
I looked it up, seems 犬吠埼 has some legends attached to the name
One legend is Minamoto no Yoshitsune once left his dog behind there and it howled for a whole week until his return. The name could also be from Ainu legends.
One non-folk theory is that many sea lions could have lived there and it got its name from that.
Kawase Hasui also did a print of this location
I shared Hasui’s print of Inubosaki when I went through his artbook but here it is again!
川瀬巴水 - 犬吠の朝 (1931)
Kasamatsu Artworks
東京近郊八景之内 古利根川 夕陽 (1939)
One from his collection of 8 views of Tokyo Suburbs. I really like the tree silhouettes in this one, and the colours really set the mood.
東京近郊八景之内 行徳今井橋ノ深秋 (1939)
Another from his Tokyo Suburbs collection, the colours create the complete opposite mood of the previous one.
静浦の暁 (1940)
Mt. Fuji again, from the same location as the other Mt. Fuji one he did but from a different angle. I like how tranquil this one feels.
山王日枝神社 (Unknown date, presumed early 1940s)
Couldn’t find a better picture of this one but you can see his style starting to shift through his 1940s works.
二銭銅貨
Complete! That was a pretty fun piece, it feels a little rough at the beginning but once he gets going you start to see the beginnings of all the things that make his later works - including elaborate hiding places, his fondness for intricate and outlandish crimes cases and subversive endings. He also wears his influences on his sleeve in this by both mentioning some works by Poe and having the main character be like “what would Sherlock Holmes do?”
Whoa, great bargain haul! Big book haul days are the best kind of days.
Absolutely!!! I’m glad I got so many bangers too
Day 27: 7月27日
Home Post
Finished the chapter of ふらいんぐうぃっち 2 that I started yesterday. There was one panel in particular today with a lot of text and kanji that I was intimidated by when I first spotted it on the page, but when looking closely I found I could recognise bits and pieces and infer some of the words that I didn’t know, and after breaking down the rest of the sentence it ended up being fine! I’m looking forward to the day when I can do that sort of thing in my head rather than writing it down on paper though. That was my little victory for the day! 
July 27Today: Free-read Chapter 49 of よつばと on the rooftop terrasse our building with a cup of iced milk tea. A nice afternoon.
28/7/26 WK L:28 
28 
: ジャム屋さん、第12話
Daily reading done
Triple 28! Haha. I read Ch 11 also yesterday so read Ch 12 this morning. It’s ridiculous how many of the kanji I can read, even though I’m only (“only”) at level 28. Wanikani + grammar study = reading = learning through immersive reading = reinforcement of Wanikani + grammar study. It’s all working together perfectly 
That sounds absolutely charming 
July 28
1 novel, 1 LN, 4 manga vol
| ? | Title | Type | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
#ギャルとぎゃるの百合１ | Lvl 24? manga |  25% |
 |
薬屋のひとりごと２ | Lvl 38 novel |  2% → 4% |
- Read 2% of Apothecary Diaries 2. This represents a 100% increase on the previous daily reading rate of 1%. Market analysts believe if this explosive growth of doubling the reading rate is maintained, complete book saturation should be achieved in 7 days. Watch this space.
Week 4
| Date | Book | Chapters or Progress |
|---|---|---|
| July 20 | 変な家 | 3% → 8% |
| July 21 | 変な家 | 8% → 12% |
| July 22 | 変な家 | 12% → 16% |
| July 23 | 変な家 | 16% → 18% |
| July 24 | 変な家 | 18% → 21% |
| July 25 | 変な家 | 21% → 23% |
| July 26 | ひらやすみ 5 | 42-43 |
I have abandoned manga for novels lol. I’ll get back to my manga series like xxxHolic eventually. I’m enjoying 変な家. While it’s very lookup heavy due to my bleh vocabulary level, I’m enjoying the mystery of the book.
extrapolating
Small update: since reading the Narnia book I’ve read about 5 pages of my Harry Potter book in my work time, but that was last week and I have a blank week to show for it. I think with the trip I have coming up I wasn’t pushing myself to read each day so I broke the habit right after finishing a book. I’m still glad I tried in the first place and I like the progress I made reading that book, but I think I’ll wait until after I get back before I try more daily reading.
７月２７日
夏子の酒 1 pgs 337 – 356 / 451
Amazing…cuter in every photo…
