The “if you don’t get jealous over your SO, then obviously you don’t actually love them” BS is obnoxious, so I unfortunately will not be continuing with 冷たくて柔らか. I wish I had read the preview, because then I would have known it wasn’t worth picking up. (I only read a few pages before tossing it in the to-sell pile.)
Anyway, I meant to read more than that of JR but wound up putting it off too late and being too tired. After dropping both the first manga I picked up and the EN novel I’d been reading, I wasn’t much feeling anything.
The last two weeks were rather draining for me and not much energy was left to even update up until now. So here are the stats of the last 10+ days and my reading results divided into two posts.
Yeeesss!
I saw the page counter going up and up and there it was: congrats on finishing this book and getting your revenge!
One of the greatest feelings to more or less smoothly overcome a reading hurdle that gave you trouble not too long ago, isn’t it?
I did manage to at least take a look at your art book posts and I can only say that they were superb. Thank you for all the images, commentary and additional information you included in them.
Shoutout to the funniest comment:
If an animated or life-action series based on Yoshida’s biography ever gets made by Netflix or whichever other service/studio, I wish to see a fight scene added to that one.
I have a little bit of knowledge how woodblock prints are made, so while going through the images you posted I was aware of fact that dozens of layers would have been needed for any of those works, especially the very intricate prints. I can only imagine how long those must have taken; especially that one Yoshida print of the temple with 90 + steps.
Both, Kawase and Yoshida, created such beautiful paintings (as well as Kasamatsu whose works you’ve shown in this thread) but out of these artists and some other woodprint works here and there I’ve seen, Yoshida is probably my favourite as there’s just that little extra “something” in the way he captures atmosphere.
I can’t put my finger on it and while I haven’t mentioned it anywhere so far, Claude Monet is one of my favourite artists too and that same “feeling” when I see the atmosphere and light captured in Monets paintings, especially his daytime and seasonal studies, more or less emerges when I look at Yoshida’s prints in particular.
Soo…I’m very much planning to get 吉田博 全木版画集 増補新版 gifted to me whenever my birthday comes around next as I could use some gift ideas for when people ask me.
Thank you for pointing me towards that book, Zakarius, as I wasn’t aware that a complete works edition was published in the meantime.
And I too am glad that more woodblock print collections are getting published recently and hopefully will continue to get published for years to come.
It’s the last day of the official challenge and I decided to add one result post now but I plan on reading every day in September too and will add another results post by end of September for anything else I read until then.
Results
For July and August, here’s what I’ve read ordered by type:
I finished 10 manga volumes (technically speaking 11, as ARIA the masterpiece more or less counts as 2 volumes) and 2 novels (though one is more of a short story collection).
I read parts of two other novels which I ended up dropping and am almost at 50% into my current read which is a light novel.
On one hand, I’m glad that I read several volumes of anything and that managed to finish at least one novel and reach the milestone of 1st novel read.
On the other hand, I had wanted to read a bit more than what I read in those 2 months but I’ve been having more health problems lately which negatively impacted my concentration and energy.
I did manage to reach my main goal though: I didn’t miss a single day reading and managed to get back into daily reading which is why I joined the summer challenge.
白髪鬼
Read chapters 26, 27 & 28 - 26 was a pretty short chapter, but I just had to keep reading for another chapter today because this whole grand reveal section is really something. I want to keep reading, the title of the next chapter sounds like it is going to be all out wild, but my brain is too tired now
I’d be very surprised if this is exactly how it plays out in the original novel because this whole elaborate vengeance plot is so over the top, so ridiculously Ranpo… it feels like something only he could come up with and put to paper in complete and utterly unwavering confidence
Replies
No worries! I’ll send you a message on Natively with my discord!
Glad you enjoyed them! And thanks for all the likes, I woke up to a big notification of “Midnightblue liked 50+ of your posts”
This would be fantastic
Especially as my mental image of him is forever him as an old kindly-looking gentleman as he is seen in most of his photos.
It is wild to think! Yoshida was a really skilled artist, but to then capture that by carving the woodblocks the printers themselves must have been phenomenally skilled. The true ‘Golden Age’ of ukiyo-e is debated (usually it’s Hiroshige-era) but in terms of craftsmanship I think the 新版画-era was truly the pinnacle in terms of sheer skill involved. Since everything was done skilfully and painstakingly by hand - and like Kasamatsu, Yoshida even carved some himself.
I know what you mean by that ‘something’ - as much as I love all of their works - Yoshida, Kawase, Kasamatsu, Koitsu… - and it is really hard to choose a favourite, but I think, for me, there’s just that ‘something’ about Koitsu’s works that draws me to them slightly more than the others.
I get that same feeling with some other artists too, like there’s just that something about it that feels like the art pulls you in.
Yoshida studied Western art extensively - he stared with oil paints and painted under Western styles and art-values - and I can’t remember if it mentions anything about it in the book, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Monet had an big influence on Yoshida. Looking at their works together you can see some similarities - the soft, almost dream-like usage of colour and light is what has the most in common to me.
Yesss, another artbook sold
starting to feel I should sell artbooks as a side
I’m just happy to spread the word that these books are out there! I think with this one too it is a revised edition with much more artwork than in the previous iteration (I think the original was printed in the 80s).
4/9/26 WK L:30 66 : ジャム屋さん、第58話
Daily reading done
Also read ジョンさんEp5. Useful clothes shopping vocab. I wonder if I can sustain 2 chapters reading per morning with my new 6 lessons am and pm and reviews through the day plan. I’m not sure if reading just dialogues is interesting enough for me… not a huge fan of shopping but I do have to learn lots and lots of shopping related words. どうしようかな— maybe I’ll read 1 chapter of a story and 1 dialogue.
More musings
It’s actually a paradox with reading. The more I read, the less time I will have for Wanikani lessons and reviews. But the more I read, the easier new lessons become, as I’ve already seen and learned many words through context before they come up in WK, and the more reviews I get right, because I’ve seen the words coming up in reading and got to practice them. So as a result, I don’t need as much time for Wanikani lessons and reviews.
It’s like how meditation takes up time, but I am more efficient for the rest of the entire day because my brain is so much calmer and more settled. Or like how spending 10 minutes planning saves 20 minutes when it comes to the actual doing. I love noticing these sort of conceptual things
Oops. I missed posting at the end of the month, and it feels a bit late for an end of challenge round-up post now so I’ll save it for the end of September instead I guess
When it rains, it pours – just that around here it doesn’t rain misfortune but likes.
Seriously – that skill and dedication to such an time-consuming process that still leaves plenty of room to make mistakes in-between steps and parties involved is just out of this world! Thus I get your viewpoint that the 新版画-era might just be a tad more impressive than any other.
I like that with so many great artists and prints, almost anyone laying eyes on their works will find a favourite eventually.
Yes, I can’t imagine that impressionist works, especially Monets, didn’t make a heavy impression (pun intended) on him given the way his works look. I might try and find out more about his connection to Monets paintings at one point; maybe whenever I read through the complete works at one point next year like you did.
Haha, maybe you should start an affiliate programme with the publishers or sellers to get some money back…to use that to buy more art books yourself, of course.
Not listed - Strange Neighbor, Streamer, and some samples.
Line Manga is really hooking me by giving me coins for reading manga from a specific list. That’s how I keep finding the ones that aren’t bl lol.
Without realizing it too, I finished 夜分 vol 4. I’m almost out of free chapters and last night, I found out there’s a limit to the free resources that I can use TT-TT I need my physical copies to get here sooner so I can stop with the copium.
My 3DS got here! With its talk of bundling orders and inspecting them at the warehouse before shipping to you, I thought Mercari had sellers ship to them, put them into a single box if you bought from multiple sellers, then shipped it all to you at once, but apparently not. So who knows when next4years① will get here, but at least I wasn’t in any hurry to read it. (Smash Ace! on the other hand…)
I had to clean the screens and will have to buy screen protectors, but the seller did make sure it was fully charged before shipping it, which was nice. (And the 3 games were bundled with it, and it was still cheaper than the listings I saw on eBay that weren’t nonfunctional ones being sold for parts.)
I didn’t start anything, though. I’m not sure what I want to play first. Maybe DQM2, since that should maybe be on the shorter side?
Today I made my first Book Club nomination for 雨夜の月 (The Moon on a Rainy Night). Hoping it does well when the poll goes up!! Also I may be taking over the Beginner Book Club thread upkeep unless someone else wants to do so. Fun times!
Bit of a strange day of reading today. I picked かえるくん back up from earlier this week and read during my lunch break, but honestly was a bit lost about what was going on when I left off. I also keep losing my place easily and getting confused. It’s not like in English where I can scan the page super quickly and know where I was, though I do feel like I’m getting better at that. I also have ADHD, so this is kinda of a classic struggle of reading that I learned to cope with a long time ago that I’m having to learn again, in a way. Strange!
All that to say, I spent a little time re-reading and adjusting some things about my e-reading setup to make reading a bit more comfortable. I didn’t count all of that toward my reading time, but I did spend a good chunk of time this afternoon doing reading-related stuff. I think I’m a bit more set up for success now, and I’m starting to feel better about reading full on sentences. Neat!!! Only 300 more characters left for かえるくん for this week and I’ll be caught up!
Congrats!!! Looks like a stellar list of reads. Did you enjoy キャコル＆チューズデイ? Looks kinda neat.
白髪鬼
Read chapters 29, 30 & 31 - These last few chapters are quite short compared, and I think Ranpo has slipped into the story why he wanted to adapt this novel into his own:
… and he rolled with that and decided to come up with the wildest most unhinged revenge story he could think of, and he assures us - oh the revenge is only halfway complete, the main dish is yet to be served!
With three chapters to go I wonder what Ranpo has left up his sleeve…
Replies
I remember the book mentioning (though it could have been the Kawase book) that JM Whistler and van Gogh were not only influencers for the 新版画 style but were also influenced by ukiyo-e in turn themselves. I find that period of back-and-forth East influencing West influencing East influencing West really interesting so if you find anything that links Monet I’d be interested in hearing what you find out!
Hmmmm I like how you think, by getting money from artbooks for artbooks I can get more artbooks to get money for more artbooks
Not listed - Strange Neighbor and Streamer. Continuing both of course lol. Tomorrow I’ll hit 10 chapters of streamer, which could be a volume? It’s so annoying that it’s impossible to tell.
Whoever I bought vol 6 of 夜分 from must live in Osaka because it arrived in less than 24h despite blind address shipping. A modern marvel. I am trying to be good and save my coins for other series and waiting until I receive the physical vol 5 to continue… It’s difficult but on the other hand, I don’t care much for this arc lol.
I had been wondering if I would reach my reading goals for the year, but it seems like all I needed to do was stop giving a hoot about the jlpt lol.
Thank you!
I’m at 82 books right now, so 18 books to go.
I haven’t quite been speeding for almost a month since I started 誰が勇者(…) but as long as I manage to sprinkle in some manga volumes between LN/novel reads or use my “secret weapon” (= binging a manga series of 10+ volumes I’ve already read in another language in Japanese) in December if things don’t work out beforehand, it should be possible to reach those 100.
For me it was an okay read but I can’t give it more than that.
To elaborate just a little bit:
I wasn’t aware back then but it seems that this manga (completed) is based on the anime series Carole & Tuesday , and not the other way around.
I haven’t watched the series and don’t plan on doing so but apparently it had much more time to breathe and might have dealt with some of its topics (music made by AI VS music made by humans) better as well as flesh out the cast a bit more.
Though even that might not be the case as I skimmed some reviews on anime-planet and some people thought the themes and characters were handled nicely whereas others thought it was barebones.
So, to come back to the manga, it seems to me that it would be the most barebones version of Carole & Tuesday as it’s too short to pack all of its themes in there. The characters, especially the two main characters, didn’t get enough screen time in my opinion, so conflict as well as payoff fell flat to me. The pacing was fast but somewhat slow at the same time, because volume 2 was mostly dedicated to one character who later on didn’t get much screen time either as the two leads needed some more by then. It felt rather messy.
If I had to give you any selling point, I suppose it’s short, it’s music themed and features a tournament with all kinds of characters and nicely illustrated scenes (in general). Also, the two main characters to me at least go into sapphic territory but my gay-dar is more or less broken, so take it with a grain of salt.
Apart from that, I can’t really recommend it.
If you do decide to read it, just be aware that all volumes, while featuring Furigana, have lots of music-related vocabulary and that volume 2 gets a difficulty spike because of one character’s information dumps.
August 31
Just played half an hour 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim. Actually it doesn’t feel like a game more like an interactive anime. I also read a text from my N1 reading book,
I will still continue reading every day but I won’t post in this thread any more. See you all in the next thread.
September 3rd 
66 
: ジャム屋さん、第58話
9月3日
