Well, I decided to “try out” Paper Mario Color Splash (reporting in, @Mioneko!) and that turned into a 3 hour marathon!! At about 2.5 hours I was feeling pretty tired but I realized I still hadn’t gotten to a save point so I continued on. My brain is a little melted now.
The game is pretty cool, as expected, and I was able to make sense of it pretty easily given a copious amount of lookups. Thankful for the furigana in this one. The content itself is pretty repetitive, and I even noticed that sometimes a phrase would be written only using kana a few times and then introduce the kanji later. Thanks, Nintendo writers!
I was pretty baffled by the term ヘイホー, which the dictionary I was using kept telling me meant “art of war”, until I looked elsewhere and realized it was the term for Shy Guy! It also took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the piece of mail in the opening scene of the game was in fact a Toad-shaped piece of paper with a postage stamp on it and that it was an actual Toad with the color sucked out of it, which the characters kept referencing. Still, I was able to enjoy its goofy humor as well as this surprisingly scary body horror moment where our dear friend Toad got the color sucked out of him and was actually screaming in horror.
The gimmick for this game’s battle mechanics is that it uses a deck of action cards that you have to fill up with paint, which is neat. Less exciting was the fact that you have to use the Wii U gamepad screen to drag things around, which I find slightly annoying. Apparently at some point you can use the buttons to control, but that doesn’t unlock until later in the game. Guess I’ll just have to keep playing, then…
Obligatory Paper Mario paper physics joke screenshot
book: バター 柚木 麻子, p1
Focus:
行き来する in below sentence:
夕食の買い出しの主婦が行き来する駅周辺を町田里佳はスマホに表示された地図を頼りに歩いている。
It’s a very long extended sentence. I understand why it’s in advanced book club. But I like tough challenges. Haha
book: JLPT N5 book until p21
Focus: adverbs
例えば
毎日 よく 時々 あまり 全然
とても あまり 全然
As a glasses and ocassional contact lens wearer, this matches my experience. The eye doctor can also give a glasses perscription but your mileage may vary. When I got my perscription checked for contact lens (dailies for astigmatism were too expensive in the US, but good for the price and expiration date in Japan), I asked the doc for a new glasses perscription too since I was squinting to read so often that it was uncomfortable. He refused, so I got a new perscription at the glasses store and it doesn’t make me squint so much. I probably need to replace these glasses soon (nearly 5 years old now), but it’s because they have scratches rather than the lens causing my eyes discomfort.
Now that we’re coming up to February, I’m going to have to choose a novel I want to start reading since I promised myself I’d start on one if I consistently read everyday of January.
Still on the fence between かがみの孤城 上 and コンビニ人間 both of which I’ve started before. I might go with the latter since one of my currently reading manga is already a school life setting and having two reading sources with the same theme might get boring.
Finished the first 蜘蛛ですが LN today! I feel very proud, and happy that I pushed through the challenging-ness at the start, because it was so worth it - it’s probably my favourite book I’ve read in Japanese and was a total joy to read the entire way through. I will for sure be getting the second book in my next book haul
I wanted to get it done today so I could say I read three full LNs this month, and that was a success! I’ll be largely focusing on 自動販売機に生まれ変わった and more 安達としまむら (gosh am I excited to get back into that series again) for the next few weeks, so more light-hearted and somewhat easier reading coming up next.
Also wanted to congratulate everyone participating in this challenge for a whole month of reading - you’re all doing awesome and it’s been so wonderful to read alongside everyone. Reading feels so much more exciting knowing that I get to report what I’ve read at the end of the day
Aw that sounds super fun, color splash is so nostalgic and it’s really exciting hearing about someone playing it! I’m happy you remembered that I was interested hehe, your update was genuinely so fun to read (they always are)
Hehe, nice coincidence Share how it’s going after you get your glasses
Wow, a whole carousel. In Norway, optometrist and optician is combined into one profession. When we check people’s vision and ocular health, if we find any signs of eye disease or ocular problems we send a referral to an eye doctor for further examination so they get treatment. If all is good, we prescribe glasses or contact lenses if they need.
Hehe, it’s funny you say the mileage may vary because it’s not all eye doctors around here I trust for their prescribing skills.
But why he refuse ? He figured out contact lens prescription but not for glasses? なんか逆だなｗ
Apart from 国宝, I read JLPT texts for about 25 mins. After failing N1, I thought that I need more non-fiction/essay practice. And more practice of reading without lookups. My plan is to use past JLPT papers for this purpose.
Still rereading Yotsubato volume 1.There was a few tricky pages that I just figured out I completely misunderstood, glad I’m rereading it I will go over it a bit more tomorrow then start volume 2
No new updates today so read a piece from yesterday about a police investigation regarding ‘Dark jobs’ (闇バイト)
?
Title
Type
Progress
逆転裁判２
Game
Case 2/5
Starting Case 2, still in the setup phase. Iirc this is a pretty long one, so I’m digging in for the long haul.
I read a little Toradora 1 to see if I could read it at the same time… I can’t. There’s too many lookups and I haven’t got past the first 1% yet. Sorry Ryuuji, I’ll be back later.
I completed the forest temple and got started on the new quests available on Skyloft. I needed to look up a guide for the Ghirahim fight. I actually hit him a few times but most of the time he’d just grab my sword, and I had no idea what I was doing differently between them. Anyway, that fight was close. I almost lost my shield, and I got down to 2 hearts because I have trouble timing my blocks. Also, eurgh, that guy gives me the creeps.
I finished 26 books this month, which is more than I have in a while, especially when it wasn’t like 90+% manga (it was 46%, or 12 volumes). Certainly it was more English novels than I’ve read in a long while, at 11 (most of them intended for middle-schoolers, but still. The Septimus Heap books are still like 500-700 pages)
Since some of those were rereads for the purpose of refreshing my memory rather than simply picking up the series where I left off, and there were also a few that went into the sell pile without being finished, it works out (unless I’ve forgotten any) to 24 books dealt with versus 21 attained so far this quarter. But that’s only until my CDJ order gets here in about a month, ah hah hah… With any luck, though, I can keep this momentum and won’t end up too far behind.
Finally read a bit of 花野井くんと恋の病 Volume 18 which has been on my shelf for a long time now. I used to binge read the whole series, I almost forgot I actually still have a bit left.
And that’s all from January, folks!!! I logged a total of 36 hours and 34 minutes of reading for the month!! Considering that my average reading time last year was maybe an hour a month, I’d say that’s a great improvement!
Here's the full breakdown if you'd like to check it out:
Somewhat unsurprisingly given my ADHD brain, I’ve started far more things than I’ve finished this month. I do feel a little bummed at the end of the month after seeing some of y’all’s large completion numbers (congrats and well done!!!) while knowing that I could have finished more books had I focused on one or two at a time. Since this is my first time reading in Japanese, however, I’ve honestly just been testing the waters to see what a good reading level is for me right now. I’ve read a few things that are easy but less interesting (ちいさな森のオオカミ), and a few things that are very interesting but over my level to a point that it might not be worth engaging with right now (スティルシック). But, I’ve been surprised at the level of things I can take on that are just challenging enough to get something out of (夜の名前を呼んで). This makes me excited to engage with some of the easier yuri series I’ve been wanting to read soon. I have a better sense of how to gauge whether a series is worth reading now, too, so I can pick up my next read with more confidence.
Anyway, my goal for next month is to focus in and wrap up a few of the projects I’m reading and try to get 6 volumes completed!
…and on that note, I started a new series, chapter 1 of ウェイバーズ this evening. This one does feel a little above my head, BUT it’s currently releasing so I only have to read a chapter every month or so. We’ll see how it goes! I also re-read last week’s chapter of ギャルと恐竜 to drive home some new grammar points. I’d like to read this week’s chapter, too, but I really need to get some studying done tonight.
Anyway, CONGRATS to everyone for such a great month of reading!! And thank you for keeping the thread so interesting!!
: 2 manga volumes
ペーパーマリオ カラースプラッシュ
It also took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the piece of mail in the opening scene of the game was in fact a Toad-shaped piece of paper with a postage stamp on it and that it was an actual Toad with the color sucked out of it, which the characters kept referencing. Still, I was able to enjoy its goofy humor as well as this surprisingly scary body horror moment where our dear friend Toad got the color sucked out of him and was actually screaming in horror.
小渝之森 第27话番外, 第28话
January 31st 
January 31st 
Share how it’s going after you get your glasses 
? He figured out contact lens prescription but not for glasses? なんか逆だなｗ
Home post
I will go over it a bit more tomorrow then start volume 2 
Case 2/5
Home Post 
ウェイバーズ
ポケットモンスターシールド
たねつみの歌
I do feel a little bummed at the end of the month after seeing some of y’all’s large completion numbers (congrats and well done!!!) while knowing that I could have finished more books had I focused on one or two at a time. Since this is my first time reading in Japanese, however, I’ve honestly just been testing the waters to see what a good reading level is for me right now. I’ve read a few things that are easy but less interesting (ちいさな森のオオカミ), and a few things that are very interesting but over my level to a point that it might not be worth engaging with right now (スティルシック). But, I’ve been surprised at the level of things I can take on that are just challenging enough to get something out of (夜の名前を呼んで). This makes me excited to engage with some of the easier yuri series I’ve been wanting to read soon. I have a better sense of how to gauge whether a series is worth reading now, too, so I can pick up my next read with more confidence.