best read in an announcer voice
Do you or a loved one need life alert (命警急)? It saves a life from kanji related falls every 11 minutes. Don’t delay! 
It sounds like this has been a good week
5 Likes
Just wanted to say that the way you are helping your sibling is pretty remarkable, not a given and not an easy thing to do.
8 Likes
I’m just gonna go ahead an pretend it’s still yesterday.
SRS
SRS done: 31 wk, 53 anki.
WK Lessons:
祝日：self explanatory
視：almost 見 but not
届く：kinda know it already
Then I had 11 more reviews come through so I did those but now I’m done. I suppose I should do ringotan actually. But then I’m done. It ook me SEVEN minutes to do 23 ringotan, because 室 fucking hates me and the feeling is mutual.
Spent 20 minutes doing clearing my ringotan review pile on the bus to my 求職 appointment. It is now at 0 reviews! Hooray, one goal complete.
Also did 49 wk, 38 anki, and 100 jpdb.
Decided to do a few lessons this evening:
狭い：know it
肩：same as kanji
腕：same as kanji
差：same reading as 左 which is in this, in 差別・交差点
腰：same as kanji
触る：know it
Finally remembered to refresh for jitai. 15 wk, 62 anki, ringotan, 100 jpdb.
Forgot to refresh, but jitai is working anyway! HOORAY! I thought I’d have to remember to refresh each time.
SRS done: 27 wk, 38 anki, ringotan, 100 jpdb
The past few days I’ve been pushing myself on the SRS in that even though my timer’s already beeped while doing ringotan, I’ll do the jpdb. With how few reviews I have for the other three, it’s the only way I’m getting through all four of them.
Did 5 mins of wk this evening but headache has not gone so that’s all i did. Didn’t even manage 80% accuracy.
SRS done: 12 wk (and jitai need refreshing again, not that I’m at all prepared for font right now), 75 anki.
Reading
I started reading カードキャプターさくら. The font hurts my eyes, but the larger text in particular looks like it’s supposed to be splotchy so I don’t think it’s my copy. When I zoom it’s clear the smaller text is intact. Either way it was just the first 7 pages because ABBC starts of nice and slowly.
Okay, so I think I have a problem with just blanking over what I don’t understand. I read the pages and didn’t have much thoughts beyond “okay” and “old words” and “ow font.” But there was so much discussion in the thread of things I didn’t know.
Today I’m back with Frieren. Feeling pretty motivated, we’ll see how long that lasts.
フリーレン Notes:
Mostly I’m just recapping what I understand from the story here.
24/25
These first two pages of Fern and Heiter are really sweet.
26/27
This random townslady is warning them away from their path because of all the missing people. Ghosts are kidnapping people (probably more fitting to say they are being spirited away). 実際に見た連中もいる。I think this line means there are people who have actually (in reality) seen the ghosts. The last line the lady says on p.26 I think is her telling them to go talk to someone who has seen the ghosts firsthand (because she doesn’t know the answer to Frieren’s question)
28
死んだ身内や知り合いの幽霊が目撃されていてどれも生前の姿のまま。
(死んだ身内や知り合いの幽霊)が（目撃されていて・どれも生前のすがたまま。）
Ghost of relatives and aquaintances who died, 目撃する is to witness => 目撃される to be witnessed => 目撃されている being witnessed, also they look about the same as when they were alive.
話しかけられた starts as 話しかける to start a conversation => られる is passive like above => I think Fern’s saying like “the people we started a conversation with” or more naturally “the people we asked”
And since the ghosts don’t look dead, we can conclude this isn’t the same type of undead Frieren is used to.
29
Reminder to self to check what this ありそう verb is conjugated actually means. (vibe gives me “seems like” kinda meaning but I should check)
It’s a nasty guy (who’s responsible for this?) so / in order to not happen upon them / we have to be careful. (I’m curious as to whether Frieren is right in assuming the culprit is nasty, could go either way)
Did Fern just say “unlike you, I’m a good person” XD I do like her
Right wtf is Frieren saying now. The first bit “well, if you’re good then that’s okay” simple enough. The second bit “anyway, pass through the mountain pass わけだしね” わけ I think is used in an explanation way, and ね seems normal sentence ender. I think that the だ and し are not the same thing. だ for declaring the reason, and then looking up the し it should connect to another sentence.
There was no third bit when I turned the page… So, we have Frieren saying the reason is through the mountain pass, maybe that they’ll find the reason as they pass through themselves. A more thorough look suggests んだし is extra explanatory, and if we have わけ in place of the ん the explanatory nuance could be that Frieren is saying this is the explanation I’ve come to after talking to the townspeople. (check thread if this has been discussed already)
30/31
I had to reread Frieren’s line a couple times to confirm she’s saying there’s “too much” evidence when normally you’d think they wouldn’t find anything. Maybe “more than enough” evidence sounds better.
Fern has been reading her magic book on magic ecology, which has informed her that this illusion magic which entices people exists. Hooray for knowledge.
I do love this kanji with katakana furigana thing, not that I know what this furigana refers to, but I get the gist from the kanji. (It’s german, it’s in the list of german names)
The の中でも lost me, inside of the magic of that species of demon? What? Anyway, this demon is cunning and greedy and eats nothing but people, which is not a healthy diet. Eat some veggies or something, アインザーム.
I’ve been at this a while so actually gonna call it there for a bit. Realistically, probably not going to read the rest today…
フリーレン Notes 2:
I haven’t seen a page number in a while so my count was off, I fixed yesterday’s notes and now today can make sense too.
32
だった being in the middle of the sentence confused me at first, but I think it’s saying “person who was important” without making the whole sentence in past tence.
The demon is definitely a threat so I think this next sentence is saying the illusions themselves aren’t harmful.
I think this だけで is the “just by _” version, so just by flinging high density attack magic at them they’ll easily disperse. But I’m less sure on why Frieren is confused when Fern suggests shooting them with magic, is that not the same thing?
33
The past tense here confused me. Frieren already shot an illusion of her teacher?
(Ignore me this makes perfect sense considering Frieren already faced this demon decades ago.)
34/35
ichi.moe says ず is negative, and I think we came across this before and it’s old grammar. Don’t hesitate and shoot, easier said than done.
Expected Heiter to show up from the beginning, at least Fern knows it’s not actually him as they already discussed this.
36/37
I like it’s not being stupid in that Fern does know this is fake, but it’s also affecting her despite her knowing that it’s fake.
Ah, so Frieren was expecting her teacher instead of Himmel here. She looks rather sad that it’s him, but she’s enough experience to already be charging her spell.
Oh look, a page number! XD
38/39
The illusion is so realistic that he’s telling Frieren to shoot him? In that case, I wonder why Heiter didn’t say the same thing to Fern?
40
Getting the feeling that they won’t actually meet their real ghosts at the Aureole place.
That’s 2/4 book clubs with pace maintained. Now to see how much easier 軌跡 is with the vocab sheet already filled in. (If anyone from 軌跡 club is reading this, THANK YOU SO SO MUCH)
I do like when grammar I recently studied comes up when I’m reading. 「父さんがやるはずだった仕事」The job that dad should have done.
Things were easier with the vocab sheet prefilled, so hurray for that. However, my reading stamina is shit today. Or, my head headaches faster than normal? That’s my main difficulty with the game at the moment. I only read 750 characters today.
I read some ウスズミの果て. I naievely looked at week 5 and thought “only 10 pages? I can finish this easily and then move to to 軌跡.” They were a very difficult 10 pages. Pages 108/109 make more sense now that the thread clarified whose talking. I was so focussed on trying to figure out what the words meant that I didn’t realise it wasn’t something 丑三 would say. Clearly I don’t understand this well enough.
Listening
Listening to this 日本の春🌸. I feel a little silly for not realising cherry blossoms would bloom at different times in different parts of Japan.
Grammar
Grammar studied:
いらっしゃる - is there a difference between formalness and politeness? In my head I had more polite language = more formal language, but is it possible to be formal without being polite or polite without being formal? I think that’s possible in English. But I feel like I’m missing important nuance here. Will need to research more later.
Daily Rambling
月曜日：
Giving this whole mindfulness thing a try so now I’m aware of the headache I have and my shoulder and back being tense and my knee hurting. So, off to a great start /s.
Realised I only added vocab for the first volume of Frieren, so used Manga Kotoba to add some for the rest of the series. So those can work their way into my brain via anki and I’ll be better prepared when they show up.
I will study today. I will make it to 1 hour.
火曜日：
I think with how long of an off-period I had, I should stop trying to force all the studying to happen immediately and instead work up to it. This week I’ve decided that an hour each day will be more productive that having a couple days of 2-3 hours and almost nothing the other 5-4 days.
木曜日：
I am. So cold. Need to ask my support worker if I’m allowed to turn the heating on yet.
My head hurts but I just about reached the hour mark so it’s okay to leave it there for today. I’ve got three days left for 軌跡…
金曜日：
This morning has been a spend-three-hours-trying-to-convince-myself-to-get-out-of-bed morning, so I’m not feeling super motivated.
The readathon is next week. The sensible choice would be to catch up on the book clubs I’m behind on. But probably I’ll read something different to break things up a bit, or maybe a bit of both. Last readathon was fun and I was able to read a lot. I haven’t completely decided which day I’m reading on, because I’d like to read on the actual equinox but I’m normally busy on Sundays, but that Sunday might be cancelled…
Note to self: that thing I do with Frieren where I make notes even as simple as recapping a page, I should do that with ウスズミ too.
Finally figured out how to stop the leaky shower being so noisy. The constant dripping has been driving me actually insane. Planning to at least get SRS done once my headache’s had time to calm down.
土曜日：
Woke up, had a think about my head, and I don’t think it’s particuarly headachey so we are a go for today’s studied.
(I spoke too soon, it’s back. And I’m in a right foul mood that every little sound is so very very irritating and my dog, as much as I love her, has very tappy feet and they are going tap tap tap on the floor and I want to scream. And who gave the sun permission to be this fucking bright? Not allowed.)
日曜日：
So, I am not well. Yesterday’s headache may or may not have been a migrain. Today I woke up with a stabbing pain in my shoulder. I’m dulling both with painkillers but it’s more like paindullers because the pain is not dead.
I cannot be arsed to update my study log, or do even the 15 wk I’ve got waiting for me, or get tonight’s kiseki thread existing.
In Summary
9 wk lessons (3/14 kanji)
cleared ringotan (though I’m sure it’s piled up again)
826 jpdb remaining
37 pages of reading
~750 characters of kiseki (3.5/20k)
1 comprehensible japanese
1 grammar point (6/13)
Total time: 5.9 hours
I’ve fallen behind on 軌跡, again. But I feel like crap and I’m getting frustrated at myself for feeling like crap. Honestly if it weren’t for the pressure of needing to put something in my studylog, I’d probably have just stopped all the studying back in July.
I have a vague plan today of alternating between 空の軌跡 and Trails into Reverie and making progress on both. But last time I played Reverie I just could not care about the conversation these two characters were having, and I’ve been putting it off because that amount of apathy for my favourite series scares me.
10 Likes
iirc, praise/worship vs humility vs thoughtfulness. 尊敬語・謙譲語・丁寧語, as Kanji say?
6 Likes
That looks helpful thanks, I will decipher it later.
3 Likes
Guess who was able to read 4.5k characters with the help of occasional allowed procrastination? It was me. I am awesome. Hooray.
11 Likes
Congratulations! 
4 Likes
Yes I’m late again. In my defence, yesterday was the readathon and that was very distracting.
SRS - 4.7h
SRS done: 29 wk, 65 anki, 47 ringotan (passed 室 first try! Finally!)
Did 200 jpdb reviews this evening while waiting.
SRS done: 23 wk, 67 anki, 31 ringotan, 100 jpdb
Lessons:
腕時計：just putting kanji to a word I know
触角：私は虫じゃないから触角がない。
管：that 官 part is what’s giving it the かん sound, bamboo are pipe shaped
所載：ニュースが新聞所載です。
一層：その美しさは一層増すばかりで
型：judging from the anime context sentences, this is also used for martial arts’ kata
都庁：都 refers to 東京, and this word is about a specific building that is there
量：yeah just gonna have to brute force this one
対象：in anki, should be fine
Did many because I kinda would like to level up soonish, but my brain is slightly regretting that choice. Did 8 more reviews that came through too.
SRS done: 11 wk, 32 anki, 17 ringotan (I’ve worked through the pile enough that it’s giving me new ones now)
Did 100 jpdb.
Did 50 wk (I’m surprised I’ve had no trouble with 触角 but then again the 虫 radical is right there).
Lessons:
感触：specifically refers to 1 of the 5 senses
記載：詳しい死の状況を記載する時間が与えられる
境：国境・境界 specifically refers to the Boundary of a region, not the region itself like 領 or 域
層：軍上層部は真っ黒
典型的：紅茶が好きですから、典型的なイギリス人ですね。
警察庁：it’s the place where the police in Death Note work
差す：私の目を差している日光が嫌いです。
環：環境・循環
交差点：just adding kanji to a known word
Other SRS done: 54 anki, 22 ringotan, 100 jpdb. On the one hand it’s good to be working my way through everything, on the other hand today’s SRS took an hour. I am doing lessons again and those do take time, and it should calm down once I’ve worked through all of jpdb (I messed with my setting today so that I won’t get as many new cards each day in the future.
SRS done: 56 wk, 49 anki, 17 ringotan, 100 jpdb
SRS done: 29 wk, 45 anki, 17 ringotan, 100 jpdb
Lessons:
載る：This verb seems to take に to show where the thing was placed
武：武器・武道・武士
原型：機械の作の時に、最初原型を作った方がいい。
Trying to stick to three and do them more often. There’s so much vocab though that it’s tempting to do more.
SRS was done inbetween bits of reading so rather than get it confused I’m listing all here. 47 anki, 15 wk, 27 ringotan.
Reading - 11.3h
I read about 4.5k characters! It took me a couple hours, sure, but I was able to read a lot more than I normally would, nevermind my being in a funk. Will have to do this whole having a game open and alt tabbing to take breaks from studying more often. If it’s this powerful while I’m wallowing in self-pity, it’ll be unstoppable when I have actual motivation.
Also I’m absolutely going to include time time I spent on Reverie in my time counts, as I would not have studied this much without it and therefore it is only fair to include it. Probably.
I read this week’s chapter of カードキャプターさくら. There was a lot more text, but I think I mostly understood it. I can relate to being sure I’d one day be super tall. (Honestly still a little bitter that I never reached 6ft.) Read through the thread and added some kaisai-ben stuff to the list in my grammar window.
フリーレン Notes:
紅 is red like 紅茶. 鏡 is a mirror. 竜 is a DRAGON!
42
Well, there’s the dragon. For some reason it has a grimoire in its horde. Frieren says it’s one she’s been looking for, though Fern’s response is a little odd I think she’s saying it typical of Frieren to like grimoires.
43
Collecting magical items makes as much sense as collecting shiny items. I suppose if the dragon has been eating people they probably won’t want to be friends, shame. Gotta be careful to not friendly fire the loot (I have ashamedly made this mistake more than once in games).
44
I found it rather amusing how Frieren just casually went “oh well, run for it”
45
Last bubble is a little tricky. 「竜と追いかけっこなんて魔法使いのやり方じゃないよね。」
Playing tag with the dragon, way of doing magic, not. Maybe along the lines of “magic isn’t supposed to be used for playing tag with dragons?”
Okay that’s actually me done though. I’ll make a hot choccy now and another later.
フリーレン notes (2):
46
にする is grammar for a decision, but I’m iffy on the context here. Is it like Frieren asking if she should choose her companions with the implication being instead of the grimoire?
Eisen had a student, Shutaruku (Stark), who is in a village near here. He’d like Frieren to go pick him up if she has the chance. So I’m guessing Frieren wants him to help them fight this dragon and will now go grab him.
47
Said village is surprisingly peaceful considering how nearby the dragon is. The kind of magic in this particular grimoire made me think how there hasn’t really been any fanservice in this manga so far, which now that I’ve noticed I appreciate that.
48
… Is Frieren really suggesting casting a spell to make someone’s clothes invisible… in order to check whether they have any hidden weapons? I mean, if it works it works, but… I do hope it is not necessary… (not a fan of nudity)
49
I vaguely recognise this guy from the anime OP. I think I’ve still got a couple episodes that are safe to watch, actually. Winning a staring contest against a dragon is a strange feat but an impressive one nonetheless.
And because of that, the dragon is staying away from the village and that’s why it’s so calm here. With regards to Fern’s comment, I’m guessing he doesn’t want to kill the dragon? (Does he want to be friends with the dragon? Was I wrong about the people-eating being a barrier in the way of their potential friendship?)
50/51
Okay, so he’s very aware of the fact that fighting things means that people get injured. The manga has been pretty clear on that so far like when Frieren originally refused to take Fern with her.
52/53
Since when does 御免なさい get kanji? Seems like there’s a lot of expressions that get secret kanji.
Anyway, the conversation has been a bit difficult to follow. I don’t know how Stark knew Eisen told them about him, or get what’s being said about him. I do get that he’s not happy with Frieren’s lack of a “good enough” reason to fight the dragon.
54/55
It amuses me how Frieren calls Himmel an idiot who complimented her randomly collected magic, but still uses くれる because she did like the compliments.
Stark cannot do this fight on his own, because there are two dragons. Frieren can buy him 30 seconds, and Stark’s being all awkward and not giving a straight answer and what if I said this or that. I get that he’s trying to gauge what he’s getting himself into. It’s just mildly annoying when I know he’s going to agree to fight the dragon(s).
56/57
Oh. Nevermind. He just happened to nat 20 his bluff roll in that staring contest. I’m guessing Frieren (and maybe the dragon) can sense that if he does fight he’d be very strong, but since he hasn’t fought anything yet Stark doesn’t realise this about himself, hence the imposter syndrome.
58/59
Sea of kana is difficult to parse as usual. I think Frieren is saying “you should realise that just this much isn’t good.”
Fern’s being rude in calling him nothing but a coward. Cowards can be kind people too. And Fern’s being a hypocrite if she was similarly scared the first time she had to kill an actual monster that was attacking her. Not a fan of hypocrisy. But I appreciate her having flaws. If that makes sense.
60/61
I think this is mostly building to the reveal that his is strong if he does fight.
62
And there it is. 30 seconds will be plenty.
ウスズミ notes:
I understand Frieren better when I do this, and since I misunderstood so much of the last chapter I’m doing it here too. By “this” and “it” I mean a bit of summarising what happened, a bit of breaking down sentences, a bit of plot thoughts. Spoilers ahead.
113
For a moment, I thought she was drawn as a centaur in the title image. Just the way jacket’s hanging and how it matches her trousers. If I focus on her face, my brain fills in her lower half as horse shaped, but if I focus on her (two) legs I see that isn’t the case.
114
Again, her pet(?)'s ears looked like her ears. Is it named クー? I think that’s the closest we’ve got to it being named. I was able to recognise 挨拶, doubled checked to be sure but I got meaning/reading right so I’m happy with that.
115
She’s leaving because they’ve finished burying the people who died near here. Though they were cremating the bodies so I guess 埋葬 isn’t just for burials.
Is the robo-ghosty thingy asking her if she knows the cause of the crystal disease and the aliens?
I think 区画 is not necessarily that she’s moving to a new place (title is about moving so it is also that), but more that she’s going to work for a different department.
ず is without grammar I think, so robo-ghosty is saying they regret not being more helpful, and cyborg lady who definitely had a name at some point is reassuring that they did were helpful, which is nice of her.
116
She’s off to do more searching, robo-ghosty would like her to drop by again if she learns anything.
117
At first I thought she was telling クー that they were looking for a place to live prettier than their old one, but then I remembered 綺麗 can also mean clean and that seems like the more relevant meaning here.
Didn’t read too much, but I really don’t wanna burn out before Sunday and I can feel myself in danger of that.
ウスズミ notes (2):
118/119
I forgot which way もらう goes and had to check. It seems she’s humbly saying this place will do. Because she was struggling to find somewhere decent to live.
120
だけ here is saying that bringing all her stuff in is the only thing she’s done so far.
A memo? It’s going to make the next section very, very wordy. I wonder if ■■さん ever read it.
121
So, the person who wrote the memo has wrote it just in case this person returns to here.
There’s some kind of quarantine facility that survivors are going to. This seems like it could be a big help in Cyborg Lady’s goal of finding survivors.
In the facility there’s a lot of equipment to help people live. Since it’s in ている form I think that means the facility was being set up at the time this memo was written.
The person who wrote this thinks that it will last for several generations, and ここ makes me they have already been to this facility (and probably wrote this letter before going there for good).
This next sentence is a lot. 「断罪者に脅えながら過ごすのは癪だがまずは生き残ることが最優先。」
「断罪者に脅えながら」「過ごすのは癪だが」「まずは生き残ることが最優先だ。」
「While being scared of the aliens」「Spending time is annoying(?), but」「First of all, maximum priority on remaining alive.」
So, something along the lines of “It’s vexing to live while being scared of the aliens, but first of all we need to prioritise staying alive.”
And ending with the writer wishing ■■さん was with them and leaving a way for them to find them. Since it’s not that far away, Cyborg Lady and クー are going to go and have a look.
I’m not optimistic about what they’ll find.
122/123
I do NOT like the look of that lift. Sure she got down safely, but can she get back up?
124/125
Even though I was expecting it, it is still sad. I don’t know whether or not they’ll ever find anyone else. They have found sentient (? I think) robots along the way and I’m sure they’ll find more, but people? Hard to say.
126/127
I guess it says something that she’s still looking around, just in case. And she found something? It’s not a living human, is it?
128/129
I think that’s one of the 断罪者 aliens. Is she surprised that they were able to kill it? Even if it was a draw?
130/131
I don’t understand what she’s saying about the barricade. That it’s just very plain? Anyway, since there’s no damage further in you could think it’s possible survivors are just deeper inside, but judging from those panels at the bottom left we are instead dealing with dead kids.
132/133
Pretty
134/135
Not pretty
136-139
So, the goal has changed. Instead of looking for people, we’re looking for the stuff they’ve left behind. It’s seeming more and more like there just aren’t any people to find.
The manga is good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure I’m in the best mental state to be reading it.
READATHON START
I am starting my Readathon with カードキャプターさくら. So that’s me all caught up on this one.
pages: 7
time: 10m
ウスズミの果て notes (3):
142/143
丑三！Her name is うしみつ.
Right, the new map she downloading shows a shelter that she runs? The company she’s a part of runs? It’s a little confusing that she has the same name as her company.
There’s also food stored in this area, but she has to check the shelter first because that’s her job.
144/145
It’s looking suspiciously like these people weren’t able to get into the shelter.
The camera using 生物 I think confirms that 丑三 is at least partially human and not completely an android.
146
Trying to ignore the firey/ghosty person and focus on the text. We now also know 小夜 is her name, and have confirmed that the creature is クー.
The firey/ghosty person is an AI, so probably that’s meant to represent a hologram? I’m just gonna call them Firey until they give any other name.
If their information has been registered, that means Firey was not aware of them before they came here, and therefore was not expecting them.
This last box has confusioned me.
「永遠の子であるあなたは」＝ you who has the child of eternity (The で is throwing me off here, I don’t think I can just pretend it’s a が)
「結晶病を含めあらゆる病に対する」= to compare crystal disease with every disease (not sure where the include verb goes here, that the “every” includes everything?)
「抗体を持っているため」= purpose that holds an antibody
「入居検査をパスします。」= pass an inspection for moving house (???)
I think those middle two fit together in that there is a comparison where on one side we have the crystal disease and on the other side we have every disease for which an antibody exists (or they have a copy of that antibody?)
I think the important bit of that box is they are trying to find a cure.
147
Thank frick that 丑三 also has no clue what this 入居検査 thing is.
I think Firey is saying this inspection is to check who is allowed into the shelter. People who aren’t allowed include people who’ve already been infected, people who are already hurt and will probably die anyways, and people who have anything on their criminal record.
I have the feeling that very few people, if anyone, were allowed into the shelter. Despite 丑三 meeting all those criteria.
148
Okay. Shelter wasn’t specifically built to this calamity, but was built in preparation for general calamities.
To increase the possibility of humanity continuing, a “model case” (like, a case study?) was designed.
pages: 9
time: 35m
Head hurts, taking a break.
ウスズミの果て notes (4):
149
1000 people sounds like a lot, but I’m not expecting any of them to exist in actuality. It’s also not a lot when you consider the billions of people that currently live on the planet. Though it is just one shelter, so 1000 is a decent amount of space (if it was used) and you’d have to hope there’s more shelters made, which I doubt.
They have enough food and planting space that that shouldn’t be an issue (but if there’s no people, all that food just rots, the seeds should be fine if stored properly)
In theory it protects from all kinds of outside disasters. It’s also meant to be like it’s whole self contained town, like with a school for those kids that don’t exist.
It is not a perfect shelter if there’s no people being sheltered.
I’m glad 丑三 is also thinking this and just straight up asks how many people are currently here.
Okay, so there was at some point 320 people here, which is a LOT more than I was expecting.
And now it’s just just the two “people” who have only just arrived. I use quote because I’m not sure if クー counts as a person, but Firey is counting them, so how many of the 320 were creatures like クー？ Well, I’m not surprised there’s no one living here.
150
Oh, that is a corpse-corpse, not a crystal-corpse.
… I think a skull is more than just “signs of decay”
So, when the aliens invaded, people who passed the inspection came here. And I think those last two bubbles can be summed up as “everything was working fine at first.”
151
Despite that everything was fine at first, an unexpected problem occured. The unexpected problem being that the humans weren’t able to get along with each other. I don’t know how that wasn’t expected, we’ve been killing each other for about as long as humans have existed.
Because of their programming, Firey wasn’t able to intervine in all the people killing each other.
152/153
I don’t think that last person would have a very stable mental state after all that, but I’m sure it’s been a long enough time we can pretend they died via growing old…
Poor Firey doesn’t understand why people would do this. Is it weird I want to pat their fire hair?
Well, that’s week 7 done.
Pages: 5
Time: 29m
This manga is really hard to read so I’m taking another break before starting Frieren.
フリーレン notes (3):
Let’s see if I’m able to read all of ch11 in one sitting.
64/65
Ooh, colour page.
Something something, true courage is being scared and doing the thing anyways.
I can’t say I’m too impressed with Eisen hitting him hard enough to cause such a scar.
66/67
Why does Fern’s memory of the monster she ran away from make her think Stark won’t run away if in the exact same situation?
68/69
So, basically she’s saying if the monster is too powerful to run away from, even if you do run at first it will catch up to you and then you’ll have to defeat it? Sure, as long as you realise it’s caught up before it kills you…
Why are you hugging the tree, Fern? You’ve put in the practice, haven’t you? It will be just like with that zombie looking thing.
70/71
Frieren just does not care about these people, or seem to understand why Stark does. Why did she join Himmel in becomming a hero in the first place? I guess 10 years isn’t that long for her so it could have just been on a whim.
72/73
So Eisen was also a bit of a coward? Then did he hit Stark because he reminded him of what he hates about himself or something? He really took things too far.
74/75
Okay, I think we’ve come back around to the dragon realising that Stark is capable of chopping him up into little tiny pieces.
I think I misunderstood earlier. I thought Stark was saying Eisen hit him as punishment for being scared of a monster, here Eisen is saying it was basically self defence because Stark would have killed him.
76/77
I’m not entirely sure why Frieren isn’t helping, she thinks he can do it on his own? I’m half thinking he’s already defeated it.
78/79
Yay, I guessed right. And a happy frieren gets her loot.
80/81
I don’t know what 七崩賢 is. Those kanji are seven, crumble/die, intelligent/wise. I’m guessing 7 clever and dangerous underlings of the demon king. So Eizen’s not sure if they can defeat them and win.
I’m not sure why Himmel is asking if he wants a painful and frustrating journey, maybe sarcasm?
And then he’s saying he wants a more enjoyable journey, but again I’m not sure why くだらない is being used as if it were a good adjective…
82
But why do you want to go on a useless journey? I feel like I’m missing something here. I looked up くだらない and it has a second meaning of stupid/silly, so if the meaning has been like “a journey we don’t take too seriously to the point no one has any fun” then I think that makes more sense.
That’s the chapter done.
Pages: 20
Time: 47m
And it’s lunchtime. I updated in the Readathon thread. My subtotals are 41 pages and 2h1m. That 1 minute looks a little silly… But that is how it adds up.
Next up is 空の軌跡. I’m aiming to read through like 5k characters, which I know I can’t do in one sitting. I have Reverie up to take battle breaks, but I’m going to be pausing my timer for these because I shouldn’t count that time in the Readathon, even if I would be lazier and count it in my personal times.
I’ve made good progress so far, only needing to take two breaks. I came back to realise I forgot to ask 市長 for the job details 
. But anyway, the main reason I’m rambling in my notepad again is because I saw 邪魔 and I was able to remember it from previous times I’ve seen it, almost as if reading natually gave the SRS intervals for that word. So, yay!
I finished up Week 6 of 軌跡 club, yay! I read just under 5k characters in 2h 13m. Since it’s an approximation anyway, I’m rounding up to 5k.
Taking a break to eat dinner. And probably watch some youtube or anime something before choosing what to read next.
I decided I want to try to read a page each of F落第生 and 薬屋のひとりごと. They are my most difficult books-in-progress, so my aim is one page.
F落第生 notes:
大学の友だち数人とちょっとばかり飲んで、ふと気付いたら電車が終わってしまっていて、仕方がないからタクシーを拾おうとふたりで連れ立って新宿通りのほうへぶらぶら歩いている途中だった。
So that’s a sentence. I already regret my decision . Anyway, breaking it down:
「with many friends from uni」「drinking just a little bit」, first clause makes sense
「if suddenly realise」「train entered state of being compeltely stopped」 looked to たら, can also mean “when” which would make more sence here
「it can’t be helped, so」「let’s pick up a taxi」「two of us go together towards Shinjuku street」「leisurely walking en route (all past tense)」
Right, I don’t see speech marks so I shall assume this is Narrator-san speaking. They were getting drinks with some uni friends, when they suddenly realised the last train of the night had already left. So two people were like “oh well, let’s get a taxi” and on the way to the taxi bank (making assumptions) they were walking leisurely. Then the taxi would take them to Shinjuku street.
私が両親と一緒に住んでいる家は中野で、
The house where I live with my parents is in Nagano,
シュちゃんは阿佐々谷にアパートを借りてひとり暮らしをしているので、
Shu-chan lives rents an apartment in Sasaya where she lives alone, (佐々谷 is a proper noun but what is 阿? A corner of this place?)
方向が同じなのだ。
the direction is the same (explanatory).
泣き出しそうな顔で立ち止まってしまった私を残して五、六歩進んでから、
With a face that looked like she’d burst into tears, she stopped walking and I continued and left her behind for 5/6 steps,
それに気付いて慌てて私のところまで駆け戻ってきたシュちゃんは
Then I realised and became confused (that I was stood away from her) and rushed back to Shu-chan
「違う違う、ちゃんと戻ってくるけどさ」
“No, no, although you came back properly”
と言いながら私の肩をぽんぽん、と叩いた。
while saying that, she tapped my shoulder.
(I’m really loosing track of who is doing what but I’m giving it my best shot.
[一六八センチの私に、
To the 168cm (5’5") me,
それより十センチ以上は背の低い小柄なシュちゃんがそんなことをしている光景というのは、
Compared to that, the 10cm shorter (so she’s 5’2") petite Shu-chan was doing such a thing (the shoulder tapping?) ]- The sight of all that は
他人から見れば少し滑稽なものだったかも知れない。
If other people saw it, it was possibly a slightly funny thing.
けれど私とシュちゃんの関係は、
However, the relationship between me and Shu-chan,
いつもこんなふうだった。
Was always this kind of style.
ふたたび並んで歩き出してから、
After we once more we began walking side-by-side,
シュちゃんは「ちょっとさ．．．」と呟き、
Shu-chan muttered “one minute…”
親指を上に向けたあとでお腹の前に半円を描くような仕草をして見せながら言った。
She did a gesture with her thumb while speaking. (details of the gesture probably don’t matter but include a stomach and a… semicircle?)
「コレがコレで．．．」This with this (???)
私はさっきとは違う種類の驚きに思わず大きな声で「ええッ」と言った。
Narrator-san got surprised (the wrong type of surprise?) and unintentionally shouted “What?!”
シュちゃんはそんな私に向かって困り果てたような笑顔を見せ、
Shu-chan faced that kind of me and had no idea what to do so showed a smiling face,
顎を突き出して肯定した。
she stuck out her chin in affirmation. (??? What even is this? Also 顎 has been the only kanji with furigana thus far)
「すみませんねえ」と言っているみたいだった。
It looked like she was saying sorry. (But not using hearable words why?)
私に対して謝るというスジの話ではないと思うが、
Uh… Narrator-san thinks the story isn’t… a reason to apologise to them??? But,
もし自分がシュちゃんの立場だったら私も同じように他人に対しては「すみませんねえ」という気持ちになってしまうかもしれなかった。
If I was in Shu-chan’s possition I would possibly feel like saying sorry to other people in the same way.
One whole page (and a bit because of the length of that last sentence) complete! It took 1hr 14m
I opened 薬屋のひとりごと, looked at the text, skimmed the first sentence, laughed hysterically, closed 薬屋のひとりごと.
Taking a hot choccy break then reading something easier.
Decided on レンタルおにいちゃん. I finished up chapter 3. I don’t think I read this before, at the least I was a little surprised when 叶実 was the one to insist on paying, but now that I think about it, that is much more comfortable than おにいさん taking advantage of this girl’s grief.
Pages: 13, Time: 9m
Finished chapter 1 of 三ツ星カラーズ. I have not touched this since the last readathon, but the plot is simple enough I wasn’t lost.
Pages: 7, Time: 11m
Finishing up tonight with a chapter of スーと鯛ちゃん. I like making the noises.
Pages: 7, Time: 3m
Listening - 21m
Listening キャンプ. 私はキャンプがあまり好きではありません。でも子供頃、毎年キャンプに行きました。
A thing for listening 節分. There were points I rewound to make sure I was hearing correctly and one point I turned on the subtitles to check the grammar because the conjugation was blurring in my ears.
Grammar - 1.1h
Grammar point studied:
いたします - polite する that can also be used with verbs that are not する verbs.
じゃないか - known
なければならない - the ません version is the version I was taught for “must” meaning. While it was not explained I the time, I see how this follows the same “if you don’t do X, then Y will not become good” structure.
Had a look at that 尊敬語／謙譲語／丁寧語 article, with much help from ichi.moe.
From what I can tell, a rough summary is this. 尊敬語 is used to say “you are better than me,” 謙譲語 is used to say “I am not as good as you,” and 丁寧語 is just being polite without necessarily implying anyone is better than anyone else. And 尊大語 is saying “I am better than you” and which is not very socially acceptable.
I do want to go back over grammar I’ve already learned to figure out which is what. Like, JLPT 先生 says でございます is honourific (so 尊敬語) and ございます is polite (so 丁寧語) and I want to double check that. It could be that it’s both honourific and polite as they seem like they would often go together. I’m saving this puzzle for another time though.
Also did one of my many open grammar tabs, ではあるまいし. If it came up at some point that I opened the tab, it makes sense to learn it even if it is N1. (My plan is to get some of the more difficult stuff known if it came up anyway, and then I’ll be ahead when I get there and the now stuff might be easier.)
However there is not explanation here of how this grammar works, I’ve realised now this is a downside of the JLPT先生 site. It gives a grammar and a translation and then a load of sentences. Oh well, I’ll get it all into my head eventually.
I think that’s enough for today.
Grammar points studied:
かどうか - learnt this as a word, so not difficult
かしら - heard in anime, but not properly learnt it
I think I’m making good pace this month.
Daily Rambling
月曜日：
My intention for today: play some 軌跡. Alternate between 空の軌跡 and Trails into Reverie so that I’m encouraged to read more 空。Also, get that week 11 up and also study log needs updating.
Nothing like watching the 空の軌跡 finale for some motivation. 
I’ve been motivating myself by killing one monster in Reverie then doing a few reviews, and then switching to 空 and occasionally switching back to go kill another monster (I’m in a dungeon, it’s mostly monsters atm).
火曜日：
So, all that pain I’m been moaning about is because my wisdom teeth are considering existing. I’m nowhere near wise enough to have wisdom teeth, but apparently this is a normal age to be getting them.
Made my goal post for the Autumn Readathon. I really enjoyed the last one. I’ve been sensible and made my goals be catching up ones, but if I get those I can read random shit. I think I’d like to read another sentence of 薬屋のひとりごと.
水曜日：
I wasn’t logged out at all yesterday so a part of me was hoping this enforced logout thing wasn’t happening to my wanikani. I had to log in this morning. I ticked the 2 week box, but, apparently that’s not working for some people?
I’m feeling rather anxious about an appointment I have this afternoon so I’m not sure how much I’ll get done this morning. I think I’m going to pull up Reverie again because that worked on Monday.
Appointment was even more stressful than expected because my support worker put her phone on silent so I wasn’t able to phone her at the start like we planned. Therefore my reading goal today is one page and I’m making hot choccy after.
木曜日：
Happy to say I’m still logged into wanikani today. I saw people in the thread complaining the box did not work, I am glad to not be one of them.
Today I want to finish that Frieren chapter and then assess if I want to work on something else. (And do SRS, and a few lessons)
I am again using the method of “one battle, some studying”
I’m trying to decide if I want to do some grammar next or some 軌跡. I’ve got a couple hours, so if it goes as well as Monday I could get through a week’s worth of 軌跡. But I don’t want to do too much and burn out, so probably I’ll just do some grammar. Actually I changed my mind, I’m done.
金曜日：
I do not have a lot of motivation for today. I want to do SRS and read ウスズミ.
I feel like I’m going to regret doing nine lessons at once, I’m just feeling a bit self-conscious over how long I’ve been here. I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It would probably be more efficient to be doing batches of 3 lessons more often than not doing lessons for ages and then shoving through nine at once.
Got my autumn reading challenge home post ready. I don’t know why I join them. I try to read everyday anyways and don’t whether I’m in the challenge or not. But as I was making it I realised last October was when I returned to wanikani. I’ve almost kept it up for a whole year. I’ve made so much progress in reading, from starting with Tadoku books to now being in four book clubs (albeit struggling with them). And it was around this time 10 years ago that I taught myself hiragana and katakana on a whim. Kinda feels like I might as well do a yearly update this now instead of at New Years’, since it feels more meaningful if I did it now. And also would give me a good excuse to procrastinate on doing my reviews.
I both did not write any yearly thing AND procrastinated on my reviews. 
Y’know I’ve been thinking about ダンジョン飯. Because there are two problems. 1. It is too hard for me to read right now. 2. Adding another book club would overwhelm me right now. But then I was thinking, since every chapter is a week long, that I know exactly how long that book club will run for (assuming that there is an offshoot). And if I consider the progress I’ve made in the past year, I think there’s a very real possibility of me improving enough that I will be able to read and catch up with the club before it finished. And that’s a very motivating thought.
I do need to actually read the current stuff and get better at that first though.
土曜日：
Ugh, sleepy.
Readathon tomorrow! Excited!
Depending on how I feel tomorrow I might actually skip it… (it = ウスズミ) But! Whether or not I read this tomorrow, I have maintained pace this week. (If I can read a week’s worth of each tomorrow, that’s a good sign for catching up, which I would like to do… And since my goal is maintaining the pace, tomorrow’s catch up reading is all extra and I don’t have to stress if I need to stop before finishing it all.)
It is thunderstorming. If the power goes out and I can’t use bookwalker tomorrow, I have two physical books I can try to read. (three if I count the stupid one)
日曜日：
Readathon day! I have woken up tired despite trying to go to bed on time to wake up nice and early.
Well, I beat all my reading goals. I feel a little cheaty having shifted the hours but I was struggling to drag myself out of bed this morning. I supposed I can think about it like the same thing could happen tomorrow, and then I can’t read anymore. But I hope I wake up early enough to read for just 9 minutes to reach that 6 hour mark.
In Summary
21 wk lessons (8/14 kanji)
548 jpdb remaining
126 pages of reading
9.5k characters of kiseki (13/20k)
2 comprehensible japanese
5 n4 grammar points (11/13)
a couple other grammary bits
Total time: 17.4 hours
Finally a decent amount of studying, though this is definitely because of the readathon yesterday. I think I’m on target for my September goals.
11 Likes
I feel like this week has been mostly decent. Month ends tomorrow and I’ve been tried to wrap that up too. I’m summarising it today because why not.
SRS - 4.4h
SRS done: 42 wk, 47 anki, 20 ringotan, 100 jpdb.
Lessons:
警視庁：How is this different from 警察庁？
質：質問・品質
差別：Most the context sentence either don’t seem to have the negative nuance or have it as part of 無差別.
SRS done: 45 wk, 53 anki, 21 ringotan, 100 jpdb.
警視庁 is metro which I think means they only work in Tokyo, 警察庁 is national so they work in all of the nation. Why is one a department and the other an agency? Why are those words not interchangeable? What makes 視 more Tokyo-y and 察 more everywhere-y? I do not know.
Lessons:
官庁：This one is neither a department nor an agency, it’s an office. At least agency is in synonyms.
述：Shares that radical with 術 so reading should be fine, meaning… uh… sure…
無視する：I feel like I read this recently.
SRS done: 16 wk, 42 anki, 24 ringotan, 100 jpdb.
Lessons:
視覚：reminds me of that scene in ATLA where Sokka draws a rainbow
供：I’m going to enter ども into the reading so many times and it will be wrong because for some reason wanikani wants this to be きょう.
時差：ここと東京の時差は九時間。
SRS done: 108 wk, 54 anki, 23 ringotan, 100 jpdb
SRS done: 6 wk (I probably should do the other 30 that will come through my usual time), 45 anki, 23 ringotan, 100 jpdb.
Lessons:
近視：ごめんね、私の目が禁止ありますから、君の顔を見れない。
展：展示会・発展する・展開
管：all the context sentences use “tube” and two of those in a medical context I am familiar with
SRS done: 34 wk
SRS done: 37 wk, 50 anki, 24 ringotan, and no jpdb because I don’t wanna.
15 wk
Lessons
遠視：私の子供頃はちょっと遠視があります。
販：販売・自動販売機・通販
管理：I put this in anki so I kinda know it
I’m timing my SRS separately today so I can see which is the biggest time sink. WK was 6 minutes, including lessons, so that is fine.
48 anki in 10m, 28 ringotan in 8m, 100 jpdb in 9m. So I spent just over 30m on that today, which is the quickest it’s been in a while. The times look reasonable for each one I think.
Reading - 5.2h
I would like to read a bit of クーク. The main difficulty with this book is all the kana. But I felt it went smoother today.
Pages: 11, Time: 13m
Next is しろくまカフェ. This one isn’t my style of humour but I hate giving up on a book before I’ve reached the end.
Pages: 4, Time: 7m
マジで付き合う１５分前 has no furigana and last time I was only able to read a couple pages. Well that was a short chapter XD.
Pages: 2, Time: 5m
にゃんにゃん探偵団. I’m not sure why I was putting this off yesterday? Probably because I’m starting the third story and was reluctant to stop in the middle of it. That worry was for nothing as I could read the entirety of the question side of the story.
Pages: 23, Time: 15m
Well, that’s a bit out of most my in-progress books. I don’t really feel like starting くまクマ熊ベア or 薬屋のひとりごと when I’ve got 18m remaining, so I’m starting a new manga, ささやくように恋を唄う. No furigana, which hasn’t been too much of a problem thanks to Kankan. However I cannot figure out what this ボレする verb is.
Pages: 19, time: 16m
I almost missed 08:30, but luckily noticed the time before accidentally reading too long. I was already feeling a little cheaty shifting the 24hrs to include this morning, I would not have been happy to go over that. Anyway, calculating gives 128 pages and 5k characters in 6h 47m across 13 sources. I am awesome. That is all.
Readathon End
ウスズミ notes:
154
This is just hard. What is even said in that top right panel?
top left panel: 丑三 asks if the one surviving person was processing the corpses, Firey confirms and says this shelter has an incinerator.
Middle panels: that clears up the corpse we saw. I was confused when we see this guy rotting but all the other corpses seem to have been cleared away.
Bottom panels: “Until the end, he wasn’t able to realise.” Something about sacrificing other people (犠牲 can also be victim/casualty meaning?), something about obtained rest, both things that were said by someone, and then an although. So “although [Firey?] said the people who died are at rest,” Then the last bubble, the guy wanted to leave. … Why was he not able to leave? 懇願 = pleasing so he needed Firey to let him out? And they didn’t?
155
top right: Firey I think is not able to give permission to leave, and when this guy understood that, he killed himself.
top left: 丑三 asking why Firey didn’t give permission implies it’s not that Firey couldn’t let them out, but that they wouldn’t.
Middle right: “Without asking about the 管理権限’s existing or not, I (Firey) cannot (would not? no できる…) give permission for to outside” 丑三 also being confused makes me feel a little better about my confusion.
Middle left: … Is Firey saying they wouldn’t give permission because they couldn’t understand why the question was asked in the first place? Who are you, my dad?
Bottom panel: Again, the shelter is NOT perfect if there are NO PEOPLE. The unfortunate thing is that programming this AI to not open the shelter while the danger they are sheltering from is still dangerous makes sense. And I just thought, they’re not going to want to let 丑三 out either, are they?
156
Glory? Honour? WTF?
People who already know each other are not exempt from the whole people have a tendancy for killing each other thing.
Again with this 永遠の子 thing. What is that about, I don’t really get it.
And as expected the minute you voice the thought of leaving the door is locked.
157
Come on, Firey, all the people in here died. This person who was outside is not dead. Therefore, the outside wins.
Is shooting Firey even going to work? Is their form physical enough to die?
158
Shooting a hole to outside, that is a bigger blast that I was expecting. The gun almost looks like it’s attached to クー’s tail. Also, 丑三 is still trying to reason with Firey and I just don’t think they can be reasoned with.
159
That string attached to the gun is クー’s tail…
Yeah, now Firey’s going to try to kill you. I suppose the other robots we’ve seen so far have been pretty human like so maybe 丑三 has literally never even heard of the concept of tech that can’t be reasoned with.
160/161
At least with a fight scene there is less difficult dialogue to try and puzzle through (even if I was mostly glazing it towards the end there).
… You have a “hunch” that today is a “bad day”? While Firey has summoned guns and pointed them all at you? A “hunch”?
162/163
Bullet proof arm, cool. And yes, the fact that we’ve found out your arm is bullet proof does confirm that this a “bad day” for anyone who didn’t figure that out already. (Also how have I only just noticed her fingers are robotic. Seriously I have not been paying enough attention to this one.)
166
I doubt he would have survived if he was able to get out, but he definitely didn’t stuck inside. I guess it’s somewhat nice of her to put his corpse near the others so they can all be dead together.
Yeah this manga is not at all helpful for my mood. It would probably be smarter to just drop it. I know I’m being stubborn about it, but I’ve got two chapters left. I can finish it. Ugh why do I own the 2nd volume as well? Maybe I’ll come back to it next year and it being easier to read will make it less of a brain upsetter.
Ended up just doing a little bit of 軌跡. About 800 characters. Probably should include book club reading as intensive even if it’s not particularly, and do that before tiring my brain with grammar.
フリーレン notes:
83
They have arrived at the fortress, but the guard won’t let anyone go north because of monsters existing.
87
Dear frick this guard guy is TALL. Wasn’t expecting Frieren’s attitude to be “Oh well, not letting us pass is his job, good for him on doing it well” though in retrospect it makes sense.
88/89
I should really look up this ても grammar because 2 years is not a quick amount of time for anyone but Frieren. Well, I think I get the gist of these two.
90/91
I’m not sure I really like Fern. Maybe Stark misinterpreted and she didn’t actually want his ice cream. And I get that she’s very frustrated by Frieren so it would be a relief for her to find Stark has a more sensible sense of time. But despite understanding why she might be feeling the way she is, she’s just rubbing me the wrong way for some reason.
I looked at the next page and my brain just kinda went “no” so uh, maybe tomorrow?
Read 1.1k of 軌跡 but now I’m exhausted (probably due to getting up to early, thank you realistic dream voice that made me think someone was in the house and then I couldn’t fall back asleep). So I’mma try to nap and maybe read some more when I wake up again.
Read another 1.9k. Need to find the kitty. But also need to eat. Dilemma.
フリーレン notes (2):
92
I think they are saying the boundary between countries is an actual magical barrier, so people can’t pass through it. But there’s a limit to how tall the barrier is, so flying monsters are just flying over it.
Then they are going to a merchant guild because they might be able to trade. (かもしれない is more smoothly read now that I understand it better.)
フリーレン notes (3):
93
They cannot trade at the merchant’s guild because basically everythings on lockdown. So they’re gonna have to wait until things calm down.
Stark suggests they look at less than legal options, though I don’t think it’s much of a bluff if he could actually murder them all if he wanted.
94/95
Stark’s plan didn’t work. I don’t fully understand the reason, but we’re back to waiting.
Next I think they’re gonna try talking to the guards again. Fern is suprised at Stark doing so much effort, he says it’s because Fern said she didn’t want to wait… and then she tells him he looks desperate? Is it because she got used to Frieren’s taking things slowly even if she gets annoyed by it? Then we have Stark saying it’s because they don’t have much time, presumably because he is also human and is very aware of his own mortality.
96/97
First off we have Stark telling us about when Eisen took him here. Normally Eisen doesn’t tell him stories, but that time he did tell him about the Adventure.
Even though Eisen lives for a long time and ten years isn’t much to him, that Adventure was very VERY important to him. Like, disproportiately to the time spent on the journey?
Stark is now telling us (well, Fern) that because Eisen is too old to go on another adventure, Stark is going in his place. He wants to go on fun, silly adventures and have lots of experiences and then must return home filled with stories to tell him. Though less of an “I want to do this” and more of a “I have to do this” kind of vibe?
98/99
This is why Stark says there’s not a lot of time. He’s not thinking about his own mortality, but Eisen’s. He wants to (needs to?) tell Eisen about his adventures before he dies of oldness.
Anyway, they have found Frieren who is being sneaky and following that stupidly tall guy. No, she’s the one being followed, the rest makes sense now. Anyway, Stark asks her what she did wrong, and Frieren says she was just going to lots of magic shops, which makes more sense now that it isn’t a lie contradicting her following someone, because she’s the one who is being followed because for some reason going to the magic shops is suspicious.
100/101
Despite the ominousness on the previous page, she was being followed because the tall guy REALLY wanted to apologise to her.
Okay, the guy got reprimanded for not letting her through because she’s like famous or something, and Frieren doesn’t realy get it because he was just doing his job and she didn’t care about the wait.
This guy has completely misunderstood, he thinks the reason Frieren has come here is to deal with the fighting that hasn’t stopped north of here (and it’s been like 78 years since the demon king was defeated? They’re persistent.)
Yeah, Frieren is technically I hero, I guess. It seems she’s just not very used to being treated like one so she didn’t bother to namedrop herself.
102
Less that she’s not used to it and more she just doesn’t like it. We can see how she half hid at the back of the group in the past.
I don’t fully get the joke at the end? Mentally misparsed that conjugation, I get it now. She was kinda looking forward to the wait I guess
Chapter complete! Thank fuck for that. That’s today’s most difficult task complete.
Listening - 39m
Listening: ランドセル.
Had enough of reading for now, but moving onto a little listening. 日本のテーブルマナー. The first 4 are similar to English manners, and I’d heard of the 5th, but the 6th was unexpected.
I found this list of podcasts on one of the other threads here. So I decided to listen a couple of the easy ones. Not having visuals means my mind wanders though so maybe not the best idea.
I listened to the 5th Nihongo con Teppei, which my opinion has not much changed from last time I tried it. 1st Sakura Tips, I didn’t understand everything she was saying but it was nice to listen to. And there’s a transcript I could look at if I was trying to listen more intensively. The others either did not work or had their playlist backwards.
Grammar - 44m
Grammar points studied:
かい - like か but the い means the question is closed. Based on the example sentences, it can also have a “want” nuance
かもしれない - seen varients of this while reading. I’m curious how it breaks down as the しれない portion comes from negative 知る and I’m not sure where the かも comes from? Unless those are the question marker and also? Then, Xかもしれない breaks down as like “X? I also don’t know that. It might happen.” Which makes me feel this is a lot less certain than something like だろう.
かな - I’m most of the way through the Higurashi VN and Rena-chan uses this so SO much.
Well, that’s actually enough grammar done for the month. It doesn’t hurt to do extra so I have less to do later. I’ve also got a load of random grammar tabs open from reading things and book clubs.
ことになる - decision meaning, not changing/becoming meaning as I would have expected. The difference between this and ことにする is this one is for things other people have decided, and that one is for things you yourself have decided.
But then example sentences like 「日本では車は道路の左側を運転することになっています。」 confuse me, especially when the given translation (In Japan cars drive on the left side of the road.) has no explanation. Where is the explanation?
Daily Rambling
月曜日：
Uh, I forgot both my study log and my kiseki thread But before that I’ve got just over an hour left of the readathon.
Now I need to get 軌跡 thread ready and then update my study log and then resist the urge to go back to bed.
So I absolutely did go back to bed. I did keep myself up for a few hours but gave up and had a lie down so that I could get SRS done when I woke up.
火曜日：
I was really exhausted yesterday after the readathon. And still kinda tired now. I read some manga in English this morning for a break, but meh. I don’t care about what’s happening in AoT, I already read FMA. I can’t be arsed to care about much of anything atm.
Reading ウスズミ because the week ended mid chapter and that’s just rude. (also very understandable given how difficult the text is)
I don’t really understand why I was able to read so much for the Readathon, but trying to get myself to read just 13 pages for the book club is this huge effort? Maybe if I aim to read more today, it’ll suddenly be easier?
Okay, new plan. “Studying” means doing my SRS, learning new grammar, intensive reading and/or listening. I want to be doing a couple hours of studying a day. Then, after studying, I can do less intensive stuff like reading stuff at an easier level or listening without worrying too much about what I miss. And just have fun with the language. I had fun on Sunday and on Monday morning, when I was past doing the reading I “needed” to do I had a lot more motivation for reading.
Of course I may run into the same problem I have outside of Japanese where there’s just too much and none of the options sound particularly appealing. I will need to think of something to combat that. What happened to my d20 plan? That worked the couple times I used it.
水曜日：
Today is going to be a catching up with 軌跡 club day. But first, reviews.
木曜日：
I am procrasting A lot of wk reviews came through yesterday afternoon and before I got up (late) this morning… So I’mma just avoid them for a bit.
Not doing lessons today, but I’ve been consistent with them so that shouldn’t be a problem. Also, I just checked and the last 3 kanji in my lessons pile aren’t required for me to level up so that could happen this month!
Unfortunately so much SRS has my brain melting a bit, so I feel like I need a break before reading.
Had a productive start to the afternoon with chores and stuff and ready-ish to read.
(Got distracted by phone call, actually gonna read now before I make dinner)
金曜日：
I see the BBC is starting 約束のネバーランド this weekend. I don’t think I’ve the energy to add another compulsory read to my week. I already bought the 1st volume though so I’m swapping it with ウスズミ. I think I said within my notes for the latter that it’s just not a great match for how my mental state is at the moment.
Anyway, I’m up super early (5am) and NicoB dropped a new 軌跡 reaction so that’s my plan for today.
Sleeping didn’t go to well between nightmares of my dog eating the cat that hung around where I used to live and doorbell (for N5 certificate! it arrived! hooray!). And it’s about time I normally do my reviews anyway so I supposed getting up doesn’t really hurt.
So now I’m overthinking, because that only took me 5 minutes. And anki earlier wasn’t even 10. So that’s 15 minutes to go through wk and anki reviews, which means 35 to go through ringotan and jpdb? Lessons actually would take a chunk of the time. And my physical writing isn’t as fast as my typing. And my accuracy on jpdb has been shit because of how long I let that pile sit. (That terrible accuracy means I won’t clear it to 0 this month unless I go out of my way to do extra on Monday (And I mean objectively terrible, it’s averaging 62%, not just subjectively terrible because I’m a perfectionist who sulks when my wk accuracy goes below 90%.))
JFC bleeping 赤茶玉蟲 zooming into me out of nowhere and nearly giving me a bleeping heart attack. Actually made me think I have not been properly looking at monster descriptions or anything and just reading the main text and side quests. Oh well, my own fault for starting this when I’m not really ready for it yet.
土曜日：
I feel like I spent all my energy on buying dog food. It wasn’t even a particularly difficult task. I need to make phone calls to find out why her normal food hasn’t been delivered and schedule vaccinations for us both. I don’t want to phone anyone. And I can’t seem to motivate myself into studying.
I have set a timer, and I am allowed to procrastinate with whatever until it beeps, and then I will do my reviews and read one page (or one two-page spread?) of Frieren.
Ugh, I have left myself too much to do tomorrow. Finishing chapter 12 of Frieren, the Cardcaptor Sakura pages, I’ve still got to do that missing cat sidequest in Kiseki. I should do two batches of jpdb if I wanna finish it by the end of the month, but I’ll still have to do a shitton on Monday because my accuracy is shit. Wanikani lessons will be fine if I do them both days. Need to tally up Kiseki characters to see if I need to read a bunch Monday to meet that goal. I’m gonna have to set them even easier next month because I am unnecessarily stressing myself over this.
日曜日：
Everything is fine 
I only procrastinated for one hour this morning 
I need to eat lunch and see if I can get the rest of my SRS done before my afternoon plans, and then I’ve a bit more reading to do this evening, which I should do but it won’t hurt too much if it gets left for tomorrow.
Tried to read カードキャプターさくら tonight, but spent 5 minutes just staring at the page not processing so I’ll leave it for tomorrow.
In Summary
15 wanikani lessons (13/14 kanji)
280 jpdb remaining
93 pages of reading
3.8k characters of kiseki (16.8/20k)
2 comprehensible japanese
2 podcast episodes
4 n4 grammar points (15/13 
)
Total time: 11.0 hours
I have made good progress with my goals in that I’ve met half of them and will finish two more tomorrow. The last two I probably won’t get done tomorrow, but I still made good progress on them.
For SRS I’m mostly still just plodding along. I should level up tomorrow or the day after though, which is nice. Anki and Ringotan seem stable, it’s just jpdb that is the problem. Part of me wants to just drop it, other part of me wants to keep it for the F落第生 and anime decks.
For reading I have kept pace with book clubs. I still need to read this weeks カードキャプターさくら but that’s what happens when book club weeks don’t match with calendar weeks. I enjoyed the reading I did for the readathon a lot more than the compulsory reading I’ve been doing for book clubs. 軌跡 and フリーレン can be fun once I’ve got into them a bit, but I’m dropping ウスズミ. Partially because it’s not good for my mental state, partially so I can replace it with 約束のネバーランド which started the other day. Again my goal will be to keep pace.
I feel like I should be doing more with listening. Gonna try and follow the next anime picked for anime club, even if I don’t understand anything or just let eng subs do the work for me.
It seems like I usually have one day of the week where I do a chunk of grammar. It’s working so I’ll leave it as is.
Goals for October:
Finish WK Lv24 lessons
Clear jpdb (current: 280)
Keep up with カードキャプターさくら
Keep up with 約束のネバーランド
Finish Volume 2 of 葬送のフリーレン
Finish the Prologue of 空の軌跡
Keep up with Anime Club
Study 13 new grammar points
I’ve got 38 wk lessons at the moment, but that will increase as remaining kanji guru. Just try to do 3 a day every day that I feel up to it. jpdb I hope is cleared by the end of next week. The way the reading works out, I’m slightly focusing on フリーレン because finishing at end of volume is better than one chapter before the end. I’m so far behind on 軌跡 and I know the plot anyway so it’s okay if it take me a while. Though I am running that one so I really should be caught up. But anyway. This is probably all achieveable.
The good news is I think I typically get better motivation around Oct/Nov time so I’m hoping this slump I’m in doesn’t last too much longer. Been almost a year since I restarted wk. I’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve finished 5 manga and 2 kids books, and have a lot of in-progress reading. (and 86 free tadoku books). That’s a lot more than I could read last year. I closed up my N5 gaps, got my certificate (it arrived Friday, no picture I’m too tired to anonymise it.), and have made progress on N4. I can hear better. I’ve learnt more kanji and more words. I started writing / stroke order practice. I moved house twice and dealt with a shit ton of other personal stuff.
I’m doing good, I’ve made good progress, my brain is just lying when it tells me otherwise. Gold star for me 
13 Likes
Definitely to you! And thanks for the list of podcasts.
4 Likes
I feel like it’s been a productive week. I’ve levelled up to 25. I’ve done a decent amount of reading.
SRS - 5.6h
SRS done: 39 wk, 48 anki, 19 ringotan, 100 jpdb.
Lessons:
血管：the word makes sense
株：株式会社
現象：象！＝🐘
SRS done: 58 wk, 55 anki, 87 jpdb (not cleared, I just reached the 15m mark)
SRS done: 23 wk (LEVEL UP! Finally), 28 ringotan, 44 anki, 200 jpdb
I see I have one kanji 「栄」 prelearnt thatnks to things moving around. I imagine that means 光栄 and 栄光 would have also moved up to this level or higher, so that’s at least two words I don’t need to worry about. (A little peek at wkstats shows I’ve burned two and enlightened 4 of this levels vocab already, and 栄光 is hiding in 27.) Anyway, I should finish my Lv24 vocab first.
Lessons:
気象：Difference between this and 天気？
量る：動物病院でベッティーを量らないと。
境：What even is a sockeye salmon? googles That doesn’t look real.
SRS done: 73 wk, 46 anki, 23 ringotan, 100 jpdb
Lessons:
量：すごい薬の量
国境：北の国境線は私が引く
武器：武器は剣一本のみ
SRS done: 52 wk, 20 ringotan, 45 anki, 98 jpdb (IT"S CLEARED!)
Lessons:
大量：大量の水があるならば
境界：魔獣が境界線を越えて来てしまいます
武道：あいきどうは武道ですか？
Somethings gone weird with jpdb in that it’s not counting all my reviews in my stats screen. I know how many I’ve been doing because they were in blocks of 100. But like the day I did 200 it thinks I did 51… At least I can see how many I did in the end of reviews screen.
Of course 6 more reviews showed up in the time it took me to record by jpdb reviews and go back to the learning screen. Oh well, the point is, I made it.
Oddly I felt like I was struggling to pay attention with my reviews and kept noticing my mind wandering and I wasn’t doing them, but it didn’t take me noticeably longer from other days.
SRS done: 25 wk, 36 anki, 25 ringotan, 90 jpdb
Lessons:
定量：like 定額
環境：リラックスできる環境が大事です (not like climate change kind of environment)
武士：it just is
SRS done: 28 wk, 48 anki, 22 ringotan, 77 jpdb
Lessons:
質：this and 量 are convenient words
述べる：context feels stronger than just mention so I want to remember the state meaning
提供：居場所を提供しよう
Also, Bocchi got chosen for the IMC. Based on the text density, I am going to really, REALLY struggle with this. Adding high frequency vocab to anki now to try and help things be a little less painful. I added 33 new words, which will trickle through for like a month and then when we get to the club starting I should have less vocab issues.
Reading - 7.9h
カードキャプターさくら notes:
28
Kero-chan is the “beast of seals” who protects the book. He doesn’t have a lot of energy in the daytime, so he has that plushy form. Sakura-chan has not seen Kero-chan’s bigger form.
29
This is in flashback land! I understand now. Kero-chan is thanking Sakura for waking him up, the くれた means that was a favour to him. Kero-chan speaks 大阪弁 because the book he was (trapped?) in was in 大阪. Sakura has a very reasonable response when face with a talking plushy.
30
Kero-chan wasn’t doing a very good job of protecting the cards if he didn’t even realise they were missing… Sakura has a very childlike idea of what bad things the escaped monsters would be doing, which makes sense as she is a child.
31
Clow cards are natural disaster levels of dangerous. Well, I wasn’t going into this expecting the stakes to be particularly tense. We’ll see if that changes with how things are portrayed later. If the Clow cards gather enough power, they will create a Clow Lead, which is a master of magical abilities. (Does this imply ordinary Clow Cards, while being magical, cannot use magic?) I think it looks nicer if I call the boss one a Clow Leader.
32
The cards are each given their own name, form, and magical power (which answers my above question), like the Fire card having Fire magic.
「それぞれ好き勝手に」
To do whatever they like (each card respectively)
「行動したがりよる」
がり follows adjectives and verbs are not adjectives so I’m lost. Something about actions that have been done.
「上に並のもんでは」
Things that are above average
「歯が立たん。」
not within one’s capabilities.
Altogether, I think we have along the lines of “They (the Clow cards) do whatever they like and their actions are an above average problem to deal with, which is not within our (Kero-chan & Sakura-chan’s) capabilities.”
Having read the rest of the page, not specifically Kero-chan and Sakura-chan’s capabilities, but the capabilities of people in general, so Kero-chan was made to deal with the cards if they ever got loose because normal people can’t handle it.
33
Kero-chan was not supposed to be sleeping. I thinks that bottom half is Kero-chan saying that since Sakura was able to wake him up, she has some magical aptitude.
34 - 39
Okay, first of all, the font they use in the magical spells is giving me the same issues as the first week’s pages, that wasn’t just a fluke of me feeling not great.
Sakura-chan is now a magical girl, hooray! Kero-chan seems much more trustworthy than Kyuubei.
I like how キャプター has furigana saying 捕獲者. I also find it unironically helpful that it lets me know the flashback has ended.
Well, those pages were a bit more difficult than expected. I read through the thread and posted about the difficult p32 bit.
約束のネバーランド notes:
I am a bit familiar with the series from the anime. I know I watched the first season and I think I watched the second, but don’t remember details, but it will probably come back to me as I read. I’m not going to avoid that as I try to make sense of things.
5
Okay, I know I said I like when furigana is creative, but it feels a little silly with GF here.
First sentence is nevermind I figured it out, the と here is the quoting one, not an and. “She who we adore by calling her “mother” is not our parent.”
“They who live together are not siblings.”
“This Grace Field House is an orphanage, and I’m an orphan.”
“That was what I thought.”
8/9
「施設の暮らしも１０年。」
First thing that’s confusing me is 施設 having furigana of こ. Just こ. I’m not sure if this is Emma saying she’s lived here for 10 years, or that the “orphanage” is up to 10 years. Actually I think I remember Emma being 12 so probably the former.
10/11
The visceral reaction I had reading コニー’s name… 
. Ugh, she’s fine. Everything is fine. I’m reading Emma’s explanation boxes as a little ominous, but it’s fine.
12/13
Confimation that Emma, Norman, and Ray are 11, and me remembering they would really rather stay 11…
Ugh it’s all so sweet and happy and it hurts.
14/15
Now I believe the exposition boxes are obviously ominous, with Emma saying she’d never doubted before implying there’s reason someone would. And, y’know, the whole numbers thing.
16/17
Ominousness.
18/19
I read the warning so I’m not worrying too much about the test questions, just saying them and looking at the vocab sheet to get the gist. I would not be able to answer any of those questions within 10 seconds. Maybe I could read the question within 10 seconds if they were in English.
20-23
I do appreciate that the kids don’t necessarily hate these tests somehow.
I don’t have much to say about these last few pages, didn’t have any trouble with the grammar and any vocab I didn’t know already in the sheet.
For today’s reading I’m going with 軌跡. I want to read as much as I can before my brain melts and I know I said my goal was keeping pace and not catching up but I am so far behind my own club that scratch that, let’s see if I can catch up.
Finished up the end of week 7 and I’m already tired so I’m going to take frequent breaks while I play today. (I’ve read about 1k so far.)
フリーレン notes:
104-105
Just a flashback of Frieren discussing finding Flamme’s book with her old companions. If Frieren is saying she’s only person left who remembers her, then that implies that any other elf who knew Flamme is already dead. Either Frieren was so young then that all the other elves who knew Flamme got old and died, or there was some terrible elf murder event that Frieren survived/avoided.
106/107
The ないと here is a shortened must, not a negative. A little annoyed at myself not recognising 街道 considering how often I’ve read it in 軌跡.
108/109
I think the hand writing bit is Frieren saying that’s Fern’s reasoning, and it is good reasoning so good for her. Took me a minute to properly parse what Stark was suggesting, I do kinda appreciate we now have someone who will need things explained to. I would like to borrow the explanations for my own understanding.
110/111
Does Fern not have a middle ground with her talking? I don’t have much of a middle ground for things either
Not sure on the use of 生まれる in the old guy’s speech. It’s not the first time he’s seen an elf be born, Frieren has been born for a while now.
I do like that they’re leading into the “other elves???” that I rambled a little about with the first pages.
112/113
The way Frieren refers to her 同族 of elves makes me think there are multiple types of elves and some live longer than others. While the extinction aspect isn’t really great, it does make sense that a species with such a long lifespan wouldn’t have as many offspring as often as shorter lifespaned species.
The old guy talking about the festival made me realise we’re not that far off from there not being living humans who remember Himmel. Which is something that while it is obvious, I didn’t really think about it until now. There was a bit in the back of my head thinking “each new town will have some old person who remembers when Frieren/Himmel/Whoever came to help them” and while that is the case so far, it’s not a forever thing. Which then leads into me wondering if we’re going to see Fern and Stark get old and die in a similar was to Himmel and Heiter at the start of this series…
114/115
I guess when you live as many years a Frieren, having a festival every year would be like trying to have pancake day on every Tuesday. You’d get fed up of pancakes. I doubt she celebrates her birthday. And with humans having many festivals throughout the year, I guess she gets fed up of them all. I appreciate how this random guy explains it to her.
5 retakes of a statue. 5. Complete(?). Statues. sigh
116/117
Aw, that’s adorable. I doubt it’s actually the highest reason. But the idea that if Himmel has statues (and retakes) everywhere, that they’re not fakes like Flamme’s supposed book, that it’s real? D’aw. My heart. Almost forgot I still have one.
118/119
限り has a lot of meanings but I think we’re going with the “as long as…; as far as…” type meanings.
120
Oh dear, I don’t think anyone can predict as far as a thousand years away. Even for Frieren that shouldn’t be a short amount of time. Probably. Maybe.
Stark came along not knowing where we’re going? I suppose for him it’s more a matter of the journey than the destination.
(The title for next chapter has intrigued me. “Magic that says words”? Interesting.)
I’m reading some レンタルおにいちゃん. I don’t remember this bit even though I can see I voted reading along in the old threads. I was almost able to read the whole chapter with not problems but I am not sure on that final line. Hooray for old threads to explain it to me.
For 軌跡, I think I want to do some of that tonight instead of trying to rush it all tomorrow. We’ve got the bit of getting the quest ready, then the dungron crawl which should be a decent break, then the scene at the end of the quest. So if I do the before bit tonight, that means I only have to do the after bit tomorrow. (Or if I’m lucky my brain refuses to put it down and I do it all today and then whatever reading I do over the weekend is extra.)
Since I just looked at the grammar earlier 「取材に協力する事になったんです。」 It’s been decided that we cooperate to collect information for an article. Help to collect info might be more natural sounding. Anyway, the 事になった part is what I noticed.
Anyway, I read about 1.6k characters and now I do need to stop reading for tonight. BUT. I did do more than just フリーレン so I’m happy.
I found this sentence interesting 「カメラを持つと性格が変わる？」. I’ve only looked at the difference between various conditionals a little bit and it went over my head, but I vaguely remember that と was used in like “If A, then B naturally follows” kinda way? I could be misremembering. But here, it’s like Estelle is asking if this is a naturally following occurance. Since, we see Dorothy’s character change so she’s not asking if that’s what happened, she knows it happened. So she’s asking if that’s normal that she picked up the camera and then the natural conclusion of that is her personality seeming different. I feel like I’m rambling a bit too much
Read almost 2k characters. I started the tower top scene but haven’t finished talking to all the people yet. Still, I’m making progress. Slowly. But I’m getting there.
Listening - 44m
Did a bit of listening スマホを使っていろんな動作をしよう！. 動作＝operation (of a machine), though in hindsight it’s probable the movement; motion meaning.
Accidentally ended up doing some more listening practice, as one of the anime I was watching didn’t have subtitles for one of the episodes. I was able to understand bits of it, but there was an important conversation towards the end that I got basically none of from a combination of it being complicated and me losing listening stamina. Next episode also doesn’t have subs and I’d really rather know what’s going on when I’m watching anime for fun.
Turns out I just had to refresh the page for them to work, I’m a little annoyed at myself for not trying that to begin with, but like French and Italian subtitles were working so I thought it was something to do with the English subtitle file. Still, I’m counting my listening minutes and also rewatching this ep. Oh, and it’s ep 10 of 魔導具師ダリヤはうつむかない if you were wondering (I know all those kanji yay).
Grammar - 58m
Grammar points studied:
から作る - simple to understand
きっと - learnt it as vocab
頃 - came across this before, doing it properly now to understand the differences in its uses.
Grammar points studied:
こと・ことがある・ことができる - know them already
ことにする - should be basically the same as にする but giving it a look in case of differences. It’s basically the same. にする is used with nouns, and ことにする is used with verbs, but that こと is turning the verb into a noun which is then used with にする.
くする - く form of い adjectives combining with する, easy enough to understand. (The version of this that goes with な adjectives is にする, but a different one from the one I mentioned above, which will not be confusing )
にする - makes sense to go over this one after looking at くする.
急に - basically a word, which I already know
I’m not sure what to do with myself with having so many grammar bits I know. I kinda went over half the month’s goal today, since I didn’t check how many I already knew when I made the goal…
Read this Maggie Sensei article on となる vs. になる. Unintentionally, it ties into the くする・にする I studied above. She specifies the に is part of the な adjective, as in the な becomes a に, and not the particle に. As you might expect, this second になる has くなる equivalent. Also, the になる in the title is the particle one, she just discussed this later because they look the same.
I then saw I had a bunpro tab for じゃあるまいし which I studied the equivalent ではあるまいし in JLPT先生, but the bunpro version explains why it means what it means much better. (Not difficult when the JLPT先生 didn’t explain.) I should probably consider going back to bunpro for the explanations, even if the SRS didn’t work for me. I’ll think on it.
Daily Rambling
月曜日：
Last day of october. Things I need to do today: wk lessons, カードキャプターさくら, phone calls 
The next anime for anime club isn’t starting until next Friday. I hope it’s either something easy or something I’ve watched before.
Next I worked through one sentence of 薬屋のひとりごと. I think working through a bit of something not compulsory each day will be helpful for my motivation.
I have reached my goal of studying for two hours today, and just in time for this damned headache to return.
火曜日：
Had a very busy morning to the point I’m only just getting my computer on at 14:45. I did my ringotan on the bus and read a couple chapters of スーと鯛ちゃん. I intend to get the rest of my SRS done before dinner, then make that 軌跡 arts list after dinner, which will hopefully continue into me playing the game since I’ve got it open anyways.
Making the arts list was more tiring than expected so I’m not reading the game tonight. I am still counting some of that time because of trying to make the sheet Japanese.
水曜日：
Ugh I did too much jpdb, but I’m SO CLOSE to clearing the damned pile.
I’ve done the minimum I set out to do today. Actually now that I think about it I did more because I was going to split 約束のネバーランド into two lots of 10 pages and I did it all at once. I kinda want to play some 軌跡 but I’m tired. I think once I’ve had a rest and done some life chores I’ll see if I feel up to it then.
Turns out doing even just 30 minutes of chores brings all of the exhaustion, who would have guessed. Ugh I wanna go bed early but I slept like 10 hours last night and I’ve only been awake for 7. At least things are a bit cleaner. Not sure it’s worth the effort.
木曜日：
Ugh I am very very awake 
Had a panic that my sister was like dead or horribly injured or something because we were supposed to talk last night and I hadn’t heard from her in nearly 24hrs. I phoned her, she’s fine, we’ve been talking for the past couple hours, but I’m not gonna be able to read anything until later tonight. Between both sisters, we talked for almost 12 hours so no more studies today g’night.
金曜日：
First time all week I’ve managed to pull myself out of bed at a reasonable time, hooray. Today I plan to read at least half a Frieren chapter.
I’ve been lurking around the IMC a lot (if it wasn’t already obvious by me constantly talking about how I wish I could read FMA and ダン飯 in my study log). I’ve been avoiding voting for the next one because I know I’m not there yet. I know I need to focus on the clubs in progress. But. BUT. If I could. If only I could. I would love to read some of these. And some of them, I’m looking at the natively level like “Frieren and Promised Neverland are Lv26 atm, and this is easier than that… So I could… Could I? Can I? I shouldn’t. But could I?” And my thoughts are basically that on loop. I’ve got the time to read more. But I don’t. But I could. I did in the readathon. I read so so sooo much that day. I can read difficult things if I’ve got the time and motivation for them. Might take me like an hour to get through a page but I have put in that effort before. But if I miss one week I’m never catching up. I’m already behind on other book clubs I’m in. But I want to. Help?
I was brave and posted my word vomit in the IMC thread and now I’m kinda nervous Anyway, now that I’ve procrastinated almost an hour thinking about that, I should probably get to my reviews.
Anyway, I’ve now committed to joining the IMC. ARGH why do I do this to myself. YAY manga. I feel like aiming for the minimum of reading each week just makes me feel sad that I’m always behind and I should be aiming to read a lot more each day. I’ve yet to try the reading in my own time for various not book club stuff. So I think I could maybe try that today? Read some Frieren, little bit of grammar, then FUN READING. See if that makes me feel better about today.
土曜日：
I’ve got a list of chores I need to do today as well as my studying. The list looks manageable. Each individual thing is doable. I’m just worried I’m gonna do one thing and then be exhausted and not want to start the others. buy food, garden, bins, sweep, mop, shower. For studying, my plan is SRS as usual, maybe some jpdb lessons if there’s not too many reviews returned, read more 軌跡, more grammar, にゃんにゃん探偵団. I also want to read some of my English book and play/read some Steins;Gate because I haven’t touched those and the only way I ever seem to make progress on my hobbies is when I make it a goal.
I’m exhausted. I did some cleaning for max half hour and had to go lie down for 2 hours. I went to the shop, which is less than five minutes away, and now I want to go bed. I need to cook. I bought food that was on sale because it’s going bad today with the intention that I’d put it in curry today. I need to start that now for it to be ready by the time I need to eat dinner. I’ve spent less than an hour today trying to get life stuff sorted, had to take a two hour break in the middle of that, and I’m exhausted. At least timing it today means I have something to point to next time I see my support worker. At least I’ve managed to mentally frame it as me needing the rest rather than me just being lazy. Because seriously when I’ve reached the point of “I’m too tired to read this book for fun or open a game” that’s not just laziness, that’s there’s something wrong with me. Ugh I haven’t done my reviews yet.
Doing lessons was a mistake. Also I burnt my finger while cooking, that was also a mistake.
Went for a lie down for another couple hours. Since I’ve got bookwalker on my phone I decided to see if I could read without having to get up to my computer for lookups and finished にゃんにゃん探偵団. Not the reading I needed to do today and I didn’t understand as thoroughly as I usually like, but still good progress.
Loaded up 軌跡, made hot choccy, let’s at least crawl this dungeon. If I do read through the top of the tower scene, I can have ice cream. Ugh why do I have to bribe myself for things I supposedly want to do.
日曜日：
Spent two hours typing up my 先輩はおとこのこ thoughts, should probably get to my reviews.
I pulled up 軌跡 then realised I don’t really have time to read before plans happen, but I’m leaving it open and I’ll get to it this evening. You’ll see however many characters I get through in the read every day thread.
In Summary
18 wk lessons (38 remaining)
jpdb cleared
113 pages of reading
4.6k characters of kiseki
1 comprehensible japanese
1 anime episode
10 grammar points (10/13)
Total time: 15.2 hours
I watched 先輩はおとこのこ as it came out, and I have a lot of thoughts that I want to try and put down into words. First off, if you haven’t watched this yet I recommend it. It’s very queer. Second, since most of what I want to ramble about is that queerness, and that figuring that out is most of the plot of the show, I’m putting this ramble under a spoiler cut.
Spoilers for Season 1 of 先輩はおとこのこ
First the whole pronouns issue. When I watched the first episode I was under the impression that Makoto was a trans girl. So I was very annoyed by the subtitles using “he/him” pronouns. Part of this was because I misread the title as おんなのこ which is my bad, and when I noticed I was also annoyed at the title. As of the last episode, Makoto indentified himself as a boy, so I’ll also be using he/him pronouns here. More on that in a second.
Second, the tone of the show is overall rather optimistic. This is good if you’re wanting feel good vibes, but real life doesn’t tend to have feel good vibes so there were times I was on edge. Like one of the episodes has Makoto’s mother think of some nail polished hands and I got all annoyed that they’d try to justify her transphobia because a trans person did something bad to her and now she hates them all. That didn’t play out the way I thought, and there are other places where in hindsight I do appreciate how things are optimistic but still messy.
I was just expecting… Well, either I was expecting things to either go badly, and when the show didn’t have those things go badly I expected them to be handled too… Too loosely. Too laizes-faire.
Third, I feel like since I’m rambling about queerness, I should probably mention my own queerness here so it makes sense if it comes up later. I’m ace, not sure if I’m aro. Girls are certainly prettier than guys, but I’m not sure if I would ever want to date one. Gender is complicated and confusing and I don’t fully understand how anyone ever figures that out. I think I’m nonbinary. I’m not sure. I don’t understand how anyone can be sure. There are other thoughts but I don’t want this too take up too much space so I’ll leave it there.
So, onto my thoughts about the show.
I’ll discuss Ryuuji first since I have the least to say about him. He’s gay, he’s dealing with a lot of internalised homophobia. It’s not pleasant to deal with, but internalised phobias still very much exist and I’m glad Ryuuji exists for people who are dealing with that confusion.
Episode 7 was difficult for me to watch because my own childhood trauma got triggered (nothing to do with the queerness) and I had to stop watching and calm the fuck down. Thing is I’m sure there are parts of episode 7 and Ryuuji that I didn’t fully appreciate because of the triggering scene distracting me. It’s an episode I’ll have to skip on rewatches and that’s kinda sad.
Aoi I feel like has less to do with all the queer drama that’s going on and more to do with her own family drama. But not nothing to do with the queer drama, she seems to be somewhere under the ace umbrella what with mentioning how she doesn’t get the special feelings of romance. I’ve heard of other ace people desperately trying to force these feelings similar to how Aoi does, but thankfully have not gone through that myself.
I think Aoi trying to force a crush on Makoto, who she thought of as a girl, means she might have figured out she doesn’t feel the same way about boys as most other girls her age would. And because asexuality isn’t as common knowledge as gayness, I can see how she might assume if she doesn’t like guys that must mean she’s a lesbian.
Onto the family stuff, Aoi clearly has a lot of issues there. I think part of her being okay with everything stems from being abandonned by both parents. It very much feels like “If I don’t have strong opinions and don’t dislike anything then I’m not going to inconvenience Them” kind of internalised thinking. The “pretend everything’s okay because if it’s not okay then there might be something wrong with you and people won’t tolerate you if you’re wrong” kind of thinking. I’m not sure I want to call her depressed at the moment, that’s not for me to decide, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she does reach that level clinically.
I hate Aoi’s mum. I have very little patience for characters forgiving their mothers, and I know this stems from my own issues. But this bitch abandons her child for like a decade(?) and then tries to just insert herself back into her life? Tries to bribe her with sweets and holidays? Every part of me has alarm bells ringing when I see this woman. The season ends relatively positively on that front, and it might stay positive and be another forgiveness storyline. I need it to not be, even though that’s going to hurt Aoi. I don’t blame Aoi for accepting her, she’s still a kid and most people probably do want to think the best of their mothers. I can’t.
I don’t hate Aoi’s dad with the same visceral reaction as her mother, but I do want to say I don’t like him either. It might be more socially acceptable for a father to be neglectful because of work, but that doesn’t make it okay. I was also scared that this could lead to Aoi self-harming. Like how her dad didn’t notice the cut on her knee? I could see a path where Aoi hurts herself on purpose to see if her dad notices, which would get worse and worse as he doesn’t and she escalates trying to get some parental attention. I suppose I should thank her mother for interrupting that before it had a chance to start, but I don’t want to.
I appreciate her platonic friendship with Ryuuji, and her platonic(? please?) friendship with Makoto.
Makoto. I already said a bit with the whole pronouns thing above. I’ll get this out of the way first: I’m disappointed that Makoto identifies as a guy. Completely subjective I know, and not at all something to ever say about a real life person. But Makoto is not a real life person and the choices made on TV can impact real life people. So, I am disappointed. Because it feels half-hearted to have a very trans coded character and then turn around and say actually they’re not trans. But I’m also cautiously optimistic.
Now, there are parts of the show that make me think he hasn’t completely figured out his identity yet. Like the parts where he’s thinking about why does he have to choose between man or woman. Like when he comes out in the last episode he words it as “Dad asked me earlier if I wanted to live as a boy or if I wanted to live as a girl, and I finally found the answer. I don’t want to live as either, I want to live as myself.” I was so happy to read those lines.
Now, he does go on to say he identifies as “I’m a boy, but I like things girls like.” In the spirit of respecting his own words for his identity I’m using he/him pronouns. But. Nonbinary is also an option. Gender fluid is also an option. Options I thought the show was headed towards and that made me really happy, and then it didn’t happen. So I wonder, does Makoto not have that language to describe himself? Would he use that language if he discovered it? Would he think about it and then decide “nope, still a guy who likes girly things”? I don’t know the answers, I don’t know if the show will continue into that direction. I hope it does.
I don’t like Makoto’s mother, at all. Though again, I don’t hate her to the same degree as Aoi’s. I feel like objectively speaking I should hate Makoto’s mother more than I do. Her transphobia has seriously hurt Makoto. (For simplicity’s sake I’m calling it transphobia even though Makoto isn’t a trans person.) She’s freaked out over the smallest sign that he might be trans, blames herself for not raising him right, and all because she saw her dad wearing nail polish once?
When we got the hint of that in the earlier episode I was worried her phobia was going to be passed off as “oh, someone from that group did bad things to her so now she hates everyone from that group” and I was not looking forward to it. But actually meeting Makoto’s grandfather was a pleasant experience. Just, the comfy vibes of feeling safe with extended family reminded me of visiting my aunt. (Who is nothing like Makoto’s grandfather, just in the comfy safe vibes way.)
If I wanted to play devil’s advocate, I could say he could have handled things better by talking to his daughter, but at the end of the day he wasn’t wearing the nail polish at her. She’s the one who decided she hated him for it. I really do appreciate that it wasn’t anything that he did to her, if that makes sense.
I don’t quite agree with his philosophy about giving up things that are important to you to look after the thing that is most important. To me that’s clearly him dealing with the loss of his daughter, with being rejected so thoroughly, that he had to try and make it okay in his mind and that’s what he settled on. I’m glad Makoto doesn’t retreat into himself the same way, that his grandfather had to make his peace with how his life turned out but Makoto gets to try to be happier.
I’m not sure how I feel on Makoto trying to get his mother to be less transphobic. Part of me feels like she had this reaction so thoroughly that I’m not sure she can change. Part of me is annoyed at another mother’s redemption arc. Part of me can’t be mad at Makoto for trying (though I am mad at his mother that he has to try in the first place). I like how she’s still struggling to accept him at the end, that she wasn’t able to just magically not be transphobic anymore. It isn’t that simple. And it leaves me cautiously optimistic for later in the story, that she might not be 100% okay with how things are but isn’t going to be as much of a villain as she was here.
Also, I appreciate Makoto’s dad for being accepting of his son / potential daughter the whole time. That he let Makoto know that if he was trans, that his dad wouldn’t hate him for it, that he’d support him. He’s clearly busy with his job because he’s not at home as often as Makoto’s mother is, but unlike Aoi’s dad he makes an effort to pay attention to his kid when he is at home.
Getting my thoughts down about Makoto’s mother I think helped me figure out why I don’t hate her as much as Aoi’s. Aoi’s mother doesn’t seem to understand she fucked up. I think she pays some lip service to the idea, but she seems much more focused on bribing her kid back into her life now that she feels like having her around again. She gives me bad vibes. Makoto’s mother has been objectively a bad person, but at least Makoto knows where he stands with her and at least there is an effort on her side of things. I don’t think Aoi is at all prepared for things to go badly, and I don’t think her mother’s attempts are reconnecting are genuine.
I’m glad I watched this show. I don’t think I realised quite how many thought I had until it comes to writing them all down. I feel like there’s more to unpack here. But I don’t want to ramble too randomly.
In terms of what comes after this season, in terms of what I hope to see or think will happen. I think Ryuuji needs some more spotlight time. I didn’t have much to say about him. I’m worried about Aoi, things could very easily go badly for her. I need her mother to be a bad person. That will make things so badly. I need her friends to be there to help her out of the terrible mental state this will send her into. I would like Makoto to be more confident in himself, to maybe consider options outside of the binary. He’s on a good path at the moment actually, most his shit got resolved. So I expect things to focus more on Ryuuji and/or Aoi for a bit.
The manga has nine volumes out. I’m not sure how much of that is in the first season. I’m not sure if it’s finished. I hear there’s a movie in February. I’m not sure yet if there’s a season two. I hope there is. Things aren’t over yet, that’s the feeling I get here. There’s still things to resolve. Still things to think about.
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I don’t know how much you’ve run into this trope before but it’s really common in anime for an amab character to be trans coded to the point of passing perfectly as a girl and still say “I’m actually a boy” the term for this is おとこのこ (which is usually in hiragana only but is derived from おとこの娘 rather than 男の子, so it’s “male daughter” rather than boy, could be a slur depending on context and such).
Ferris/Felix (re:zero)
Ruka (steins gate)
Chiaki (danganronpa)
Hideri (blend S)
Understandably, trans people still identify with these characters so how trans they are to each reader versus how canon the transness is varies.
One of the only explicitly trans anime things I know about is “wandering son”, though I think “princess jellyfish” also has trans characters and “gatchaman crowds” has a nonbinary character if I remember right. I’m sure there’s more trans anime and manga, but a lot of the mainstream depictions of this kind of character aren’t the most sensitive about it.
Understandable, it’s a tricky question.
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This is very true
Then again, same can be said about the Japanese language! 
Anyway, best of luck with your studies! 
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Princess jellyfish mention!!!
It actually does the same thing where a ‘male’ character passes perfectly as a woman, appears to prefer moving through society as a woman, does not stop dressing as a woman when the story ends, but still occasionally says things like ‘oh, I’m really a man though.’ Like, yeah, you’ve got us all super convinced there.
I think that kind of thing is pretty common in queer-coded media and manga, and it doesn’t bother me too much. I think it’s better to just focus on enjoying the character and being able to see aspects of queerness in them than worrying too much about what their label is when they’re written ambiguously.
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I’ve come across such characters before but had just taken things at face value. I think it’s the kind of thing where I didn’t look at those characters in this way because it didn’t occur to me to think about that before I was thinking about things for myself. I remember getting into an argument with someone about Fujisaki over this, and now I feel like I was kind of an arsehole then.
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Zombie Land Saga (the zombie idol anime), of all things, has one of the better portrayals of a trans character in media that’s not specifically about trans stuff.
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