[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

I’m absolutely vicariously reading through others, so that’s okay :ok_hand: The forum is my number 1 resource for book recommendations (number 2 is the weekly ranking from BookLive at this point).

I’m considering:

  • 鹿の王 volume 2
  • かくりよの宿飯 1
  • ポーション頼みで生き延びます! 2

I really liked 狐笛のかなた, hence 鹿の王 (same author). At the same time, romance + 妖怪 sounds good too, hence かくりよの宿飯 1 (I have no idea if it will be good or not, but it got good reviews apparently). Finally, ポーション頼みで生き延びます! 2 because that’s probably the simplest in terms of flow (especially since volume 1 is not self contained).

2 Likes

lol, i just started listening to this the other day. it’s honestly enjoyable.

1 Like

I hadn’t heard of this one, but it seems interesting! It seems like it has quite the cooking focus, which I wouldn’t have expected you to pick.

It seems like you could probably blow through all of the ones you have pretty quickly, at least. How old is the main character? Is there romance? (Not a dealbreaker either way, just curious as to the tone of the book.)

1 Like

The staff review got me at

天涯孤独だけど明るい主人公と、ツンデレな大旦那様のやりとりが微笑ましい。

(emphasis mine)

I kinda overlooked the mention that it involves cooking. Uh, well, we’ll see how it goes.

The main character is 22, reincarnated into a body that is 15 but looks 12. There’s no proper romance so far. Some male characters are predicting that she will become even more beautiful once she gets older (sadly for them, she is almost done with her growth) and are trying to get her as their 婚約者 but so far she hasn’t shown any interest. She does want a relationship but she is not impressed by what she has seen so far. It’s hard to guess if proper romance will ever happen.

2 Likes

Finished 蜘蛛ですが、なにか 4! While I didn’t love all the pictures, as a person sensitive to various things and not looking to become less so (when it comes to these particular things–there are plenty of things I’d love to be less sensitive to, lol), there was only one thing in the text itself that pissed me off, and it was brief, so… fine! I enjoyed every bit of the 蜘蛛子 parts, including full-on love for several sections (I’m always here for 蜘蛛子 battle tactics, long-term strategy, and general tenacity–actually everything about 蜘蛛子 so far, including her faults). My favorite part this time might’ve been her defeating a bunch of 人形蜘蛛 at once, any one of whom would beat her in one-on-one straight-up battle, because she’s wily and makes good plans (USUALLY). Even the non-蜘蛛子 parts were a little more interesting to me this time. (Faint praise, but not praise I expected to give, so.)

I was thinking to read book 5 right away, speculating that maybe it was the last in a story arc. However, it turns out there are two more in my current arc (thank you to the friend who googled this for me so I didn’t spoil myself accidentally), so I will not jump in right away.

Plans:

  1. Push on with 私の推しは悪役令嬢
  2. Tomorrow is book club day, so read the next novel sections and continue pushing on manga
  3. Start 伯爵と妖精 3

I’ll probably get 伯爵と妖精 3 ready tonight, so we’ll see if that order is maintained or if I dive straight into #3.

9 Likes

I finished 引きこもりでポンコツだった私が女子プロレスのアイコンになるまで !

A surprisingly large number of thoughts about it

This ended up being an interesting read. The wrestling magazines I’ve been reading give bits of context, but it’s pretty scattered across lots of different subjects, so spending a much longer time focusing on one person felt compelling in a different kind of way.

I don’t think I’ve read an autobiography of someone roughly my age before, and it’s interesting seeing the things I relate a lot to (grew up in the middle of nowhere, parents divorced, had a rough middle school) and the things I… don’t (dropped out of high school, didn’t go outside “except briefly 3 times to look at the sky in the backyard” for two years, decided to become a wrestler and moved to Tokyo from Yamaguchi with 3000 yen, wrestled at Madison Square Garden and the Tokyo Dome…). It goes to show how long a period of time 10 years it is and how short it is at the same time – she’s really still very young, but athlete’s career spans being what they are, and especially women’s wrestling careers tending towards young starts and early retirements, it comes across as an exceptionally storied career in print. I had to remind myself a lot that the whole thing pretty much takes place entirely in the 2010s, that Stardom didn’t exist before that, and even though it feels like I’ve been following it for longer, I only actually started watching Stardom more than halfway through last year!

Following an entertainment industry, especially one in a language and culture you don’t really know, and especially one as frequently shady as professional wrestling, you often think “boy, I sure hope this isn’t super exploitative,” without the ability to really know one way or another. And I gotta admit, the part where she talks about how she moved across the country as a teenager with nothing to her name and ended up staying with the old man founder of the wrestling company who hired her because the dorms weren’t built yet did draw some concern from me on that front. But she speaks positively about him throughout the book and she legitimately did become a pro wrestling icon, so I’ll try to take it at face value as a strange but innocent story that worked out well.

The book, like the weekly magazines I’ve been reading, is written in a sort of half-kayfabe (to people who don’t follow wrestling, kayfabe is wrestling jargon for in-fiction) where she’s clearly being very frank but stops just short of talking about booking decisions and that kind of thing. Like there’s a transcribed talk with her retired rival Kagetsu that’s a lot of fun because they’re clearly friends and talk about putting on good matches and getting the best out of each other – as rivals. Whereas I assume when it was going on the relationship would have been portrayed as outright enemies. You can get away with that “not quite mentioning the elephant in the room but taking care of it anyway” tone surprisingly well without feeling unnatural, because in pro wrestling, a big win for example is still a genuine accomplishment that shows how far a wrestler has come! Like, even though it’s a storyline, it still has weight, and the protagonist mirrors the actors’ own ups and downs so to speak. So you can talk about all that honestly without being “insidery.” It helps too that the dominant style in Japanese wrestling in general (and Stardom in particular here) tends to be (relatively) straight-laced athletics with the drama and zaniness dialed up, as opposed to WWE’s endless violent soap opera. So anyway I guess what I mean is, she can talk about being especially good at 受身, and you can know why that’s especially important in pro wrestling without her explicitly connecting the dots.

The biggest thing I’ll take away from the book is context – seeing how different people slotted into Mayu’s story and how she thought of them adds a lot of valuable context for me as a fan watching the show. I’m used to thinking of wrestlers as isolated characters (and factions), so the deeper implications of how two opponents have bounced off of each other for years is usually lost on me, and this felt like a good primer at least for some Stardom history. It would probably come across as quite shallow to someone who has actually kept up with all that stuff as it was happening, but for me even a limited perspective on stuff like the Yoshiko/Act Yasukawa incident is enlightening.

It’s unfortunate that because of when it’s published, the book ends just after Hana Kimura’s horrifically untimely passing and with wrestling as a whole just barely starting to figure out how to continue putting on matches amid the pandemic… To be honest, a lot of the reason I’ve renewed that magazine subscription is it would mean a lot to see a return to a happier time where fans can actually cheer again!

I’ll admit while I was reading this book I kind of wanted to churn through it to get to fiction again, but I still enjoyed my time with it. It probably wouldn’t be at all interesting to someone not already into wrestling who doesn’t know who Mayu Iwatani is.

… Which I assume is anyone actually reading this deep into this post!
All you really need to about her deal is she’s nicknamed ゾンビレスラー because she always gets back up no matter how much damage she takes.
Here’s a semi-random free clip if you’d like to put some images to what I’m talking about:
【We are STARDOM!!】#10 岩谷vsSareee消滅!!からの→長与千種の弟子・彩羽匠が緊急参戦!!超激闘のノンタイトルシングルマッチ~世界が注目!女子プロレス~ - YouTube

I’ll be in non-fiction world a bit longer because the next thing I drew is 超ビジュアル!日本の歴史大事典 !
I think I got this from Kinokuniya what feels like a looong time ago, and for a while I was trying to slowly flip through it, before I eventually drifted to a more “focus on one thing and move on” system. Now it should be much less intimidating!
I’m actually really looking forward to it - I don’t really honestly know my Sengokus from my Kamakuras, so to speak, so it’s high time I got things in order a bit better in my head, and this seems like a fun way to do it. I’m planning to add some to my anki deck as I go for a little bit of retention and a slight studying vibe.

週刊プロレス Talk

Geez, they should take more pictures of SANADA in glasses

Hey so uh, do people who don’t follow wrestling know how incredibly weird wrestling is?


Misc. other statuses

Digital Devil Story is intimidating! A much more grim and inaccessible Wizardry-style vibe than what I’m used to from classic JRPGs, and it sounds like it might be quite long. I’ll give it a shot though, and there’s definitely plenty I’m intrigued by!

Wandering Son arrived a lot faster than I expected (maybe things are recovering slightly after all…) so I might start it soon or try to slot in a couple more manga odds and ends.

I bought my first Japanese e-books recently! Directly this thread’s fault for making me realize I could do that. I feel kind of silly for not having ever considered it seriously before - I think I was just surprised enough to realize how easy shipping is that I didn’t really even try to look for alternatives.
But I gotta admit, even just flipping through a little, it turns out there’s a looooot of stuff I’d have a hard time finding or justifying getting via import that I’d still love to have access to…

7 Likes

By the way, that’s a game that I have tried playing a few years ago (well, the famicom one, on an emulator) and I was not ready for it. Now might be the time though… :thinking: Also, I have learned that the game is inspired by a series of novels, so I might go for that instead :crazy_face:

3 Likes

That’s cool! (and yeah, same version here)

I’ve played a few different JRPGs from the era by now, as well as the original Wizardry, so I think I should be prepared (fingers crossed) from a language and gameplay perspective, it’s just always chancy how much endurance I’ll drum up to press through a long way into a game like that vs. deciding I’ve had my fill and watching the ending on youtube… and it’s definitely the kind of game that seems both intriguing enough to want to try in earnest and intimidating enough to end up backing out and trying again later.

Maybe I’ll be able to tell you if it’s worth revisiting at least!

And don’t worry! I actually have the novels in the shelf next to me, they’re just in a different queue…
(I might not be sure if I have the patience for a lengthy oldschool dungeon crawl but I’ll always have time for “oh no my computer program summoned a bunch of demons” in principle)

4 Likes

Thanks for your detailed review! You convinced me to get 幻影異聞録♯FE (Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore)

Will let you know how I get on once I get round to playing it. I have the rest of the 魔女の宅急便 series to get though first. :broom:

4 Likes

Well, that’s the one I ended up reading. It was quite fun, actually. The issue has become that the main character wants to blend in as a “regular girl” rather than being taken as some sort of goddess. That’s an issue when she can just reduce armies to ashes and is an unaging immortal. So… well, there were a few time skips and we are a few years past the beginning but she is still 15 looking like she is 12.

4 Likes

New oreshura book during the climax…

Looks over at the other books I was planning on reading

Is this how @Naphthalene feels at all times?

8 Likes

Finished up 京都寺町三条のホームズ vol. 1 and enjoyed it all the way to the end. Looking forward to continuing with the series but first I’m gonna read 雷の季節の終わりに. IIRC it’s about 300 pages so I think I’ll shoot for a somewhat relaxed 15 pg/day and finish it off over the rest of the month + the first week of April.

12 Likes

Looking forward to hearing what you think of it!

8 Likes

This is fine :coffee: :books:
thisisfine

20 Likes

I’m enjoying reading 伯爵と妖精 3 to the point that when I’m not reading it, I have this feeling like, what was it I was supposed to be doing? but instead of it being an errand or something, it’s my subconscious telling me I should be reading. :grin:

Probably I could use some book club motivation with that sort of pull to a non-book-club book, so:

ゆるキャン△ 6 – 33 34 +
不可解なぼくのすべてを 1 – 5 6
君の名は – Week 5
容疑者Xの献身 – 14 15

If I can finish up these two volumes of manga I should be in a good place to start 暁のヨナ.

9 Likes

Your periodic reminder that volumes 1-3 of 本好きの下剋上 are free on Amazon

8 Likes

8 Likes

Several volumes of ひとりぼっちの〇〇生活 are half off on Amazon, for those interested. I really enjoyed the first two volumes and plan to buy more soon. (I’m not going to buy them digitally since I want to keep getting the physical version.)

4 Likes

I started and finished 超ビジュアル!日本の歴史大事典

thoughts about it

I must have been really starved for history, because I read straight through this! It’s by no means short, but it’s about as breezy as you can get with thousands of years of capital moves, 乱s, 変s, reforms, regents, shoguns, regents to the shogun, etc. Reading it reminded me a lot of devouring Horrible Histories books when I was a kid, although this isn’t anywhere near as sarcastic or charming.

Format-wise, it’s presented as a series of two-page spreads about particular topics, which makes for easy reading but also makes things feel pretty disconnected, and sometimes highlights just how brief the coverage of those subjects really is. I’m obviously by no means equipped to assess the book’s accuracy, and it’s obviously pretty shallow and toothless, but it’s not like I’m surprised by that, given it’s a primer for kids. The fictionalized illustrations are very hit or miss and can feel weirdly editorialized at times depending on how heroic or villainous a figure is made to look, and I also don’t love that the illustration for the occupation of Korea is some Korean students looking just sort of vaguely bored in a Japanese-language class. But I think it’s fine as an introduction source, and I like reading about history enough (and wanna read/watch jidai stuff enough) that I’m quite sure it won’t be my last source.

I enjoyed reading it and am happy to finally have at least a general outline of events and time periods in my head that I can already start plugging historical dramas into (“oh, that’s the battle from Kagemusha!” “Oh, that’s why those ghosts were sad in Kwaidan!”). My other main take away is like a billion historical names and terms I’ll probably regret putting into my anki deck once I start having to review them.

The next prose thing I drew is 世界から猫が消えたなら which I don’t really know anything about except it’s a novel and it seems like it’s sad.
I’m gonna be honest, I bought this one on impulse because professional wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi tweeted about having read it. I have no idea if he has good taste in books or not, I think I just see “oh 猫, it must have something to do with cats, cats are nice!” and that’s enough for me, apparently.
Anyway I’m looking forward to not reading non-fiction for a bit at least!

6 Likes

I finished volume 3 of ポーション頼み yesterday and, hm, I guess I’m reaching saturation point.
In a process that I have noted happening in other series, the story is becoming more and more a caricature of itself. (That process kinda reminds of flanderization). In particular, the main character is starting to really sound like a male protagonist from a shonen manga in her internal monologues. It’s even acknowledged, with the mention that “she should stop”. But I guess that now that the author has found a recipe that works, they have no reason to stop.

The process (minor spoilers if you haven't read volume *1*)
  1. Kaoru moves somewhere far where people would not recognize her.
  2. She sells stuff that are just a little bit better than market products.
  3. She somehow misses that one of those products is completely overkill in its own way.
  4. Begin loop:
    a. Someone of importance (noble, religious head, lieutenant colonel, guildmaster, whatever) tries to pressure her.
    b. Roland and Francette come out of the woodwork, hand on the hilt of their sword, radiating murderous intents. Emphasis on the fact that Francette looks unhealthily happy about the situation.
    c. Visitor attempts a hasty retreat, blocked by Belle and Emile, who have the characteristic vacant look of cultist. Also, whatever Kaoru tells them to do, they only bow and reply “as you wish” (ご意思のままに or some such).
    d. Visitor is extremely confused and starts sweating bullets
    e. Kaoru plays them like a fiddle, solving the situation. Francette is disappointed.
  5. One situation that is too overboard to just solve through wits appear. Kaoru steamrolls everything through her insane powers.
  6. Move to the next place.

It still felt entertaining enough to keep going, but, opening volume 4, coming up is the obligatory onsen episode (I feel like a lot of 男性向け light novel feature those…). So, I immediately stopped reading and moved on to かくりよの宿飯 あやかしお宿に嫁入りします。

11 Likes