📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Day 67!

I read chapter 27 of Yotsuba - the final chapter of Volume 4.
I love how often a minor part of a story is Yotsuba wanting an icecream :grin:

(Home Post)

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March 8 :snowflake: Home Post

Welllll something happened:

I finished a playthrough guys!! :tada: :tada: :tada: Definitely did NOT expect that to happen today, really came out of nowhere :joy: I got so sucked in so fast, the ending times in games like this are really unforgiving like that, I absolutely cannot stop in the middle :grin:

999 things

I got a bad ending lmao rip, I can’t believe 淳平(じゅんぺい)'s dead :metal::pensive: not his spine, that was so brutal oof

No but it was really out of nowhere, suddenly I was down the last branching path without doing anything to trigger it as far as I could tell, and then!! Wild

It’s pretty wild to think I actually “finished” a game in Japanese in any capacity. 999 has a bunch of other branching paths to check out, though; I know I said I might slow down on it once I finished a playthrough but oh boy I don’t think I can, I got like no answers from this ending :joy: I need to know!! So onward I suppose :muscle:

Yay words

にらめっこ - staring-down game, constant looking at something
よじ(のぼ)る - to climb, to clamber (over)
してやられる - to be taken in, to be outwitted
(くる)おしい - mad (with grief), out of one’s mind
打開策(だかいさく) - plan to overcome an obstacle, breakthrough solution
()てど()らせど - despite having waited a long time
もぬけの(から) - vacant, deserted

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The 999-games are structured in a way that you can only get the good ending, when you finished all the bad ones. Luckily you don’t have to play a lot of things again (you can fast forward text you’ve already seen and you can start at most scenes in they you’ve already played, including decision moments)

The true ending is absolutely worth it! :heart:

Besides the 999-games, a game with a similar structure is AI: The somnium file. I can’t recommend this enough! It’s everything I love about 999, but more streamlined. Absolutely full with bad jokes as well. I played it in English, but it can be really good in Japanese as well, since almost every line is voiced and through the log you can listen to the sentences again

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Main Post

About a third of my way through Gal & Dinosaur and it is a treat. I had read the translation before and watched the anime, which was also very funny and great, but ultimately being able to read the manga in Japanese is a different experience altogether. The premise of the story is very simple, it’s about a gal and a dinosaur that went home with her after a party or something, who then decides to stick around. They bond quickly and everyday is fun. In terms of difficulty it is around the level of yotsuba, there’s maybe even less dialogue (dino doesn’t talk) and chapters are generally shorter. On the other hand it is also more colloquial with some (outdated) gal slang, so it might be more difficult to others. It is a fun read and good breather, has plenty of chapters left, so I can always decide if I want to read more or not on a given day.

To kinda compare the difference. I would be done reading a chapter in like 5 minutes, while I have also had manga take me at least a hour to read a chapter and really struggle. In the first case I don’t learn a lot, but I can have a lot of fun with and it is a good motivator. The latter is more challenging and where you can learn a lot more, but it also asks more of your time and energy. So I think I’ll pick something easier from time to time to remember why I’m doing this in the first place. It’s also not like it’s my sole source of reading, as I can also grab arceus and dive into that for a bit.

Volume 1 ch1-5

Anyway I thought I would share some more screenshots I took while reading it from my kindle. I had kinda skipped it in my last two updates. It’s kinda a pain to upload them from my tablet. Some vocab I had to look up were the two card games, 大富豪 and 神経衰弱, mentioned in the story.

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Day 68!
Chapter 28 of Yotsuba today - Its always exciting to start a new volume, so I’m pleased to be starting Volume 5 :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

Well this looks adorable, definitely adding it to my to-read list!

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March 9 :snowflake: Home Post

My 999 adventure continues! I’ve started back from the first branching point and gone the other way, and it’s been good. Nice to see characters I hadn’t seen in a while because of, uh, events :grin:

A bit of 999

I’m hanging out with ニルス and セブン now! セブン’s always a ton of fun, and I never really got to interact with ニルス much before because… you know, so it’s a good time! I got threatened:

He really said “try it” :joy: (also he has the same voice actor as Reigen from Mob Psycho so that’s a time)

I also read some (かぜ)つよ between classes, and I can definitely tell that my reading speed’s improved! Not that I’m even a little bit fast, but definite progress! It’s always nice to see what the running boys are up to :blush:

Words!!

(あたま)にくる - to get pissed off, to lose one’s cool
些細(ささい) - slight, trivial
()(だお)れ - person collapsed and dying in the street (this was in 風つよ lmao)
懸案(けんあん) - unanswered question
(こころざ)す - to intend, to aspire to
(おも)存分(ぞんぶん) - to one’s heart’s content, as much as one likes
ブランク - time spend not (practicing)
茶々(ちゃちゃ) - interruption
鍵盤(けんばん) - (piano) keyboard (they’re keys!!! neat)
デタラメ - nonsense, hogwash
本日(ほんじつ)晴天(せいてん)なり - testing, testing (it’s what you say when you’re doing a mic check! never really thought about that, pretty cool)
目眩(めまい) - dizziness, vertigo

Ohhh that makes sense!! Good to know I’m not just like awful at it somehow :joy: yeah I’m definitely completely invested at this point, I’m about to have spring break so knowing me I’ll just play it obsessively the whole time lmao

Oooooh yeah I’ve heard good things about that one! Definitely seems up my alley, I’ll have to check it out once I’ve finished the 999s.

Oof I’ve been nailed, absolutely seen, completely sold :joy: Ahh I still have so much to look forward to!! The list grows ever longer :laughing:

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Day 69!
Chapter 29 of Yotsuba today.
The panel where Fuuka smiles back at Yotsuba after tucking her into the futon on page 52 is so sweet.
I also loved the page of Yotsuba cleaning the bathroom and getting soaking wet. I could identify with that, since I also never manage to clean my bathroom without accidentally showering myself :grin:

I’m planning to play some more Pokemon Legends Arceus tonight too :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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March 10 :snowflake: Home Post

I got distracted and didn’t play a whole lot of 999 today, but that’s okay; I’m about to have tons of time to play it so very exciting!!

(I also came upon like a character song from 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ and it’s a bop but wow it made me miss them!! It’s been so long, I really need to go back to it :') )

But yeah looking forward to getting a bunch of reading in over the next week or so! Who knows, maybe I’ll even finish the first 999 game :eyes:

Some words

(いぶか)る - to wonder, to doubt
一過性(いっかせい) - transient, temporary
ズボッと - something going right into or coming right out of a place where it fits snugly

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Over the last few days I’ve been on holiday, I have discovered the power of actually having more time to read haha. I have been doing holiday things but even so have had way more reading time than I usually do.

So, I finished 鏡の孤城 :partying_face::partying_face::partying_face: I finished the 上 volume on my first full day here (6th march), started 下 on the 7th and finished it last night (10th). Given that I don’t think the volumes are that much different in length it’s quite a change from taking months (with pauses in reading during that time to read and play other things) to read the first volume. Part of that is that the plot really gets going in the second volume so that meant that I really wanted to find out what was going to happen (Also I’m on holiday so do just have more time to read than I usually do) I really enjoyed this book - tempted to try something else by the same author at some point.

Time to choose what to read next! While I decide I might read the volume of ハイキュー that I brought with me and see how those volleyball boys are doing!

Woohoo! 999 files does sound so cool, it’s definitely on my want to play list. Although think I would feel guilty for triggering the bad endings even knowing there was no other way haha :sweat_smile: Here’s hoping that you manage to get the good one in the end :crossed_fingers:

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Wow that’s an amazing increase in pace! Awesome progress.

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Yeah I mean I fully expect to be back to my previous pace when I start something new! A perk of longer books is that you get lots of time to get used to the common vocab and the writing style, so the last volume I was having to stop much more infrequently to look things up/it was a lot more rare for me to have to pause and read through something a few times to understand it. I think if it was in English I would have probably read the second volume within a day hahah, the plot really picked up so it was so hard to stop reading!

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Day 70!
I read this weeks assignment for Happiness, which I’m reading with the ABBC.
It was the second half of the first chapter. I wasn’t sure about this manga at the end of last week, but now at the end of Chapter 1, its captured my attention and I found it difficult to not carry on reading into Chapter 2!
I really like the art, and I’m interested to see where the story goes.

(Home Post)

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So since finishing the challenge, I haven’t been pressuring myself to read every day as much, but I’m still reading most days. When I last posted I was starting Chapter 4 of 銭天堂。Now I’m on the first few pages on Chapter 5 (page 103)!

I hope to be starting a new book by the time the next challenge begins!

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March 11 :snowflake: Home Post

I got distracted again and so didn’t do a whole lot of reading today but what can you do :man_shrugging: I’m on spring break now though so 999 awaits!! For now though, sleep :joy:

It’s a ton of fun! If you like kinda mystery-puzzley visual novels then I’d 1000% recommend it, it’s been a really great experience! Yeah I was absolutely not prepared for the automatic bad ending lmao, very much threw me :joy: all the more reason to play it obsessively over break!

(Also congrats on (かがみ)孤城(こじょう), that’s super awesome! :tada: :tada: :tada: absolutely crushing the reading game out here :muscle:)

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Day 71!

I read Chapter 5 of Volume 5 of Teasing Master Takagi-san today.
It was about them asking each other “Would you rather…?” questions, which I was really pleased about because thats the exact same activity as I did with my tutor this morning!

(Home Post)

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Decided to check in for once, hope you all are doing well! I’ve been glancing at the posts sometimes, but things being how they have for me, I’m still a little distant. But at the moment I’m not so bad, still doing my best to work through everything.

Japanese though! I finished my first route of Summer Pockets 5 days ago :tada: . It was quite nice; I’m having a lovely time. I had a day or two where I couldn’t do much of anything; I think there was a single day where I read absolutely nothing as a quick break to reset myself, but otherwise, I’m rolling through, usually with a minimum of at least 5000 characters read each day. Today is amusing because I hit exactly 7777 when I finished. :seven:

I’m sure my reading is better; it’s already hard to keep in mind just how much more I was struggling when I started this VN. I’ve moved onto 静久 (Shizuku)'s route because she was very much the major side character in Tsumugi’s so I really wanted to see what else is going on under the surface with her story, and I’m already comfortable reading the way she’s speaks. Skipping all the repeat text moves me past huge swathes of the common route, but I’m still pleased to be at the point where I’ve locked into her route (by picking her events over and over) relatively quickly. Especially considering that there were a few changed events and, when given the choice, I went for other non route-specific side events.

There are still so many routes to see, and I’m looking forward to doing all of them, but at this improved pace I’ve worked towards, I’m no longer as worried that I’m going to spend a huge chunk of my life on Summer Pockets alone, haha.

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March 12 :snowflake: Home Post

Alright, better reading day today!! I’m pretty solidly into my second 999 playthrough now, skipping all the repeat sections really moves stuff along :joy:

999 things

I continue to be very suspicious of ニルス, 四葉(よつば), and (むらさき), so I’m really interested to see what ends up happening there! I enjoy all the characters a lot though, going through their interactions and figuring out new puzzles has been lots of fun. There was a good callback to a joke I saw in my first playthrough:

淳平(じゅんぺい) made the same joke he boldly made to 八代(やしろ)'s face before, and of course セブン thought it was absolutely hilarious :joy: and then it just got escalated even more, so good times all around.

I am intrigued by a branch I’ll be going down in the future: at the second branching path I tried going through door 3, but it’s impossible to do that without leaving like half the people behind, which I didn’t have the heart to do this time but I will have to eventually so… interesting to see how that will go

All in all a good reading day, I wanna play more but I’m sleepy so :joy: tomorrow!

Words!!

筐体(きょうたい) - case (of a machine), cabinet, chassis
怨念(おんねん) - deep-seated grudge, hatred
対照的(たいしょうてき) - contrastive

Ahhhh congrats, that’s super awesome!! :tada: :tada: :tada: I’m glad you’re still having a good time with it!

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I did stop this challenge at the official end date, but since the thread is still alive I thought I’d share an amusing article I read while trying to wrap my head around the vocab item 周旋屋: 「しゅうせんやさん!」って - さなだやま不動産のブログ

It seems to mean a mix of realtor/broker/employment agency. Kind of a mixed bag of meanings which is why I was having trouble wrapping my head around it. What I found fun though is that in this blog post the author heard it for the first time while dealing with a 不動産屋 and they mistook 周旋(しゅうせん - mediation) for 終戦 (しゅうせん - end of the war). Nice to know I’m not alone in misguessing homonyms in speech :joy:

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Day 72!

I started reading Volume 2 of Mitsuboshi Colors with the Offshoot Bookclub today, and read chapter 1.
I found the ending a bit confusing, but it was still a fun read overall :slightly_smiling_face:

(Home Post)

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March 13 :snowflake: Home Post

Ohhhh boy, I went absolutely wild today and finished up my second playthrough of 999 and… whew, that was a lot :sweat_smile:

Many 999 feelings

For a while I was just having a good time, lots of cool puzzles and character interactions, ie. 淳平(じゅんぺい) making dumb jokes to make fun of 一宮(いちみや)'s tendency to do so:

And then I was getting close to the end and pushing through to see what happened, and WOW I was not prepared :joy: uhhhh I super don’t think 四葉(よつば) is working with ゼロ anymore for REASONS, my god. Like not that I wasn’t expecting people to die in a bad end, but this one was just so much more brutal

But yeah idk what to think anymore, that really threw out most of my theories, soooo… Idk I still think there’s something going on with 四葉(よつば) and ニルス, there’s a lot that’s weird with them, but maybe only ニルス is working with ゼロ? I’m still not entirely convinced his death isn’t faked, but I’m not sure what to make of that if 四葉(よつば) isn’t involved.

I am realizing that the branch I was talking about yesterday is actually probably the good ending since it would probably prevent the whole ニルス thing from happening, but it’s gonna hurt on the way there :sob: like yeah I know they’re not actually leaving anyone behind, but they don’t yet!!

But yeah my devastation aside, 999 is going great! I’m genuinely getting close to finishing the whole game which is really exciting :grin: I did get to skip a good amount for this playthrough, but I still went WAY faster than I did the first time around; my first playthrough took a bit over a month, and this one (which I’d estimate was around half the content maybe?) took five days, most of which I was like “ugh I didn’t read much today” :joy: so that’s some real progress for sure!

I did also read a little bit of 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ for the first time in ages, I missed them! It definitely still has a lot more words I don’t know than 999 does, but I can feel a difference for sure. It’s still far from what I’d call an easy read, but I’m definitely improving! :blush:

(Anyway since I went feral on 999 it’s late so I’m not dealing with vocab right now, good night :joy:)

Vocab update!

ボケなす - halfwit; faded, dull-colored eggplant (love the energy of calling someone a gross eggplant as an insult :joy:)
ほうほうの(てい) - scuttling (to escape in a panic), scrambling
いかさま() - cheat, swindler
しどろもどろ - confused, disordered
ふて(くさ)れる - to become sulky
(くち)()らない - fast-talking, always having an argument ready, never at a loss for words (this and the sulky one were both about ミロ lmao I love him)
(こころ)ここにあらず - there in body but not in spirit
一縷(いちる)(のぞ)み - sliver of hope
うわ(ごと) - talking in delirium, incoherent muttering

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