📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

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I read the preview for 冒険少年, which is a short-story collection by Adachi Mitsuru. Of course, the preview’s only 11 pg long, and 7 of them are the cover and table of contents and whatnot, leaving only 4 pg for the actual story, so. Who knows if I’ll actually wanna get it or not! I also read the preview for しろくまにっき. It seems really gentle/warm. I ended up adding it and しろさめ’s other manga to my wishlist.

Whyyy do I keep jumping around, I haven’t even finished either of the two manga I’ve got started yet. Anyway, I was in the mood for fantasy, so I read 竜の小塔, the first story in 竜のかわいい七つの子: Seven Little Sons of the Dragon by 九井諒子. It was really good; I liked it. There were a lot of unknown words and kanji I had to look up though, and not even necessarily fantasy-related ones.

Synopsis

The Mountain Country and the Sea Country are on the brink of war, each determined to take back the other for themselves and make it one big country again, but they’re at a standstill because a dragon has made her nest over the only road connecting them; if anyone passes underneath, they’ll be killed. A man from the Sea Country, Sanan, is able to traverse it safely and bargains with the Mountain Country to let him carry supplies between the two until the hatchling leaves the nest and the war begins, because their countries rely on trade between them, but as things stand now, that’s come to a halt. (MC man: “What? Mountain potatoes can grow anywhere!” / Sanan: “The sea air damages the leaves, so they do not grow well in my country.” // SC man: “What? Salt is cheap!” / Sanan: “It’s valuable over there.”) From the very beginning, the people from both countries are shown to be just that: people. To the point where, when Sanan is dining with the MC soldiers on one of his runs, they forget that he’s a SC man and bemoan that they can’t wait for the war to begin—their blades have grown dull! But Sanan, of course, does not forget that, if it weren’t for the dragon and her nest, he could not be here like this right now; if it weren’t for the dragon and her nest, these same men treating him as one of their own would kill him with no hesitation. Finally the day comes where the hatchling is ready to leave the nest, and both armies amass on either side of the tower, prepared to charge once they’ve taken flight and their mother leaves with them. However, the hatchling takes a tumble, and everyone worries for them, fearing them dead or good as, and when they manage to fly off, everyone on both sides is so happy, everyone wearing the same smiles, that the war gets called off. They can’t fight people they’ve come to realize are just like them.

There’s also a side plot where Sanan and Yuruka (the daughter of one of the leaders of the Mountain Country, the same leader he bargained with) fall in love, but little time is spent on it. In fact, I’m not sure when she fell in love with him. From the beginning she didn’t trust, much less like, him simply because he hails from the Sea Country, and they don’t really spend much time together. Sanan, on the other hand, never viewed her poorly, so it’s more believable on his end. I suppose it must have been when the story first switched to Sanan’s POV, as it started out from Yuruka’s, and during his latest trip back to his country, she found herself worrying about him and his safety (while no doubt telling herself that’s foolish, and if he doesn’t return it’s likely that he just decided not to and that he never intended to hold up his end of the bargain and return with more goods for them this time and she was right not to trust him), and when he does return and gives her his necklace in lieu of a souvenir (which she didn’t want anyway!) she starts acting tsundere-like. But, well, this is only about 50 pg long and it’s not primarily a romance, so sensei had to fit it in there somehow. They had potential at least, so I can’t say I’m that dissatisfied. And then Yuruka starts the story wanting to visit the sea once they’ve won the war, but she ends it telling Sanan that she wants to visit the sea with him.

Well, saying that, I did go and read act 6 and the 描き下ろし ボーイミーツエトセトラ of ボーイミーツマリア, finishing the story! I love this book so much. I’m actually kinda sad I’ve finished it (even though I’m definitely gonna be rereading it a bunch). I’m sad we’ll never get any more.

"I did not sign up for this shit," says mom friend of local dumbass

Apparently this dumbass doesn’t even know what ホモ means, which is probably why he was unfazed when it got added to his nickname. He comes to realize that a guy liking another guy is considered “weird,” that being different (like a guy dressing as a gal) is “weird,” and this is the kind of world that Arima’s been living in all this time. (He still seems unbothered by whether he’s gay or not and by others thinking him weird, but he understands Arima’s situation a little better now.)

We learn that the man who’d saved Arima from that teacher was Taiga’s dad, on a detour through the park on his way to visit his wife in the hospital. He gives Arima a flower from the bouquet he brought when he starts crying and sits with him until the police arrive. He knows he hasn’t been a good person lately and has hurt the people he loves—he’d gotten the bouquet intending to apologize to his wife—which is probably why he never tells Taiga the reason he was too late that day and continues to let him think whatever he likes of him. That, and he likely knows that Taiga wouldn’t believe him anyway and would think he’s just making excuses. Not back then, and not now, either. Though, at the current point in the story, they seem to get along pretty well again (though that could just be Taiga’s good mood surrounding the upcoming play; plus, just because you can get along with someone doesn’t mean you don’t dislike them, especially when it’s someone you have to be around every day).

Ahhh and he’d put his hand atop Arima’s head and told him, “大丈夫。大丈夫,” the way Taiga put his arm around Arima’s shoulders last chapter and told him, “大丈夫。大丈夫.” Like father, like son. When they meet after the play the next day, Arima recognizes him (Taiga’s dad also seems to recognize him from that day but dismisses it since he thought the kid he’d saved was a girl and this kid is a boy), but Taiga never learns the truth about why his dad was late that day. I hope he does, in the future.

“‘Yuu the guy’ or ‘Yuu the girl’… You can just be Yuu.” (Or something to that effect, with a play on ‘actor’ and ‘actress,’ as Arima had just used those words on the previous page, and the kanji for his given name being common to both of them.) This moment, right here, is I believe where Arima decides it’s all right to let himself fall for Taiga: Taiga will love and accept him no matter who he is (and even if he never figures it out).

That expression!! (Also, that prince costume really suits Taiga.)

lol he kissed him all confident-like, and now he’s blushing just as much as Taiga

In the 描き下ろし, Taiga’s first date with Arima is fast approaching, and he’s come up with the perfect plan (in a notebook he’s titled “有馬とオレ ドキ♡ドキ デート 計画” lol) and he recruits Fukumaru and Tetsu to help him refine it. His plan involves himself being a cool, suave, perfect boyfriend and Arima being a shy, blushing girlfriend. And a whole lot of him putting his arm around Arima’s shoulders. His friends, however, are like, “I wonder if Arima will show up as a guy or a gal, though…” and, sure enough, the next day (and Taiga’s had them come along but keep some distance lmao), Arima shows up dressed more masculine than he usually does because he wants to be a cool, suave, perfect boyfriend to impress Taiga. And Taiga ends up being the one blushing with Arima’s arm around his shoulder lol. Tetsu and Fukumaru end up showing themselves when Taiga’s forgotten part 2 of his plan and very discreetly obviously calls out to them for it. Arima drags Tetsu off, wanting to know what kind of thing Taiga would be happy to receive from him and what kind of expensive restaurant he should take him to and how to grow a beard and how to get taller, and Tetsu’s just like, What did I get myself into. Poor Tetsu is just in a constant state of “Why do I have to deal with these idiots, I wanna go home,” huh. Except now it’s not just one idiot he’s gotta deal with, it’s two. The curse of being the mom friend, I suppose lol

Oh my gosh, after Tetsu and Fukumaru tell them to not overthink things and dump them, they go to see the タイガー仮面 movie in the theater, and afterwards when he’s telling Taiga what he thought of it, Arima unconsciously stops talking about タイガー partway through and starts talking about 大河 instead. They both realize it at the same time and die of embarrassment lol

Some vocab of note:

鉄槌を下す (てっついをくだす) [expression, サ五] to crack down on (e.g. crime, corruption, etc.); to deal a crushing blow to; to bring down the hammer on. In this case, it was 正義の鉄槌をくだす, to bring down the hammer of justice (on those barbaric Sea Country people).
頂戴 (ちょうだい) [expression, female language] please; please do for me
からがら [adverb] barely
孵る (かえる) [ラ五, intransitive] to hatch
取引 (とりひき) [noun, する verb] transactions; dealings; business. These no-okurigana words that look like they should use on’yomi but use kun’yomi sure can be tricky. I hope it gets easier to recognize them.
気を緩める (きをゆるめる) [expression, 一] to relax one’s efforts; to let up; to let one’s guard down
訳アリ (わけあり) [expression, な-adjective] having special circumstances (e.g. problems, issues, advantages, flaws, defects, etc.); imperfect (merchandise); with defects

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June 9 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I was kinda busy today so honestly surprised I did as much reading as I did! I played some more AI: The Somnium Files which is always fun; 世島(せじま) is so sketchy in all of this, I don’t really know what he’s actually up to but clearly something :joy: It’s interesting how differently things are playing out in this other main branch, イリス :cry: Very curious how her whole murder situation showed up in みずき’s somnium before it ever happened :eyes:

I also read some more (かぜ)つよ :grin: I’m enjoying it a lot! I just really like the characters and all their shenanigans, and I’m always weak for shounen sports drama nonsense so it all tracks haha. (かぜ)つよ definitely is more of a like… mature drama as this sort of thing goes? Which makes sense since it’s a straight-up novel, and it tracks with what I remember of the anime, so it’s a nice balance!

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:herb: June 4th-9th :herb: :house:
Didn’t post but I read at least a bit every day, some of my book club reads (two chapters of 夜カフェ and the first chapter of Flesh&Blood), more 夜は不思議などうぶつえん, and started volume 6 of マグメル as well as volume 1 of 宝石の国. There’s so many things I want to read that it’s getting hard to decide which one I want to read which day. I think for now I’ll focus on finishing some of the ones I started, probably starting with LOOPERS.

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I got a quick update. I have read a few chapters of ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 and I’ll use the YKK abbreviation from now on. It’s pretty cozy after getting a feel for everyone’s speech style and such. It has a peculiar style that you don’t see as much today and Alpha has a bit of a #girlboss vibe.

On the other side, I have read through the first chapter of Spy x Family novel. There’s some sections and words I’ll have to look at again. It definitely is more effort to read than the manga and there’s less furigana, but the story itself was pretty simple and cute. I think I’ll leave the book at home for reading whenever I get back from weekends. I’m bringing the rest of my books along for reading to the camping site as well as my tablet with manga.

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:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220610 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 14.75%

The last few paragraphs from yesterday’s reading were all pretty humorous and light-hearted (well, as light-hearted as this gets). Today the first few sentences went straight into the deep end with all the heavy stuff.

And that’s chapter/note one finished - onto number two!

:seedling: Japanese found in the tall grass :seedling:

Learnthings

「おおよそ」ー Approximately; about. (more likely to be seen like: 大凡)
対蹠「たいしょ」ー Antipodal; at opposing sides of the earth
下等「かとう」ー Inferior; vulgar; low (grade/class)
所詮「しょせん」ー After all; in the end; anyway
嘲笑「ちょうしょう」ー Ridicule
エホバ ー Jehovah
演説「えんぜつ」ー Speech / address (like public speaking)
三々五々「さんさんごご」ー In small groups (of people eg.) (also seen as: 三三五五)
家路「いえじ」ー The road/way home
クソミソ「糞味噌」ー Harsh; severe (like criticism or verbal abuse)
同志「どうし」ー Like-minded; shared sentiment; comrade; fellow person
立ち寄る「たちよる」ー To stop by; to drop by; call in for a short visit
妙諦「みょうてい」ー Amazing truth; cardinal principle
時折「ときおり」ー Sometimes; on the occasion; from time to time

Outdated Stuff
哀しい = 悲しい「かなしい」(Sad)

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Summary post :bookmark:

June 10th :seedling:

・ かがみの孤城 下 (84% → 100%)

Finished the book! :sparkles: I liked it much better than I thought I would. Quite the development and such a satisfying ending. The first book I’ve finished within a week :partying_face: Increased amount of free time and low number of unknown words helped a lot.

(Had a moment where I couldn’t finish a short paragraph without my mind making up it’s own version of how things went down - that was super distracting, felt like listening to multiple songs at the same time :face_with_monocle: )

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June 10

Had to get up several hours earlier than usual, plus didn’t go to bed earlier, so got barely 6 hours of sleep last night. Meaning my brain have been fried all day long.

Therefore I’m counting a lot of grazing of Japanese I’ve done today, from reading little samples for the VN club, and an article on Japanese grammar in Japanese. Not to mention I also played more Atelier Sophie so I got some listening practice.

I had to get up early and get to the police station to apply for a new passport. It is currently passport chaos in Sweden, and have been for the past few months and will keep going probably the year out. Because almost no one renewed passports in the last two years for some reason. :roll_eyes: And now everyone wants to, so what would have in the before times taken no time at all to book a time to apply, and then get the passport within 5 days…

Now getting a near-ish time, means constantly searching for open times and hoping someone canceled theirs, because otherwise you’ll get a time (for applying) in about 4 months. And even if you, like me, manage to get a time, you will have to wait at least 5 weeks to get it, and they can’t guarantee getting it in 5-6 weeks, and I need my passport in about 7,5 weeks… :cold_face:

Now I realize that in some countries, getting a passport can be a hassle. But us Swedes are used to getting it easy and quick, and now it is perhaps not hard, but it certainly isn’t quick…

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June 10th!

I read the next chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san today, which was the final chapter of volume 6.

I ordered the rest of the series a few days ago too since I think at this point there is very little likelihood of me not wanting to read them all! :slight_smile:
I got really lucky though, because I put them all into my basket on CDJapan, but then decided not to order them straight away as I have a friend who I sometimes combine orders with so we can share the shipping costs.

Then I went to bed, and woke up the next morning to an email from CDJapan telling me that Volume 18 had just been released! I had no idea it was coming out yet.
I would have been so cross if I ordered “the rest of the series” and then woke up the next day and there was a new one. :rofl:

(Home Post)

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Summary Post

June 10
Final Fantasy VII


Didn’t read the last two days but today I could play for a long while and it was so productive I’m quite satisfied.

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June 10 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I started out the day looking into things for the VN book club, so I read a bit of ATRI which seems interesting! I think any trouble I had with it was really just me being in the headspace of like “this is a demo, I’m not seriously reading it so it should be easy” which… isn’t how things work :joy: but I’m interested to read it sometime for sure.

In more normal news though I played more AI: The Somnium Files and oh boy. I really can’t tell how close to finishing it I am, but I feel like I’m getting relatively close? And I still have endless questions lmao, classic spike chunsoft huh?

AI stuff!

Well okay things are really getting weird in this other main branch; イリス is alive again?? I have to admit, I did not see that one coming :flushed: AI is really good at having me like 40 hours in and still throwing completely new concepts at me like “yeah this is also something that can happen in this world apparently, isn’t that wild!!” :joy: You’d think I’d be used to it after Zero Escape, but somehow AI’s still caught me off guard time after time haha. But like… how? Still wondering why イリス’s corpse showed up in みずき’s somnium, and then her murder in <世島>{せじま}'s, and then us changing it via dream-world? There’s a lot huh :sweat_smile:

Finally had a scene that really had some Zero Escape energy:

マンデラ

So yeah talking about like the Mandela effect, bouba and kiki (hello?? Didn’t really expect to see that one in a VN lmao), and parallel universes? Alternate histories? Anthropic principle? Now that’s the wild science talk I remember :joy: It was a fun scene though, they told some interesting spooky-type stories, I enjoyed it!

Buuut on a more angsty complex note: we’re talking about 89 again, oh boy. We haven’t gotten his whole backstory from him in this route yet, but he sure knocked us out and escaped huh! And there’s been <瞳>{ひとみ} and イリス talking about a “mysterious man” who they were close with 6 years ago (because that’s when everything happened huh) and yeah it’s obviously him, but they don’t have all the pieces in-game yet and oh man it’s a lot! We’re like “oh no there’s this awful scary murderer on the loose and our sketchy friend is helping him” and like… yes, sure, but also he’s basically イリス’s dad and it’s Complicated, I am concerned but curious to see how it all goes :eyes:

Anyway reading’s still going well! Whether I’m all that close to finishing or not, AI will still end sometime so I need to figure out what I’ll play next :eyes: Too many choices as always, the ongoing struggle haha.

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:herb: June 10th :herb: :house:
Finished LOOPERS! I had a lot of fun with it and it was definitely on the easier side reading wise. When you reach the last few lines it goes into auto mode on its own and you can’t turn it off which made me panic a bit. Two more days until I can check how many hours it took me but it was on the short side for sure. I loved all the geocaching shenanigans and Mia was super cute. It was cool to see how the experiences they had in the time loop came around in the end to help them succeed. I see now why it’s tagged as a nakige. 感動した :sob:
I think my next game will be even if tempest 宵闇にかく語りき魔女 which is apparently a dark fantasy otome game with some gameplay in the form of investigations and trials. This one just came out so I’m gonna try going walkthrough free, can’t see that going well though :joy: It makes me happy that it seems like more games on the Switch are being released with both English and Japanese capabilities. Makes it way easier to purchase and if I’m ever super stumped on something it’s pretty easy to check how it was translated in the English version.

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June 11

Read the second story in The Best Selection 2 from Yuu Watase. オトメの事情. The premise is completely unbelievable and it is very manga-esque slapstick humor (it isn’t slapstick exactly but I don’t know what else to call it). But it was quite entertaining to read because the last few pages seriously redeemed the first 3/4 of the story. Not that the first 3/4 was bad, just zany without substance nor not zany enough (to work as zany); if that makes sense. :sweat_smile:

I ended up buying a couple of otome VNs last night because they were on sale. They were less then 10€ each. Debating with myself about another one that is on a 40% sale (but like 27€ish with that discount), but I don’t expect to be able to read that one in quite a while (ninjas in Edo period). So can probably wait with buying that one until another sale. It is so hard to resist though because Ninja & Edo! :pleading_face:

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:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220611 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 15.40%

第二の手記… スタート‼

And what’s the best way to start a new chapter? With a very long sentence that takes up almost a whole paragraph of course! But it used one of my favourite words「花吹雪」, so it’s okay.

:seedling: Japanese found in the tall grass :seedling:

Learnthings

波打際「なみうちぎわ」ー Beach; water’s edge (more common to see as: 波打ち際)
岸辺「きしべ」ー Shore; bank (also a name)
嫩葉「わかば」ー New leaves (more common as: 若葉)
絢爛「けんらん」ー Gorgeous; brilliant; dazzling; ornate
鏤める「ちりばめる」ー To inlay; to set; to stud; to mount (like “diamond studded ring”) (more common as: 散りばめる)
砂浜「すなはま」ー Sandy beach
日一日と「ひいちにちと」ー Day by day (it’s watching you)

Choose Your Own Meaning
褐色「かっしょく」ー Dark brown

BUT it can also be:

褐色「かちいろ」ー Dark indigo that is almost black

Here there is no furigana, so who knows, but I’m guessing by the context it’ll be the dark brown version since it’s talking about leaves.

Other Forms
樹肌 = 木肌「きはだ」(Tree bark)
徽章 = 記章「きしょう」(Medal; insignia)

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June 11th

Usually on Saturdays I read the chapter of Yoru Cafe that I need to read for the BBC, because it always takes me ages so its good to do it on a weekend day. But today I had a class with my tutor this morning, had an hour long phonecall with my dad since we havent had a proper chat for a week or two, and also we are visiting friends this evening for pizza and board games…

So instead I read chapter 8 of Happiness today as thats always a quick read. It was interesting.

(Home Post)

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Is it Nightshade? :eyes:

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Yes. Have you played it? I totally want to buy it now and try and read it, but… eh… I’m trying to be kind to myself. :joy:

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That’s the one I’m currently playing! It’s really good, but there is some time and subject specific vocab used, haha. The grammar isn’t too bad, actually. If you want, I can take some screen shots next time I play - probably tomorrow. :smiley:

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Please do! :smiley:


Hmmm… I wonder if there is like a samurai/ninja/Edo SRS deck out somewhere. I could see myself actually working through such a one for a bit, just to get some familiarity with the vocabulary.

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This may or may not be helpful to you, but jpdb has an SRS system where you can learn vocabulary from a VN. I couldn’t find Nightshade on there, but Hakuouki is on there which is an Edo Samurai type story. Unfortunately can’t export the deck to anki or anything so you’d have to do daily SRS on jpdb but it might interest you! Here is the link to the vocab list for Hakuouki on there if you want to check it out Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms – Vocabulary list – jpdb

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Not sure this is gonna work for me, but thanks for pointing me to it. :slight_smile:

With over 12k entries and the majority of them being everyday modern vocabulary, it would be a nightmare to sort out the interesting terms. (Unless there is extra sorting possibilities when logged in.) It did amuse me though to see entries for character names, for the の particle and other particles, その, etc. The list literally have all words that appears in the VN. O_O

Of course, maybe there are great sorting and other tools while logged in. I guess I should check that… ^^

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