📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

Oh, did you like it? :eyes:

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I’m almost done with 青春ブタ野郎 book 2. I love this series. But the time it takes to read vs watch I’m wondering if I should just watch the rest of the anime and movie then just get caught up but I am benefiting so much from reading that I don’t want to stop. I’m still reading Chainsaw Man when I can. Have Tumugi chapter 2 waiting but I’m not really interested. Now that I’m in the flow of reading I just want to read what I want to read. It’s cool.

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Although I dropped out of officially doing this to relieve pressure, I’ve still been reading almost every day cause this is just more or less my main hobby now, heh. Wanted to check in with how I’m doing:

スマホを落としただけなのに - I’m a few sections from the end! Something like 92%! There were moments earlier where I thought there wasn’t enough personality but I think the end has pulled me in more. I’ve got a lot of specific thoughts but I’ll try to put out a Natively review when I finish (in a day or two? :eyes: ). Seems to be cruising to a solid 3/5 barring any huge last minute swings. It’s been the perfect level for relatively comfortable reading (great call there @pocketcat) and I think I’ve gotten a lot better at listening with the audiobook, too. Whatever details I lose, I basically follow the plot every time on blind listen now.

Loopers - Fun stuff! Pretty nice reading level. But I’ll save most of that for the club. Just, having a good time when Loopers day rolls around.

Flowers - So I’m hitting a point where a lot of new characters are showing up, and that’s great, cause the cast started off really tiny. What I’ll say at the moment is I think this is a good VN, but it’s bordering on difficult enough for me that it’s detracting from the experience. Truly harder than I expected. Virtually every sentence has one new word max, usually a few, and they’re dense sentences using weird kanji for words I know too. Really getting tested on my memory for 此処, 其処, 何処, that sorta thing, heh. It taught me that 佳い for いい exists. There are worse examples but you get the point, this sort of “what is a kana form?” writing is entirely the norm.

It seems to be a good VN! But it’s a descriptive, relatively slow moving one, and the issues come from that combination. I fight tooth and nail through sentences that are ultimately just descriptions of what someone looks like, using new words with new kanji I’ve never seen before for particularly fancy ways to say willowy or something, haha. I can’t really appreciate the quality of the prose when I’m still puzzling through it, so the “reward” of the actual text feels anticlimactic for the work involved, you know? It’s me, not the VN.

So most days I get through about 3000 characters and get tired and quit. I’ve been debating what I want to do, but at least so far, my stubbornness to continue (mixed with lots of easier reading material) is winning out. I think if I do finish this one, I’ll at least be taking a break with something else before starting part 2. There are times in the past where I’ve fought pretty hard through something and it felt pretty valuable to my learning, but I’m slightly unsure here. The part of the difficulty in grammatical constructs feels like a good mental workout, but when it’s so full of words I don’t know, I’m not convinced they’re words I’m going to reinforce any time soon unless I seek out particularly literary and highly descriptive works, which I don’t expect to do soon enough to feel like what I’m learning is truly worth the effort. If that makes sense.

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Yay! That’s awesome :smiley: That really opens up the world of listening material for you. There’s actually 3 books in the series and I know at least the second one also has an audiobook although I haven’t listened to it yet. So long as it’s still in the nomination list for the Mystery Book Club (for next rounds of course) I’m going to try to abstain from reading / listening to it :sweat_smile:

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Yes, I thought ナミヤ雑貨店の奇蹟 was really good. (I left a review on Natively) It’s the kind of book that I think a wide range of people could enjoy. It’s well written and interesting, and there are a lot of things about it that make it a great learning opportunity from a language student perspective.

If it wasn’t so long I think it would be a good candidate for a reading club book.

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august 2 :sunflower: home post

so… I accidentally didn’t read for a whole week :sweat_smile: I need to remember to read before I log into ffxiv. Yesterday and today I got back into it, reading 極主夫道, 魔女の宅急便, Orange, and the very beginning of TUGUMI.

Since it’s a new month here’s a recap + goals

July Recap

By the end of June I was reading consistently every single day! And I kept that up until July 19. And then after that even on the days I read I only read for a bit. Last week I didn’t read at all… Despite that, I think July was a good month for reading.

Books I finished:

  • 夜カフェ1 (July 13)
  • 極主夫道5 (July 20)
  • しろくまカフェ1 (July 21)
August Goals

My goal this month is to actually finish the books I’ve started instead of starting a billion books and never finishing them. I even made a gantt chart, but have I followed it? No. I’m going to outline my goals for this week specifically in my study log, but here are my plans for this month:

Book Clubs
Here are the book clubs I am / will be participating in this month. Now that I’m listing them out it seems like way too many!

carrying over from july

  • 極主夫道 (as usual :slight_smile:)
  • シャドーハウス w/ BBC
  • Orange (fell way behind, will try to catch up by the time we start Vol 2)
  • ルーパーズ I started this VN and found it easy enough to follow along, but I’m still at the very beginning because tbh I keep forgetting about it. I think I’m almost done with ch. 1 though? (the prologue? whatever that part is)

new in august

  • TUGUMI - started this week!
  • 夜カフェ2 - starts August 6
  • 十角館の殺人 w/ Natively book club - I believe this starts August 8
  • Hunter x Hunter w/ ABBC - starts August 27

さようなら Satori Reader
If I’m going to finish Koibito or Oku Nikkou on Satori Reader I need to do it asap. I’m canceling my subscription later this month, so it’s now or never

Other
I need to get back into reading 時のオカリナ. I’m at the part where Link first arrives in Castle Town, which is 城下町 in Japanese btw). So I have a long way to go. My goal is to finish it by the end of August. Other than that, I’m reading 魔女の宅急便 since that book’s been sitting on my shelf for a year and I still haven’t read it

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:sunny: :beach_umbrella: Memoria’s Summer Readin’ :beach: :sunny:

August 2nd: (Yes I’m changing the titles…)

Today I read 15 pages of 好きっていいなよ. It’s been in my Bookwalker library for a while and I figured now was a good time to check it out. I only have energy for Zero Escape on the weekends, it seems. At least while I’m still moving. Reading NHK easy news articles doesn’t really motivate me, so I need something I can pick up quickly. Actual move-in date is scheduled for this Saturday! :confetti_ball: I really hope things will settle down some more after that.

Might have to take you up on that once I find a hook that actually picks up on the escape room text :sob:

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Thank you!! This and your breakdown helped a lot :slightly_smiling_face:

Somehow the thought of asking in the book clubs didn’t even occur to me! I guess I thought it would just be easier to ask here, but I’ll be sure to use the old threads next time!

(Sorry for the late response, by the way)

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:house:
3rd of August

I missed a day of reading yesterday, but today I read from page 140 to page 142 (39 – 40%) of かがみの孤城.

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:beach_umbrella: softlyraining’s Summer Bungalow :sunny:

July Recap

July was…an odd month. Between a funeral and health issues, it was just another month of far too much happening. I’m pleased that I only ended up missing three days of the challenge. For the most part, my reading consisted of かしこみかしこみ1and the homework for my translation class. I got an e-mail with a 50% off deal for Satori Reader, and since my listening skills are significantly weaker than my reading skills, I went ahead and got a subscription. The last few days involved me listening to stories then reading over what I heard to see how much I understood from listening alone.

August 2nd

かしこみかしこみ1
My original plan had been to post updates every few days and share cute screens of this manga with everyone. July had other plans, but now that things are a little calmer (:crossed_fingers:), I’ll post a few that made me smile. The manga itself is pretty easy reading for me, which is fine. If I wanted a relaxing summer before July started, I most certainly want one now that it’s over. :sweat_smile:

They pretty much only involve the tanuki.

The benefits of a tail cannot be overstated.

This was probably the greatest day of that deliveryman’s life. It would’ve been if that were me.

The FLOOF. :pleading_face:

Literally give me ALL the yummy bunnies.


Also, amazing work to all those who’ve finished books/manga/VNs so far during the challenge! I did a big catch-up yesterday and skimmed through a lot of posts. Everyone’s doing great! :partying_face:

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August 2nd!

Chapter 95 of Yotsuba today, in which Yotsuba visits Harajuku. Lots of cute moments. I’ve been left with a craving for candyfloss after reading it though :sweat_smile:

(Home Post)

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Home post :bookmark: Aug 2nd :sunny:

・ わたしの幸せな結婚 6 (27% → 49%)

Miyo :eyes: As well as tiny Kiyo uwu :cherry_blossom: Everyone’s like: "Kiyoka’s 隠し子?! :eyes: " Nope, just a shiki xD


Yep xD

Whoa, all the series! :eyes: How to decide what to read next? 0:

Random but kinda related meme

Tsundoku challenge: Pick 3 or 5 books from tsundoku pile and make a poll. The book with most votes must be read next. When done with book, make a new poll. Eventually no more pile! (Until the next sale comes around :caught_durtling: )

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This would really be a challenge for me

(I also haven’t even bothered with adding everything I have to bookmeter yet)

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:cake: :books: August 2 :books: :cake:
(home post)

Night Café :cake: page 73 → 80 (8 pages)

Ended up being a short read today. I finished the chapter I started yesterday of Night Café quite early in the day. It was nice to see Hanabi and Yamato making up. And a sewing tutorial in Japanese.

Then somehow the rest of the day just slipped by, and in the end I decided to put together a coffee table from IKEA (a rather complicated one) instead of reading more. And then it was after midnight… oops?

In other news, I became a Regular today. O_O I didn’t think it was possible without reading the poll thread. But I’m also not too up to date on the requirements. I think I was a regular briefly in 2020. And now I guess. :blush:

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I’m kinda doing that right now on the Natively forum :stuck_out_tongue:

Life hack:

  1. put a bunch of books in box
  2. write Naphthalene’s address on box
  3. bring box to post office

Repeat a few times, and no more books :stuck_out_tongue:

More seriously, I remember seeing the pictures :joy: Maybe you can find a few series you actually don’t like and just discard all additional volumes?

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Home post

REDC
Week 6

8月2日
Chrono Trigger


Managed very little, I’m spent today :sleeping: .

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While I also haven’t added all mine to Bookmeter, it’s closer to the tune of 5 books missing, and I’d still only be in the double digits :joy: That’s quite a stack!

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August 2 :blossom: Home Post

I said I’d have more time to read today and I sure did :joy: I started off by finishing this week’s ルーパーズ chapter which was wild for sure, then finished chapter 19 of 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ, then played a bunch of バディミッションBOND, so I’ve had a lot of emotional whiplash today haha. It’s cool to think about though, any one of those things would’ve seemed pretty impossible not all that long ago, so making that much progress in a day feels good :grin:

buddy bond things

Well :eyes: it’s all but confirmed that ルーク was at the lab that blew up, and the code for the chip is in his memories, but they’ve been locked away presumably because of that. And unless it’s somehow someone else, アーロン presumably knows about most of that. There’s some real trauma in those memories though… ルーク’s starting to remember but his brain really doesn’t want him to and it’s just probably not going to go well for him :sweat_smile:

In less angsty news, チェズレイ went to アーロン about モクマ like he was asking for his blessing lmao:

And アーロン’s just terrified of チェズレイ making a sappy face like that :joy:

アーロン also did a really sweet thing for モクマ; when they were evacuating マイカ, モクマ saw his old master’s katana and had a lot of internal strife about it getting left behind, but after the evacuation アーロン came up and explained that he’d grabbed it and asked コズエ if モクマ could have it and just :face_holding_back_tears: アーロン is good!! He’s really just as soft as ルーク is, he just tries to repress all that with a tough facade because the world’s wronged him repeatedly but he’s getting there :')

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:star2: Home :star2:

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険23

21 - 79

I’m remembering why these are some of my favorite chapters. A lot of shonen manga and anime are super focused on fights, but these Orsis chapters are all about gambling and cheating. Nothing super outlandish, just the kind of stuff that’s physically possible unlike two idiots trying to hit the shit out of each other while jumping around, hitting bystanders and religious buildings, to resolve their conflict.

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Home

Aaand the first book I finish in August is the 3rd omnibus of Uramichi-Oniisan in English. And I got a bday coupon from Tokyo Otaku Mode, and I used it to order the first few volumes of it in Japanese. They’re “special order” or whatever though, meaning they don’t know for a fact that they’re in stock at their supplier, so well we’ll see. Hopefully it doesn’t take like an entire year to get here like the volume I used my bday coupon two years ago to get.

The volumes that make up this omnibus aren’t included among the ones I ordered, but. I’m really curious about the cicada song, and whether the English prefix “semi-” was actually included in the original because it’s a homophone for “cicada,” or if the English translators added it as a reference, as like a little in-joke or something for the readers who know that, in Japanese, cicadas are called セミ. Because I expected to see a translator’s note, either in the chapter, on the lyric page, or in the back, but there was none.

I read ch 3 of キミに言えないことがある.

It's another rough one, lads. And we get Kasumi's backstory.

He also has a terrible father who treats him like crap, and his parents divorce when he’s young, sending him off to live with his grandmother because neither want him. That’s why his Tanabata wish was what it was: he just wants to be loved, and to be happy. But while the “marriage” part of it is the main focus for Kyousuke, for Kasumi, it’s that he wants to always be together with the person he falls in love with (though he doesn’t think that’ll ever happen for him, even as he writes the wish, in 5th grade before he’s ever fallen in love). We also learn that he’s liked Kyousuke at least since middle school. So he also has self-worth issues, and he looks up to Kyousuke and sees him as 正しい, so he believes him when he tells him that what he feels isn’t romantic love.

In the present, the married woman he was seeing (who’d made him feel seen and loved, the way only Kyousuke did, when he was feeling particularly depressed, and he was convinced what they had was the real deal and she was planning to leave her husband for him) breaks up with him, telling him that he was only ever just a diversion. Which of course breaks him. The previous chapter had ended with Kyousuke realizing that Kasumi hasn’t replied to his last message two days ago, and while it’s common for Kasumi to leave him on read for a while before replying… he hadn’t even read it yet. So he grew worried and, when he was unable to reach him on his phone, ran off to his apartment. And here is where he finds him. He ends up kissing him and then confessing, I think telling him that he’s always wanted to make him happy, but if he’s just gonna make him unhappy (if they’re just gonna be unhappy?) anyway, then he wants to make him unhappy?

好きだ。俺は佳純には幸せになってほしいってずっと思ってた。だけど、どうせ不幸になるなら、俺がお前を不幸にしたい。

Ugh, my heart hurts.

There are three more chapters left, not counting the epilogue/描き下ろし, so I think the next two are also probably gonna be rough. They’ve got… a lot that they’ve gotta work through.

Some vocab of note:

不一致 (ふいっち) [noun] discrepancy; discord; disagreement; mismatch; dissonance
杞憂 (きゆう) [noun] needless fear; groundless apprehension; unfounded worry
腑に落ちる (ふにおちる) [expression, 一] to understand; to be convinced

Oh, I read that as 57 at first and thought, oh, that’s not that bad, I definitely have more (conveniently forgetting/ignoring that it’s taking me forever to get through them, even when most of them are manga). No, it’s 574. You’ve definitely got me beat. I’ve only got 118. (And I still can’t keep myself from buying more. I think I love books too much. And have zero sense of what a lot of books is. ほんとに活字中毒ですね……)

57 would still definitely be enough to make it a real challenge, though.

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