📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

I’m about a fourth of the way through the last volume of Azumanga Daioh, looking to finish it this coming week and start up a new thing. I like it a lot but yeah, sometimes I’m lost. Running into bits of kansai dialect I still don’t quite get, and sometimes the way the jokes are slightly nonsense makes it hard to tell when I am or am not understanding everything.

Let’s talk a little more about Flowers! Still reading that most every day other than Friday’s Loopers. With the long sentences and very frequent new words I’ve had to let myself be content with around 3000 or a little more characters per day. That takes an hour roughly, depending on how I’m focusing and if I hit a dense bit or a nice dialog break. Would like to read for longer but the fatigue is back, with this one. Luckily Loopers proves that I can still read faster when it’s not all written like: 前髪をかき上げる仕草が中性的で実に嵌まっていて……中身が少々変わっていることも忘れつい見惚れてしまう.

The second “mystery” or whatever wasn’t as bad as the first but felt more like odd trivia where the game just asked what number is considered unlucky in Italy and stuff like that, haha. Will definitely just be looking those up. I’m into the VN but it’s all still kinda low key, especially with my very slow reading speed for this one. I think with proper understanding of exactly what I’m up against I would’ve put this off slightly in order to play another VN that would’ve either been easier or simply contained more useful words (much of the difficult vocab is rather niche in a certain type of descriptive prose or Christian-related religious terms). But I can stick it out so it’ll be nice anyway to say that I managed; it’s not regret, just probably sub-optimal placement.

Spoilery stuff

Shame Erika has only showed up a couple brief times, heh. She’s kind of just mean but in a way that’s consistently amusing me. Right now I’m up to the point where Mayuri isn’t talking to people after an awkward experience caused by the Sasaki twins (and to be precise, I quit right in the midst of the cake baking for her). Nice to see these character relationships really developing. Recent stuff has Rikka growing on me a lot more too, as there’s been far less focus on her rule obsession and more on her just being nice and caring. I found the Sasakis pretty funny so it sucks seeing them go too far and kind of be the entire catalyst twice in a row for bad things happening.

This is a normal way to have a meeting with your teacher, with her wandering into the water, right? Weirded me out a bit. The artstyle in this game is so pleasant either way :heart_eyes:

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:star2: Home :star2:

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険25

I think the day before yesterday was pages 28/29?

Yesterday was 30-37

Time for F MEGA

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Home post

REDC
Week 7
:confetti_ball: 1 0 0 % :confetti_ball:

8月14日
Final Fantasy XIV


It’s official, I’m all set with the new character :tada: . This is going to be a potential journey of several hundred hours, it’s a huge project but I’m extremely excited to see it started. My attempts last year made me realise that my level was just not there yet to play this without suffering greatly. Now I feel much more prepared and it’s actually not that bad like it used to be, just the hour or so that I was playing before made me realise that I can totally do this now even if it will be hard, but at least it’s not impossible anymore, I actually started to grab some Anki vocab cards already. This is huge for me because this is the one game that I love since so, so many years ago. The one game that I could spend literally the whole day playing with no issue at all, though playing it in Japanese from the start will for sure drain my energy much faster. There’s way too many hours of content and text at this point that even if it’s set in a fantasy environment, common words will appear constantly nonetheless. If I can keep this project long term, I’m convinced it will boost my knowledge of Japanese by a lot. It won’t be my only resource, of course, variety is always very important. But ahhh I’m just so excited to start this, I’m just rambling at this point :joy: .

I ended up making the character in my region and not in a Japanese server so I can still take a complete break from Japanese if I need to.

I can also finally talk about sidequests and minor content without the risk of spoiling anything relevant :sob: . Haven’t talked about the content of what I read in a long time.

Congrats!! :tada:

Right!? So many accomplishments (and accomplishments in the making) in these threads, love to see it.

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More Monkeys progress. I’m at about 250k characters read, can feel myself getting closer to the end. I think I finished 硝子’s route shortly after my last post and am on メバチ’s route now. I don’t think I posted any screenshots of her before because she is definitely my least favorite character :joy: If I didn’t have to play her route to unlock the true end I probably would have skipped it. It’s not awful, she is just definitely the weakest character for me.

On the side, I finished the first chapter of the Sayaka やがて君になる spinoff LN. Although the chapters in that LN are a bit weird, first one was 67 pages and then the second chapter is the rest of the book which goes to like page 228. I’ve never read a LN before in any language though so I’m not sure if that’s standard or not.
The first chapter was pretty good but the ending definitely caught me off guard. Thankfully the language in this one isn’t too hard compared to the VNs I’ve been reading. There are a few similes they use that is hard to make out what they mean but overall nothing too difficult. I have noticed it is harder to stay focused when reading a LN compared to a VN for some reason. Maybe its the lack of visuals and voice acting. Hoping my attention span gets better because I do enjoy the story :sweat_smile:

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Also,
screaming internally when 葉月 brought up the topic of “love”. What are you doing. Stop. She is freaking sadistic.
The 初詣 part at the beginning was nice too
.

I am half way through. I’ll post about it when I am done.

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August 14 :blossom: Home Post

So I kind of finished バディミッションBOND today? Definitely all the main story and then a bunch of other stuff that popped up :eyes: now I actually just have a few little side stories I think, unless they pull some other wild stuff on me lmao. So that puts me at about 125 hours for the whole thing, minus a couple hours or so for interruptions. vndb estimates it at 45 hours so like… not bad? Especially considering some of the language struggles this game put me through, oh boy :joy: It’s late now so I’ll save more in-depth discussion for tomorrow when I finish up the last little bits, but this’ll be VN number 5 down! :tada: By far the longest and most difficult one I’ve done too, so yay!

Woooo congrats!!! Always a major milestone :grin:

Yay that’s super exciting!! I’m admittedly not very familiar with final fantasy but your enthusiasm is contagious, I look forward to seeing how it goes!

Also congrats to everyone else who finished projects today, seems to be a common theme! Crushing it out here :muscle:

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:star2: :video_game: August 14 :video_game: :star2:
(home post)

Super Mario Odyssey :star2:

I actually finished yesterday, thinking I hadn’t read any Japanese at all, and then as I laid in bed I was like “wait a minute”… Which day did I play the beach kingdom (can’t actually remember what they are called in English) in SMO? And my brain went yesterday? And I was like “no I don’t think so”. And brain was like so today? And I was like “gotta be I guess, weird”.

So I did a bit of reading (and fun playing!). Reading the leaflet on the kingdom (man those are hard because they typically have vocab I don’t know, but I don’t look it up. But after reading about half of it, I realized one of the unknown words were carbonated (or similar) to say sparkling/bubbly water.

I just realized that I’m in three book clubs and they’re making me read: 1 novel, 1 manga, and 1 VN. :joy: Talk about spreading myself across all mediums equally. :joy:

Lastly, I think I’m back in that place I talked about a few weeks ago, when switching between things I’m reading is its own kind of ordeal for me. I certainly find that part much harder than just continuing with what I’m already doing. Doesn’t help that two of my current picks are also starting new volumes. The resistance is real.

But I will go conquer it right now, because I have another gaming night planned so if I want to read something today, I better do it now. ^^


And once again, I get to thank more of you for congratulating me on my first novel. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

And now to some specific replies!

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Books, smooks. Read whatever you prefer. The only thing I’m disliking with reading a VN is that I can’t add it to bookmeter and get a nice page boost to my totals when I finished it. :joy:

Sounds like a lot of fun! I’ve been watching a (main) story focused lets play of FFXIV. They just finished Heavensward’s main story and will start the patch stories soon :tm: It’s on PlayFrame yt channel. It isn’t played in Japanese, but I’ve been enjoying being able to experience the story without getting into another mmo. (MMOs have dominated my life at different times…)


You’re right, that is pretty rad. :partying_face:

And then I’ll read Loopers this week and it will slam me back to earth, reminding me how much there is still left to learn to read everything that easily. :joy:

Woot! I look forward to your next update. :eyes:


Absolutely! Will be starting the next in the series any day.


Talk about sneakly announcing your own first finished novel. Well done! :partying_face: :tada:

Honestly, seeing you were reading it at the same time and getting close to the end pushed me to keep reading too. So I think we managed to motivate each other there. :smiley:


You’re absolutely right. 坊ちゃん (in graded reader form) was far harder to read than 夜カフェ. And of those two, 坊ちゃん was definitely more entertaining. I do really enjoy 夜カフェ, but it is more of a hanging out on the beach easy read. While 坊ちゃん is more of a reading at night and maybe stay up too late to read more — type of read. I enjoy both kinds of books (they both have their place), but I’d probably pick 坊ちゃん-type reads all the time, if they didn’t also come with a lot more difficulty. I’ll get there. :slight_smile:

(Obviously I enjoyed 夜カフェ enough to keep reading. I feel like I’m slamming it, but I honestly enjoy reading it a lot too. Not only for how easy it is to read, but the characters and their drama.)

Yes please! I can’t say I will be able to start them super soon (considering I’m in three book clubs, 4 starting in September), but I do want to get into more novel territory. I’m certainly more interested in it now, than I was before finishing 夜カフェ. (Also before remembering how dang good 坊ちゃん was.)


Thanks to you reading this book, when Bowser in Super Mario Odyssey used 吾輩 I knew both how to read it and what it meant. I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been reading this at the same time. ^^


O_O Come on Norway, wake up! Sweden certainly did. Most everything is open on Sundays nowadays, excluding Systembolaget (and the postal service, but they aren’t open on any red days or weekends so…).

What an ordeal. :disappointed: At least the weather was good. :slight_smile:

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Congrats!! :tada: What is happening lately? Everyone is running on Beast mode :joy: .

Thank you! FFXIV in particular is an MMORPG so if you think of World of Warcraft, though different games, you would have a general idea of what type of game it is. Only that one of the important features in FFXIV is the story. At this point it’s been going for close to 10 years since it was reworked (it released a bit before that but it was terrible and they had to remake it completely) so if you read every little thing that means hundreds of hours of text, there’s a ton of reading, lore, dialogues and so on. The main story is probably one of the big selling points of the game, it’s really good.

Heavensward is so good! I hope you’re enjoying it :slight_smile: .

Yeah I feel you, it’s been the same for me at times. Back then around 2014, FFXIV consumed my life for sure, it was a bad period mentally and I needed something to rely on and take my brain on a vacation. And oh it worked really well, only that it did break a couple other functional things in my life in exchange. But then I couldn’t keep pushing things under the rug and quit, and I started this wonderful Japanese journey right after! September of that year I started in the language school.

Nowadays I have a much healthier relationship with video games in general, though I’ll be honest that I still use them as a refuge often. It’s not as bad as it used to be and since I came back to FFXIV last year I’ve been able to keep it reasonable. It’s not an issue anymore so that’s why I allow myself to play my favourite game :slight_smile: . If or when that changes I’ll have to reevaluate my options but right now it’s been good for a year and a half ish.

It’s the internet that now dominates my free time :upside_down_face: , that’s my number 1 nemesis right now. I can spend the whole day checking and watching anything online only to forget most of it in a few days. At least if I’m going to spend that much time in front of the PC anyways I thought that I could channel it into studying Japanese, and it’s working well. So while I spend way too much time with the PC, at least I feel like a fair portion of it is being somewhat productive. That’s also why for me any study method that involves a keyboard and a mouse is able to keep my attention and energy for a long time, and why I like to use video games as study time. Making use of bad habits I guess :joy: .

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Today I read the last 4 pages of the ABBC prefectures book, as well as 3 pages of Tugumi, and to partway through chapter 11 of シャドーハウス. So I’m up to date with everything other than Tugumi.

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:spiral_calendar: Day 45: August 14th :tropical_fish: :crab:

spacer:ribbon: ふだつきのキョーコちゃん Volume 7 (21% ➨ 39%)

spacer:ninja:t2: くノ一ツバキの胸の内 Volume 4 (18% ➨ 34%)

spacer:rabbit2: ご注文はうさぎですか? Complete Blend Volume 1 (50% ➨ 53%)

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Main Post

Wanted to finish this second case of Kindaichi over the weekend and with the heat there wasn’t much to do anyway, so I was able to read quite a lot and finish it. I would say this case is maybe a bit more interesting than the previous one because of how succesful they were at revenge and how many tricks, twists and turns there are. The setting is also very bizarre, love it. It kinda demonstrates that yes only someone like kindaichi would have been able to solve it. Of course as the reader you should also be able to figure it out and you don’t need something as ridiculous as an IQ of 180. I docked one star for the whole teacher-student affair at the start of the volume.

Ridiculous shape of the village

I’ll be starting the third case today and maybe after that one I’ll take a little break and read some Zenitendo.

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Home

A/C broke yesterday evening, so we stayed at a hotel last night. Hopefully it’ll get fixed today and we won’t have to extend our stay, though I did bring a few books (plus my laptop), so I’ll be set for another day at least. I ended up staying up too late reading last night and was too tired to update. I read ch 21-24 of ハイキュー!! and had wanted to read 25 and finish the volume, but, well.

Update: We are staying another night :/
Update the second: Maybe not? (fingers crossed, although I think I’d mind staying another night a lot less than my mother would. I’m a simple man lol, if I’ve got my books and my music, I’m good.)

I found out that while not all the the t-shirts Noya made for the team (on the cover of ch 24) have 四字熟語 on them, they are all 4-character words/phrases… except for Kageyama’s, which is 単細胞 lmao. (And he seems so proud of it too? Or maybe just happy to be included.)

Some vocab of note:

山なり (やまなり) [の-adj.] curved; forming the shape of an arch. In full kanji, it’s 山形.
一枚上手 (いちまいうわて) [四字熟語, noun, な-adj.] one step higher; one better; a cut above; one up
対決 (たいけつ) [noun, する verb (自)] confrontation; showdown
馬が合う (うまがあう) [expression, ア五] to get on well (with a person)
非情 (ひじょう) [noun, な-adj., の-adj.] cold-hearted; callous; unfeeling; cruel
ご無沙汰 (ごぶさた) [noun, する verb (自)] not writing or contacting for a while; neglecting/failing to (write, call, visit, etc.); long silence

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Still playing through Persona 3 Portable. Honestly the amount of reading I’m doing is a lot. Finished the first big boss (May). Almost caught up with where I was on the PS2 version (I really had no idea how to play Persona games at the time).

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You asked for it, you got it :-)

I’m sharing the bookmeter links for convenience :wink: (The title is the very first part of the link that’s included in double quotes, in case it looks too confusing…)

I’ll keep my comments short in order to not spoiler you. If you want to know more, just ask!

https://bookmeter.com/books/13029012 - Story about a woman who works at a konbini. The story goes way deeper than it might sound at a glance. We have a book club for it.

https://bookmeter.com/books/579144 - We also read it in a book club. It’s two separate stories about love and loss and life in general. The author has a unique way of writing, which sometimes makes it hard to understand whether she is describing the real world or whether her mind is just wandering. I liked it a lot, but you may want to have two or three other books under your belt before tackling this one.

https://bookmeter.com/books/4955272 - I love this book! About a young mother who raises her two very special children. It’s about the challenges of them finding their own place in life. As a bonus, there is a super adorable anime as well. The writing is very straightforward. Helped me a lot with vocabulary building, but grammar-wise I found it on the rather easier side.

https://bookmeter.com/books/579475 - Another book from a book club. It’s a fantasy novel about a young girl growing up under the specific circumstances of the world she lives in. The writing is pretty clear and straightforward, but there are a few chapters that are very heavy on the (political) world-building. Those can be quite the challenge. Also, the book is part of a 5-book series of which the first two pretty much belong together.
If you like fantasy in general but are not up to such heavy world building or such a big commitment, I can recommend
https://bookmeter.com/books/574891 - by the same author, also a fantasy novel of a young girl growing up under special circumstances, also a book club, but just one book, i.e. there is also some (political) world building, but it’s not that deep. I didn’t like it as much as the story is aimed at younger children and is thus a bit simplistic for my taste, but it might be a good door-opener for the genre.

https://bookmeter.com/books/576898 - again a book club pick. It’s labeled fantasy-horror but I did not particularly think of it as “horror”. I mean, it’s a bit creepy at times but it’s not my-heart-is-racing-i-will-never-again-be-able-to-sleep horror. Two separate stories, I found both interesting but liked the second one way more. Not gonna lie, there were other people in the club who did not like the stories too much. (A long time ago we also had another book club pick by the same author, called Autumn Prison, but I haven’t read that one yet.)

https://bookmeter.com/books/573780 - very wholesome story about a professor who has a very special condition and how he lives with it. Loved it a lot. The writing is also very straightforward, but among the suggested books here I feel that the book is not among the easiest. So maybe don’t pick it as the first one, but make sure to pick it at some point! Oh yeah and of course there is a book club for it.

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Aug 15, Mon of Week 8 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Summary of last weeks’ reading, as well as today.

  • Finished ブラックジャックによろしく (Give my Regards to Black Jack) Vol.1
    • I generally like this one. No one is too stupid, and it feels surreal. Personally I don’t feel sympathy that much. I might have been years ago, but that would simply cause meaningless mis-understood pain…
    • Then, for some reasons, the rest of the series was 30 yen per volume, so I paid 360 yen for the rest for the series. Only checked out early Vol.2 so far, though.
  • Finished Hunter x Hunter Vol.1
    • Original intention was to help with 1999 anime, but it is fun on its own. Also, differences here and there from the anime. (Probably coincide with the remake anime.)
    • Today, I watched anime to EP.8 as well, so I guess it caught up with the manga (with some differences :smile:) but anime is still my half-despair.
  • Finished それでも歩は寄せてくる (Even so Ayumu got closer) Vol.1
    • I started from Ch.5, where I read a while ago.
    • Gotta admit, Ayumu looks かっこいい.
    • Perhaps I should checkout more on Shogi later. I can only guess…
    • I still can’t get used to the official English series’ name…
  • Finished Shadows House Vol.1, today
    • Fun and interesting thing begins the moment Emiriko sees outside the house. What’s wrong with this noble family and their manservants?

Yuru Camp got advertised again. Perhaps I should continue Vol.2-12? There are also anime S1-2, but perhaps not for me yet?

I still have trouble with novels in general. Specifically, I can’t progress with TUGUMI. It feels too hard.

I don’t really have problems with 妖怪の子預かります, although not reading that fast. Probably I can also read Night Cafe, but my understanding was… 不合格. Anyway, I finished Ch.3 of that 妖怪 thing. I don’t have enough interest to continue to Night Cafe Vol.2 right now.

I saw old files on Google Drive on No.6 and Autumn Prison. I barely remember them. In any case, nowadays would, first of all, be attempt to learn from reading properly. (Well, just as much as appropriate.)

I bought Monster Hunter World on Steam, and I feel it is playable for me and fun (and fun story), but I have doubt whether it would work well for me as a study material… not that level yet and not yet time to have fun.

About LOOPERS, maybe? I probably won’t buy the game, though. ATRI is still on hold, and isn’t so bad, just yet another material…

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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Beach Resort: Date 20220815 :beach_umbrella: :raccoon:

吾輩は狸である progress: 3.88% :fallen_leaf:

Completed chapter I, which had an unexpectedly sad ending. :crying_cat_face:

Also a reminder of why learning to read Japanese is rewarding and worth the brainpain it puts me through: … I think…

101% Poetic sentence

赤松の間に二三段のこうを綴った紅葉こうようむかしの夢のごとく散ってつくばい に近く代る代る花弁はなびらをこぼした紅白こうはく山茶花さざんかも残りなく落ち尽した。

:beach_umbrella: Japanese found in the sand :beach_umbrella:

Meowords

褪める「さめる」ー To fade; to lose colour; to discolour
天秤棒「てんびんぼう」ー Shoulder carrying pole
I had no idea what this meant so I had to look it up further, it’s one of these things:

I've forgotten how to do those cool little clicky pop-up boxes so spoiler in a spoiler

Cat-friend is very kindly demonstrating what a 天秤棒 is.

天秤棒

「つくばい」ー Stone wash basin found in gardens
紅白「こうはく」ー Red & white; two teams/groups; colours for festive occasions (Japan’s colours)
山茶花「さざんか」ー Sasanqua Camellia (plant)
籠る「こもる」ー To shut yourself in (like in your room/house etc.); to seclude yourself; to stay inside (like a shell or something similar); to be filled with emotion; to fill the room (with a gas/vapour or smell etc.); to be stuffy // (also seen as: 篭る)
滅多に「めったに」ー Seldom; rarely
絵端書「えはがき」ー Picture postcard
拗ねる「すねる」ー To sulk; to pout

Forms
厭 = 嫌「いや」(Disagreeable; unpleasant)
竪 = 縦「たて」(Vertical; height)

Other
漸々「ぜんぜん」 (Gradually; by degrees)
Though the furigana given here is だんだん, like 段々


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I am happy that my learning, has helped your learning!

Congrats!! :tada:
More success for the mountain of success these threads are creating :sparkles: :mount_fuji: :sparkles:

I think @ChristopherFritz was right with that the success is contagious :laughing:

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Oooh, thank you. (Also thanks for the bookmeter links!) Which one or two books would you consider the easiest? And while vocabulary matter, I think complex sentences and a lot of abstract/metaphorical/stream-of-conscious writing is probably more of a hindrance (because I’d have a hard time figuring out if I’m missing something or it is that confusing/vague intentionally :joy: ).

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Absolutely agree with that! That’s why I tried to give a short comment on the writing style.

Hmmm… I think the three easiest from the list are 雨と雪, 夜市, and 孤笛のかなた. While the writing is pretty straightforward for all three of them, the latter two are in a fantasy setting which might occasionally add to the confusion. Also, having seen your thoughts and comments in the orange book club, I would expect you to absolutely love 雨と雪, so that would be my #1 recommendation for you. (and I hope I’m not totally off with this one :sweat_smile:)
Just please do yourself the favor of reading the book before watching the anime so that you can fully enjoy the text! :blush:

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Thank you! My to read next list have now been reshuffled. We’ll see exactly what takes the top spot in a couple of weeks, but I believe I know what my next novel will be, even if it isn’t the next thing I pick to read. :smiley:

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Home post :bookmark: Aug 15th :beach_umbrella:

・ 本好きの下剋上 10 (24% → 27%)

As always, very curious how much reading I’ll have time for now that classes are starting up again. But I worry not - many sand can make big hill :+1: Already experienced that from previous challenges.

oh! btw, Bookwalker’s evil scheme is getting the better of me. cc @Naphthalene I bought Honzuki 30 just to fulfill requirement of “you must buy New BookTM to rank up”. Who knows when I’ll be able to read Honzuki 30??? :joy: That’s so far into the future, I’m like… whelp owo. Pretty much guaranteed to be a special moment when I get there.

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