📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

Summary Post

Day 1: July 1st
What did I read?: 猫には猫の猫ごはん Vol 1
How much did I read?: 20 pages
How long did it take me?: 20 min

I low-key almost forgot that today was July 1st lmao whoops
I am already in love with this manga :pleading_face: Like this is the first page, I can’t even

And look at this back cover art :pleading_face:

The manga begins when boy finds kitten in the snow (the kitty is so small and pitiful-looking in this chapter, it hurts my heart :broken_heart:). Boy brings kitty to the vet, then takes kitty home. You can tell he doesn’t really know what to do with this cat but he really really wants to be a good owner, like he really wants to help and it’s so sweet :pleading_face:


Unrelated to that, I wanted to make sure to give a big warm welcome to all the challenge newcomers, and a big warm welcome back to all the familiar faces from previous challenges :blush::heart: Happy to have you all joining in, I look forward to reading with you!!

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Home

I got a bit of a head start with the SPY×FAMILY club today by reading mission 2… and then read further ahead with mission 3 as well. I had a feeling I’d end up reading ahead with this one too, and I’m honestly surprised I held back this long. It’s definitely not that it’s particularly easy, like 夜カフェ, because it’s not—it’s about the same level as a lot of the other stuff I read—it’s just that I’m really hype for this series and there’s no way I can keep myself to one chapter a week lol. I can already tell I’m gonna feel bereft once I reach the end of vol 9, which will definitely be before September when I figure 10 will be out.

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2nd of June
Day 2

Read from page 64 to page 68 (17 – 18%) of かがみの孤城. My goal for now will be to keep progressing 1% of the book each day — that will mean I would be able to finish it before October. Not too bad! Anyway, I’ll see how I go, and whether I can keep up with that speed.

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July 1 :blossom: Home Post

Here we are again! I’ve missed バディミッションBOND so I picked it up again; I’m feeling pretty tired though so didn’t get that far, but that’s okay. I’m in the midst of resetting my sleep schedule so that’ll happen :joy: Regardless, I should be able to get more in tomorrow so I’m looking forward to that :grin:

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:spiral_calendar: Day 1: July 1st :ocean::beach_umbrella:

I'm starting the challenge off with a decent number of series I'm either already reading or will be starting.

Rather than tracking pages read (which would make me want to consciously not count pages with little to no text), I’m going based on percentage progress within the volume.

Since my boss had the day off, and my boss’s boss had the day off, and things were slow at work, I made it a short work day. That means more time for reading than normal for me on a Friday.

Today’s reading:

🔍 名探偵コナン Volume 10 (6% ➨ 11%)

My current Conan reading is right at the end of a case, where the “how it was done” is explained. For anyone who hasn’t read Conan, this typically looks like:

It’s not uncommon for me to read 65 pages of a case portion in one or two sittings, then get through 14 pages of the solution portion in another two to three sittings. (For this case, it was two sittings within one day.)

Looked-up vocabulary words:

  • 予測: prediction
  • よす: to cease, to desist, to cut it out, to lay off (an activity), to drop (a subject)
  • 殺る: to do someone in, to bump someone off
  • 証言: evidence, testimony
  • 溜める: to amass, to accumulate
  • 蛇口: faucet
  • 切り替わる: to switch to
  • 固定: fixation
  • 幼稚: childish, infantile
  • 大胆: bold, daring (I should know this one by now…)
  • どっぷり: totally (immersed in something, e.g. liquid, work)
  • 問い詰める: to press a question, to cross-examine

spacer :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: からかい上手の高木さん Volume 7 (26% ➨ 36%)

spacer :tangerine: orange Volume 1 (1% ➨ 10%)

🥷🏻 くノ一ツバキの胸の内 Volume 1 (21% ➨ 36%)

I started this series yesterday.

This mangaka certainly comes up with a variety of eye styles. In 「それでも歩は寄せてくる」, there’s Maki, Sakurako, and Rin who all have different eye styles. For 「くノ一ツバキの胸の内」, the primary one is Sazanka:

image

Tsubaki has a really nice design for her eyes:

image

Asagao’s eye design is nice, too:

image

Well, when they’re open:

image image image image

Looked-up vocabulary words:

  • (こた)える: to endure
  • 実習: practice, training
  • しばし: for a short while
  • 警戒心: wariness
  • お達っし: notice or order handed down from above
  • 鋭い: perceptive, keen
  • 気分転換: change of pace, change of mood
  • 押し通す: to persist
  • 解く: to untie

That’s almost as many lookups as with Conan, but across a whole lot more pages.

spacer :rabbit2: ご注文はうさぎですか? Complete Blend Volume 1 (38% ➨ 40%)

👧 からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 4 (85% ➨ 91%)

Not much to say here. This is one of those “quick and easy read” series for me, which is nice after going through a couple of pages from a no-furigana 4koma (or a heavy read like the solution portion of Conan).

image

Looked-up vocabulary words:

  • 積み木: building blocks (In hindsight, I should have gotten this one.)
  • 重心: center of gravity

spacer :broom: ふらいんぐうぃっち Volume 11 (0% ➨ 4%)

🌳 ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん Volume 2 (57% ➨ 62%)

This is one of those series that most learners of Japanese likely wouldn’t find interesting enough to include in their tadoku. For first-time readers, where just being able to understand something makes even simplistic content interesting, I think it’s probably a great pick. It’s among the easiest manga I’ve come across without being targetted at little kids. Definitely one I’d like to nominate for ABBC, but not until my book club duties subside in November.

The premise is simple: it’s a slice-of-life about forest critters of various degrees of anthropomorphic design. The series is centered around the titular wolf, whose duty is to scare away any humans who wander into the woods.

Looked-up vocabulary words:

  • 肌寒い: chilly, unpleasantly cold

spacer :male_detective:t3: SPY×FAMILY Volume 1 (35% ➨ 42%)

spacer :camera: にじいろフォトグラフ Volume 1 (35% ➨ 39%)

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july 1 :sunflower: home post

I didn’t have time to read until really late tonight, but that means it’s close enough to July 2 that I figured I’d start reading Orange! I’m halfway through this week’s reading and so far I’m liking it!

These next few days will probably be similar, where I don’t have much time to sit down and read… but I’ll try to make a little time every day

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home post

For daily reading I did a chapter of 暁のヨナ (manga) and a section of ナミヤ雑貨店の奇蹟。 I’m getting close to the end of Namiya — 40 pages left — which I think is going to be 3 days worth of reading. It’s a good book but for me it’s not a page-turner. I got one of the grammar lessons done too.

I’m probably going to be reading lots of 暁のヨナ all through this summer challenge. I watched the anime a long time ago and wondered what happened after it ended, and it only covered up to volume 8. And I refused to read it in English. So this is one of my longtime “things to read when I can read Japanese” projects. The first few volumes were pretty rough, but by volume 7 I was comfortable enough to feel confident I could finish the rest of the series. The part of the story I’m reading now is totally new to me, and it’s getting smooth enough that it’s feeling like actual real fun instead of “my daily reading assignment.” That’s a really nice feeling.

@pocketcat Good luck!

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Day 1 :heavy_check_mark: :cyclone:

~6%

Busy day yesterday, so I left my reading (and listening) to the very end, when I was already tired. But I couldn’t start the challenge with no reading at all now, could I? :grin:
I ended up opting for 穴 as my first July book as I have been wanting to read it for ages and kept postponing it for one reason or another. So far, it’s been only exposition, so there’s not much to comment. Looking forward to today’s reading to see how the story develops.

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

Day 2!

Good morning, Europe gang! I figured I’d get my reading done early today, so I finished around 20 pages of ピーチガール. I think mostly the grammar and slang is what’s tripping me up with this manga. The plot is strange, but I’m enjoying the main character more than I did when I was younger. I didn’t like that she was so angry, lol. As an adult, I think more women should be Angry.

girls with threatening auras (ピーチガール pic)

words and stuff

自己中
selfishness, egotism, egoism,
失格
Being unfit for one’s role, being a failure

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It was Foyles, around Soho area! https://www.foyles.co.uk/

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:books: :video_game: :shallow_pan_of_food: :sunny: July 1

The past couple of days I’ve been sick, which wasn’t a great start to the challenge, but I seem to be getting better fast (crossing fingers I don’t get worse again like last time) so I’m hoping I’ll be reading more soon enough. In this first day I could only manage to read a couple of pages of 夜カフェ before my head hurt too much to continue.

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Home Post

Yesterday I studied a bit and then had to work till late, so I was pretty worn out. I wanted to finish off the 10 pages that I’m still missing of last week’s section of the Saikawa&Moe book that we’re reading with a small group, but then the Orange thread popped up, and so I thought I should maybe just download the manga to my phone in case I have some spare time, and then after the download Bookwalker kindly opened it, and then… I don’t know what happened really, but 20 pages in I looked up and thought “It’s really not bad, that manga” :rofl:

So it seems like I just added another book to the reading pile :roll_eyes:

London Bookstore talk

Thanks, noted! When I worked in London, the company was based in Moorgate and later Aldgate, so I know the eastern parts pretty well actually (setting aside reconstruction of course - did they finish this centerlink (?) by now anyway?), but I never had much reason to get to Soho or even further west. Will change that when the opportunity comes up again :+1:

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Oh no! Get better soon!

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No way, how did I miss this?! I was just there in May, I literally passed that street… I’ll have to plan a lil trip once I have more time. Thanks for the tip :cat2:

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Oh hey, I started reading this series mainly because of Borx (too?), hehe. I really like this series, just too bad I found 4-koma manga exhausting to read back then when I started reading it, especially coupled with the lack of furigana. Finished the first volume in December 2020. Have been sporadically peeking at the second volume, but not even reached 40% yet. Btw, you might notice the further you read, there’s usually a new “chapter” every 12 pages, when there’s a bigger drawing in the bottom half of the page ^^

Like this

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:herb: Home post :herb:

Jul 2

I think I’m done with reading for today, so I’m posting a bit early.

Today was a FukaBoku day. I read pages 14-38 of vol.2 thus finishing the first chapter of the volume and the 7th chapter of the series. I took my time with it, so even though it was difficult in places, I had a great time :smiling_face:

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It seems that the actual numbers of pages vary, but they might really be practical section breaks.

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:tangerine: :books: July 2 :books: :tangerine:
(home post)

Orange :tangerine: page 20 → 22 (3 pages)

I have friends coming over any minute, so I quickly updated my home post and did this update. Pretty happy I managed to squeeze in even 3 pages when the baking I did took a little more than an hour, and I thought maybe it would take like 40 mins.

Ah well, we’ll eat good, and I still managed to read a few pages. But I didn’t have time to update vocab sheet for Orange, nor ask my questions there. There is time tomorrow, thankfully! :smiley:

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:sunflower: DAY 2 :sunflower:

I read all of chapter 9 in 海辺のカフカ - Kafka on the Shore :beach_umbrella: (Advanced Book Club) .

It’s as I hoped! This chapter went muuuuuch quicker. Also things just got really interesting :eyes: Excuse me now, as I head to the bookclub to read what everyone’s had to say…

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Having seen that image, I am putting this book on my “read next” list!

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