I read 7 books this year, the shortest being 133 pages (乳と卵) and the longest being 452 pages ( 秘密 )
I’m not sure how much I enjoyed them, but the ones by Higashino Keigo were interesting to say the least. So was my first light novel(??), 超人間・岩村.
I’m not satisfied with my progress. I also want to be able to pick up on smaller things when reading and not just the big picture.
Since I read only 4 books the previous year, this year was ok.
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I thought getting into novels after 2 years from 0 is on the slower side. I see plenty of people doing it after a few months personally haha. Probably just the communities I hang around, though.
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As long as they aren’t reading those novels with ease after only a few months. 
I started my first novel (魔女の宅急便 in the beginner book club) about two years after I started learning Japanese from (basically) zero prior experience. It took about six months to read and was incredibly painful for the first couple months. I generally consider myself on the slower side for learning Japanese, so I could definitely see starting after two years being considered slow.
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I think you missed the goal of my post which was to encourage someone who was getting down on themselves about their progress.
I think it’s also worth noting that years are not a great measure of commitment to a subject (any subject) compared to hours if the conversation has moved to efficiency. How many hours per day, per week, per year can someone commit to learning something will greatly impact the meaning of “2 years studying Japanese” from person to person. Likewise, how those hours are spent.
As an example, I spent just under 400 hours listening to Japanese this year in media form (audiobooks/tv/etc). If I had focused those hours on reading, my reading skills would be better but my listening would have not made the progress it did. Shift those hours to writing, or conversation, or even time spent in flashcards and my gains would be different.
I’m sure there are people who would sniff at my 400 hours in a year, and congratulations to those people for having more free time than me. My life is mine, theirs is theirs. I’d rather cheer people on than anything. 
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- What and how much did you read in 2021?
So far 24 books and 79 manga volumes(along with a couple of books I’m partway through). I’ll probably be able to read a little bit more before the year is over though.
- What books did you enjoy most? What were your favourite discoveries?
For stuff that I started this year, light-novel wise I liked わたしが恋人になれるわけないじゃん、ムリムリ!(※ムリじゃなかった!?) (the third and fourth volumes in particular were great) and 百合の間に挟まれたわたしが、勢いで二股してしまった話. Manga-wise I mostly read more volumes of stuff I started last year, but この音とまれ！, 女ともだちと結婚してみた, and 私を喰べたい、ひとでなし were three of the few new series I started reading this year and they all seem pretty nice so far.
For series I already started last year, the new volumes of 安達としまむら(light novel), 少女漫画主人公×ライバルさん(manga), もし恋が見えたなら(manga)、and まちカドまぞく(manga) were all really nice(まちカドまぞく in particular feels like it does more and more cool stuff as the series goes on and actual plot stuff starts happening more and more. Everything from volume 5 of 安達としまむら has also been very consistently really good)
- Are you satisfied with your progress on your Japanese learning/reading journey?
I can read most of the stuff I want to, so that’s pretty nice. Obviously there’s still words I don’t know and stuff but I figure I’m slowly working on learning those, so I feel pretty ok with where I’m at and what I’m doing.
- Was 2021 a good year for you in terms of reading?
I’d say pretty good. I read about the same amount as last year, I think.
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Does any kind of romance happen, even a little? Or is it all just typical manga bait? I struggled to read the manga because it was so dense, but I enjoyed the anime. It would be nice to go back to the manga at some point.
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It’s made pretty clear that Momo has feelings for Shamiko, but no idea if it’s going to go beyond that or not otherwise(I’d say it has some of the largest amounts of romantic subtext I’ve seen in any of the manga I’ve read so far that’s not just explicitly romance, but I have no idea if it the author intends to do more with that or just leave it as very heavy subtext).
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Oh yeah, true. I usually buy the ebooks for cost and space reasons and only get the physical release for a very select few. I think currently it’s like 2 that get a sporadic release and 2 others that I have no clue when they’re gonna get their next volume, but it’ll probably still take a long time.
I mostly make sure to buy all my Manga Time Kirara manga in physical form. They come in a large size compared to most manga, with really high quality paper. Besides that, I get とんがり帽子のアトリエ in physical form because the art is so nice. The other ones that I’m still getting in physical form is just because I already had previous volumes that way, but I won’t necessarily do that forever.
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Like you said, their life is theirs. If people are unsatisfied with their progress and want to set the bar higher for themselves, I think that’s a good thing. Not everyone needs justification.
Oh yeah, hell no they aren’t
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Congrats on your reading progress! It’s very impressive. I’ve been wanting to read かくりよの宿飯 since I saw the anime a couple of years ago. Would you mind telling me how much of the 11 volumes is the main story? Thanks!
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What do you mean by “main story”? Technically, the first 10 volumes form the main story (according to the author), volume 11 being more like a “what did they become” book, set 3 years later.
That’s what I meant. Thanks!
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This year I’ve read mostly manga (60 volumes) and 11 books.
Some of the manga:
- ふらいんぐうぃっち, read 6 volumes. Very chill and refreshing series. Cute cats :3
- ハイキュー!!, read the remaining 5 volumes of the series. My first manga series ever. It has come to an end. What a journey it has been ;-;
- ノラガミ, 3 volumes. I feel like there was a lot of archaic language, ancient spells kind of deal. Fantasy setting obviously.
- やがて君になる, all 8 volumes. Great art. I can’t remember much, but I’m sure it was cute.
- この音とまれ！, 20 volumes. Most of the series was available for free, so I binged it over the summer. Enjoyed it a lot.
- ゆるキャン
, 5 volumes. Lots of food and great scenery 
(almost too much food) - わたしが恋人になれるわけないじゃん、ムリムリ! (※ムリじゃなかった!?), 3 volumes. Cute romcom :3
Books:
- 博士の愛した数式, heartwarming but had too many maths and baseball for my liking xD
- コンビニ人間, interesting take on the Japanese society. Favorite meme: joumon jidai.
- すべてがFになる, mysterious mystery, quite the plot twist at the end.
- 冷たい密室と博士たち, more mystery.
- ソードアートオンライン, book 7 and 8.
- 本好きの下剋上, book 2 to 7. Definitely my favorite reading material this year, especially book 7.
Are you satisfied with your progresse on your Japanese learning/reading journey?
I started reading books last year and it was painfully slow. I still have a long way to go in terms of unknown words, but my reading speed has definitely picked up since the start of the year. I’ve still yet to finish a book in less than a week, but I’ll try to make it happen next year. Gotta gather all my inner focus.
I think srs-ing more of the words I come across could be a good idea 
Was 2021 a good year for you in terms of reading?
I’d say yes. The Read Every Day Challenge (summer) was a very spontaneous idea and I’m glad I posted it. Going into that summer (just having finished my bachelor degree in Japanese), I really wanted to spend that summer just reading as much as I could, before starting a new semester completely unrelated to Japanese studies. I thought there wasn’t going to be time for Japanese stuffs so I wanted to make the most out of the summer. Fortunately, while this autumn has been a busy semester, there were tiny bits of time where I could devote to reading. Yay! Overall, a good year for reading :3
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Wait what, this got a manga? The light novel is legendary. Would recommend
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I’m scared of all the similes Ditto has shared with me 
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Yeah the writing in that series was something else
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What and how much did you read in 2021?
I read 17 books in 2021. This was up from 7 books in 2020 and 4 books in 2019. I also read 44 volumes of manga.
What books did you enjoy most? What were your favorite discoveries?
My favorite book by far was かがみの孤城. As of now, this is my favorite Japanese book, with nothing else really coming close. Other than that, I really enjoyed 本好きの下剋上, of which I read volumes 4-12 (having already read volumes 1-3 in 2020). Other than that, volumes 2-3 of 魔法少女育成計画 were pretty good, but still frustratingly difficult.
My favorite discovery was definitely the manga series ひとりぼっちの〇〇生活. I read all 8 volumes in 2021 (series concluded in June) and it’s now one of my favorite manga! Other good discoveries were すわっぷすわっぷ (read all 4 volumes in December) and シャドーハウス (read 5/9 volumes so far, but the series is still ongoing).
Are you satisfied with your progress on your Japanese learning/reading journey?
I would say I’m satisfied overall. 2021 was the year where I went from only being able to read a book with a WaniKani book club (or by struggling for months on my own) to being able to read on my own without too much effort (still using kindle dictionary as a crutch) and much faster. I can now read a book in 2-4 weeks depending on the length and complexity of the book. I mostly have 本好きの下剋上 to thank for that since it was the first longer series I was able to get invested in, which allowed for more consistent reading material.
I would still like to improve on this further in 2022. Partially this comes down to learning more words so I don’t have to look up as much. (I haven’t been doing Kitsun lessons as much as I should.) And the other part is just reading more consistently. My kindle tells me that books I read in three weeks were only 24 hours worth of reading, which tells me I could read them in a week if I was more disciplined and/or more invested in the story.
Was 2021 a good year for you in terms of reading?
Yep! Had lots of fun and learned a lot!
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31 books of varying sophistication. 247 Manga volumes.
For manga, I was very surprised to find how much I liked 黒執事. It had always had a certain image in my head that didn’t really fit. I’d read a bit of it in English or German many years ago, I don’t fully remember. Thanks to it being free to read at the beginning of 2021, I continued past that point and came to really like the series. I am caught up with the 31 volumes released so far.
Another one I enjoyed a lot is 雪花の虎. It is set in the 戦国時代, the people and scenery both are beautifully drawn and surprisingly approachable considering the setting. 3/12 volumes read, the I ordered the set on ebay to read on paper. Plans for 2022.
Other ones I enjoyed a lot are 違国日記 and オハナホロホロ, of which I have read 2 volumes each. I plan to continue with both. They’re both slice of life, with the first having a coming of age and coming together as family in difficult times vibe.
夢喰いメリー・珈琲が冷めない・ルックバック deserve a mention as well. I seem to have read a lot of things I really enjoyed this year. 
For books, the ones I enjoyed most, or that I enjoyed discovering the most, are 容疑者xの献身, 妖怪の子預かります and ログホライズン. I’m about 80 pages away from finishing the last, but I think the writing and plot development so far is top notch. It’s similar to ソードアートオンライン in setting, but I didn’t enjoy that one much.
I am more than satisfied with my Japanese reading - I went far beyond both my book and manga reading goals for the year. With 黒執事 being free to read for a month, and later in the year 90 volumes of One Piece becoming availble to read for free, especially my manga count is a bit ridiculous. I was planning to read only 56, and ended up reading almost 200 more. I’d exceeded that number at 85 in 2019 as well, so manga really wasn’t supposed to be my focus this year.
The only thing that didn’t go so well is that I read 0/4 of the magazines I planned to read over the year. Magazine language takes a bit of getting used to, maybe because there’s a lot of thematic vocabulary used. I ended up taking the easy way with a novel or manga every time. So, that’s something I want to tackle this year.
I’m not really satisfied with my Japanese learning this year, though, I was planning to take the JLPT1, which I missed the application window for, both times (due to Covid, there was a much lower number of applicants allowed than before). I ended up not studying any of the grammar I had intended to for the test. Or really, not studying at all. I guess I got a lot of praactice reading. 
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Definitely!
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You read more volumes of manga this year than I’ve read ever.
Good thing you got so many of those volumes for free. Sounds like it would cost a fortune otherwise!
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