Spill the beans, what’d you buy?
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On my end, I managed to do a bit of reading this weekend. Finished volume 13 of ニナ and read the newest chapter of 身分差に終わった恋を、今さらですが. Going to try to get through vol 14 this week, and am thinking about starting one of the novels I own, but not sure which one yet.
Wellllllll you see… One of the things we’re handling for my friend may be her moving…and therefore getting rid of stuff… and therefore bringing things to book-off not just once, but twice this weekend…
…Avert your eyes, gentlefolk.
In all seriousness, we kinda needed something silly to laugh over this weekend and other than 蟲師 this is all stuff that was on my to-buy list anyway, so I would have gotten them eventually anyway. (And even 蟲師 was also in consideration, I just didn’t expect to actually find a set by chance.)
It adds to my pile and jail time, but it brings me joy and reading practice so I’ll accept my sentence and keep at it as 時間つぶし kicks in 
Edit: alright I don’t know what it’s doing to my formatting up there, but I guess the forum just really wants my “hadn’t” to look particularly strong.
Today’s update: lots of reviews, practice questions in a book I inherited from a friend, and about a third of 魔男のイチ volume 8!
I’m hoping I’ll be able to really buckle down this week, so this is a good start
Reviews, practice questions, and 魔男のイチ volume 8 complete! I really hope a certain character is gonna be okay thank god the next volume comes out Friday…
On to something else!
Continuation edit: got through half of 鬼の花嫁, too!
May have nearly zoned out and missed that it was time to leave soon, lol…
I finally finished the novelisation of Exit 8 last night, and I am full of nothing but praise for it - not going to spoiler anything, but the theme was unique, and the characters believable and relatable. The author must have considerable skill to create such a great story out of such a repetitive setting (which was actually useful for learning recurring vocab) and limited cast of characters! Highly recommend. Many uses of the grammar point 如く too!
I’m also 2/3 of the way through volume 1 of ざつ旅. It’s a slice of life manga about an aspiring mangaka who decides to go on day trips around Japan between creating and submitting storyboards (all of which are rejected, btw). I chose this series because I wanted a relatively easy read for my commute when I can’t focus on large chunks of prose easily. But I’m not convinced by it - it’s basically an illustrated guide book to lesser travelled towns (lots of descriptions of history and such) with not much story in between. I already bought the second volume, so I hope it picks up…
ooh okay this has piqued my interest!!
If you (or anyone else) end up reading it, I’d love to know what you think! It has that uncanny Backrooms type vibe.
I also made myself a vocab list based on the book that I can share if anyone wants it (it’s not comprehensive, it’s only the words whose kanji I could read, but it’s about 400 new words). It’s a text document that can be imported into Anki 
Congrats on finishing the book and please share your document (or make a bunpro deck 
)!
Never found then time to play the game but and recently found a copy of the book which is perfect.
I am afraid my mid N5 is not enough to tackle it as jiten.moe place it in “average”.
But I would really love to try it out though, would be a good challenge even if I am slow, doesn’t looks like a big book so even rereading if possible.
Apologies if my own recent purchase/posting about 神様はじめました inspired you to start looking for a set harder 
Looks like a pretty good haul though!
Also, not that I need another series to read, but is the Yona of the Dawn series actually good? I tried watching the anime a few years ago and found it extremely mid. The premise seemed fun though, so I’m wondering if the manga is better.
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On my end, I read volume 14 of ニナ, and the latest chapters of やわはだに春雷 as well as the latest chapter of ニナ. (I’m in a weird place with Nina where I sort of skim read the series before deciding to buy it, so I’m caught up on the plot, but also still working my way through each volume properly now that I own it).
Likely won’t have time to read much again until the weekend, since work suddenly got busy this week and I’ve been putting off my Bunpro reviews.
Oh, I haven’t seen this before - is it just grading off of kanji, or?
Nah, I’ve been keeping an eye out for the set for a while now and just finally figured it’d be better to start grabbing them the slow way. Now that I’ve started, though… >:3
To be honest, most of my Yona experience so far is the anime (my friends heard about the season 2 announcement, went “We should watch it together!” and when I said I hadn’t seen/read it I sealed my own fate for a binge weekend) and just the first 3 or so volumes of the manga.
I thought the anime was reasonably cute (and I’m a sucker for pretty guys, what can I say) and it gets justttt enough evidence that Yona loses the “Woe is me everything’s bad” attitude (and also my friends reassure me that continues to go away) so I’m kind of pre-emptively collecting it.
So I’d say it probably depends on what aspects of the anime you weren’t interested in? I’m reasonably confident I’ll enjoy it, hence the collecting.
Today so far: reviews, practice questions, and another 1/4 or so of 鬼の花嫁！ I’ve got plenty of time left today to finish that and start on something else, too.
Quick opinion question, though - the review questions I’ve been doing are from this book, which has been working out for me so far but it’s definitely solidified the fact that my biggest weakness is vocabulary. The same series has a vocabulary book, and of course I’m doing what I can through bp/immersion, but are there any vocabulary practice books that you guys have really liked or found helpful?
I won’t really have anything in time for the JLPT on Sunday, but it’s not like I’m not going to need to keep studying anyway, lol.
I have no idea to be honnest. It will parse through text of a media and do some algo thingy (you can click on the stat button on the top righ of each media ) to give you a difficulty level.
It’s very close to learn natively levels and you can easily check words on the site itself so it’s a really good ressource.
I have pop up dictionnary for my epubs so I don’t need it and I already have enough to review to add even more card in Anki so I just try to read book with a few look up and hope the words will slowly stick.
Good job on working though a 4th of 鬼の花嫁
I managed to read 3 chapters of 聞き耳ラジオ on Satori Reader.
The plot of the story finally started and the premise sounds really fun. I want to read more of it but I have 40 words of vocab from those chapters to learn before moving on. That also give me some time to digest the text and reread them at the end of the week.
I still have 4 pages of monogatari to go through and I can read some JRPG sakura if I want more extensive reading.
I am planning to go to a bookoff in Paris today to look for small books with furigana (I live 40 minutes of metro away from it). Pray for me.
Edit: the book off didn’t had any book with furigana so I might use their import service to get some books and manga I am interested in.
It humble me though.
I’ll stick to satori reader and my dual book untill I reach N4 at least 
I am reporting back in to say that I went to Japan and maaaaaaaay have bought a few books… Nearly everything except Cardcaptor Sakura on the third shelf is new.
I’m reading them though! I’ve so far read 2 volumes of Tsubasa and I’m working slowly on volume 1 of xxxHolic. Okay back to hibernating for 6 months.
How did you managed to bring back so many books ???
Your bookshelf is very cute by the way
The CLAMP love is so nostalgic for me! I’m sad that they’re not very active these days. The Japanese version of Angelic Layer is on my shopping list <3
Thanks! I didn’t get through a lot more than that yesterday - was struck by a Chatty CoworkerTM, but I got about 1/4 into the first 黄泉のツガイ, so I’ll be continuing with that today.
Good job with your own reading, too!
Nearly everything on the third shelf (except CC) is new, or nearly everything is new (except the CC on the third shelf)? Either way, I’m impressed!
Also xxxHOLIC my beloved - ough… Actually, though, does Tsubasa have furigana? I know I flipped though my copies of Holic and it didn’t look like it had it, but I’m not sure about CLAMP’s other works.
Also seconding that your bookshelf is v cute.
Today’s update so far: reviews, practice questions, and I’m now about halfway through the first 黄泉のツガイ volume - very nostalgic to see this style, since FMA was one of the first big series I got into.
I may have plans to go to kinokuniya after work but it’s only! for! the vocab book! and! the new 魔男のイチ volume!
Update to update: finished the 黄泉のツガイ volume, and I’m pretty pleased with my ratio of words I knew to words I had to look up, but I might be hitting my limit for today.
My husband and I had 4 suitcases between the two of us. He also bought the entirety of Amanchu
Just books on the third shelf are new! The rest I bought last year/the English Pokemon Adventures volumes are my childhood collection.
Tsubasa and Cardcaptor both have furigana, xxxHolic indeed does not. The Tsubasa books are smaller and the paper quality is so meh compared to xxxHolic where the pages are so white and crisp, it’s crazy to me that they published these at the same time lol.
If it’s this one, I can send you some screen shots from it to see if it fits your style.
Also, it has an audio book of the vocab and sentences you can get free from audiobook.jp if that’s any help.
I have listened to the audiobooks for the series and found them helpful even if I wasn’t reading the books.
To be fair, I think Tsubasa got a fancier level of printing - it’s always kind of fascinating to see a series with a “non-standard” style of tankobon, like Holic or 蟲師。 Also very satisfying to look at and hold. Pretty colors…
But good to know, thanks! I’m a bigger Holic fan than Tsubasa, but I do love Fai and Kurogane, so maybe I’ll pick it up once I’ve finished a few of my current collections.
It was that one, yeah! I wound up taking a look at it in the Kinokuniya downtown, and it was a bit more dictionary-y than I really wanted. I picked up another book that’s got a bit more drillwork in it, since I think that’ll help me more than just reading through all the words without any practice.
Thank you for the offer and info, though!
No reading over the weekend, except for the JLPT 読解 section, lol.
Today’s progress:
Let’s go
Hoping it clicks with you, if not it’s fine to put a serie aside and start another one, as long as you read.
What is the code to make the nice seperation line you have in your post ?
Last week I read 4 pages of monogatari Thursday, nearly gave up as they were very difficult and I am translating manually a lot of the words. Only took me an hour in the end but it’s frustrating to not understand a lot, it might still be a bit too highlevel for me.
I am halfway through so I need to keep going and I’ll change my approach for the next book and not translate as much, only the word that come up often and that are not in the vocqbulary list. I am here to read not translate for hours damn it!
Also read another small JGRPG sakura book (~2300 characters) called 大男の話. That one was fairly easy compare to previous book.
Also discovered the app hello story that has free simple stories from N5 to N4, all fully voiced with translation and I am trying to read one or two stories from there daily. It’s a nice addition to my routine!
Ok this week I am hoping to read the last 6 pages of the second story of monogatari, finish another sakura graded reader and 4 to 5 chapters on Satori reader.
Keep it up everyone!
Wishing you all to find some spare rime to read, cheers 
Thanks! And no worries, I have plenty of other manga to hit up if my interest in this one fizzles out. So, so many. I’ve actually even gotten through almost half of 傷モノの花嫁 volume 11 since my last post!
And I don’t actually use a proper code - although there probably is one - I just start a new line and type at least three _ in a row, and it should automatically show as a line in the actual post.
Nicely done with you’re reading, too!
Hope everyone else is doing okay with their reading lately, too!
