Where are you watching your anime? Is it just like Netflix with jp subtitles on? I want to start really attempting to watch anime in japanese, I’m just not sure where all the cool kids are going for that nowadays.
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I’m using crunchyroll since I anime had been my main thing to watch for years already 
Crunchyroll doesn’t have japanese subtitles, so you would need to install some stuff and get a source for subtitles yourself. I just skip on subtitles, since the reading actually distracted me more than it helped.
Crunchyroll has a really huge library, so I’m never out of anime, even if I binge watch for months (which I do ). It’s also really easy to make accounts for friends or family. Natively even has a crunchyroll checkmark, so you can easily sort for easy anime that are available on crunchyroll. I would recommend just checking out the crunchyroll page to see if it’s to your liking, but honestly, if you like anime, crunchyroll can serve you your most favorite genre. Yeah, I’m a huge fan and I wish there would be something similar for manga
Only downside (besides no japanese subs) seems to be that there is no app for smart TVs as far as I know, but if you want to watch via pc or tablet/phone it’s comfy.
Not sure if this is what you mean, but there is a Crunchyroll app available for Roku TVs. It could be that the app is only available for some types of smart TVs and not others though.
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Enjoying this study log, keep going!
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That’s what I meant! There hadn’t been a few years ago, and I never bothered to look it up again. If my TV supports it, this would make my life so much easier! Will look it up again! 
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Thanks a lot! 
You were right! There’s now an app for my TV! Thanks!
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I’m now at the 100 hour mark of unsubbed anime and I think I actually reached a way better understanding of spoken japanese. I’m now at a point where I actually hear the words and structures of spoken sentences, even if I don’t understand the words. I can chunk sentences just by hearing, which I think is huge If I get a sentence where it’s just one or two words I don’t know, I can usually write them correctly to look them up.
It also seems I logged enough content on natively to single-handedly grade a whole series 
Don’t give me so much responsibility I determined the level of two anime series, since nobody else graded them yet.
I finally feel like I can start watching my favorite genre, villainess isekais. I waited, since they start at natively level mid-20s, but no need to wait any longer! I’m starting with My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! , which is a great intro to the genre for anybody who wants to try it, too My long-term goal is to eventually read all the villainess isekai light novels, cause adaptions in this genre are a bit spotty, but for now I’m very happy to watch the anime. I’m hope to learn a lot of the genre specific vocabular by watching
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Another months is over! time to reflect
I really went all in with listening and dropped reading for a bit:
I only read about 1200 pages (around 6 manga books), but they were way more text-dense than the previous ones, as most were Dr. Stone. I was able to get a lot of new grammar points from it (most seemed to be N3, I usually only add them, when the grammar is used everywhere and it’s getting on my nerves that I still don’t know it). I also added a bunch of vocab and most where top 40.000 words
This month I managed to get 55 hours of unsubbed anime in, fun, but also really much I didn’t expect that there was such a thing as watching too much anime, but I feel like I’d like to change my focus to just somewhere else ^^ It’s probably not too much anime, but lack of fun, easy and new to me anime. I think shirokuma cafe is a bit boring so I don’t manage to watch more than an episode, while I watched “All routes lead to doom” in just a few sittings.
In the end, I got waaaaayyyy better at parsing and chunking sentences, I can hear words and can get a lot of words from context, I can also write correctly the words I only heard so I can look them up.
Worst thing that happened (just a few days ago) which probably factors into not feeling like watching more anime is that crunchyroll disabled the none-option for anime, apparently in some countries. And there are anime where I can understand enough of all of the available subtitle languages, that it’s distracting 
So now I have to put a piece of paper in front of the subtitles 
Anyway, I’ll end on a good note: I started my first game completely in japanese and it’s fun! Playing zelda: echoes of wisdom, a very casual game, with easy japanese, full furigana and not too much text/story.
All in all, this was a very successful month! Hyped for the next, even though I don’t have a plan of what do to, but it will probably be a lot of immersion in some way or the other
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I’d always highly recommend going for the anime you really enjoy and only understanding 20% rather than one that is boring to watch and you understand 90%. I started my JP journey with SAO and understood close to 0% of the spoken language but knew the intention of what was being said as I’d already rewatched it many times before hand. Was still really enjoyable compared to a lot of stuff I’ve watched now with >95% comprehension where I struggle to sit 2 episodes in a row without getting distracted and wanting to do something else.
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I’m completely on your side with this one. Half of the anime I watched were probably too hard (some even way too hard). But they were still fun, which is my main motivation for sticking with things And I gained valuable sentence chunking abilities on top of having fun!
Your SAO example really hits the point. Rewatching one of your fav anime even if it’s way too hard is both fun and a great learning experience. I’m always raving about Dr Stone here, and I already watched it a few times completely without subtitles by now. Almost tempted to look into those “sentence mining” setups that makes you cards from anime. But using a PC or laptop is really something I try to avoid for more than a few minutes and I think the process would take to long for me.
Currently on a journey to rewatch all my favorite villainess isekais, in hopes to gain enough vocab to watch a few new ones afterwards The manga are currently not an option for me, they never have furigana
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Almost done with N4 vocab and grammar With my current speed it would take me less than a week! But… the free trial month caught up in my reviews 💫 And obviously I used bunpro excessively in this one months. 20+ grammar points every day, bunch of vocab on top. My review count spiked tremendously
Well, perfect timing for taking it slow I guess. No new items (just those I learned through immersion), just around 100 reviews a day. That’s less than what gets added unto my review pile currently, but it will slow down eventually. So for now, my review queue gets bigger, but in a months or so it will go down again and with almost no new items it actually kinda sounds like a vacation
Now I kinda dread when the vocab I added in the beginning of my lifetime subscription showing up I already knew most of N5 vocab and just dropped 50-100+ vocab a day in. At least I sorted them into different SRS stages depending on how well I thought I knew them. So hopefully it will not be devastating
Currently reading Takagi-san, which is really easy at this point. It’s still fun to read (the important part!) and I get a lot of exposure to different verb conjugations. I think I fell in love with just slapping stuff (grammar) onto verbs, such a fun concept to just stack all those modifiers, but it takes like forever to get the intuitive feel for those instead of dissecting the points in my head. But since the sentences in Takagi-san are otherwise pretty straight forward it’s a really good exercise
I was in the mood for harder anime, so I activated english subtitles again (also still kinda miffed about crunchyroll forcing subtitles in my country). I noticed now that the subtitles really help me parsing japanese sentences, even if the translation is more like a general direction. Also it gives me tons of free words to learn (easily grasped nouns, mostly).
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Just as small update/win:
Today, on a whim, I reread the first gal to dino manga (cause gal to dino is just best!). Last time I read it was in february. Back then, I had to look up a bunch of words, it was a fun read, but also a slow one. Today I just read through the whole thing in one sitting with my morning coffee, no lookups (there were a few words I didn’t know, but there were not really important enough to stop reading). Unknown words would only pop up every other page.
So, that’s about half a year of progress, feels very good
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And another win today!
I finished Zelda: Echoes of wisdom today First game I played completely in japanese without any prior knowledge of the game (though I played almost all other zelda titles already, which came in handy for all the zelda specific vocab like hyrule, gorons, dekus, etc).
All those side quests really tested my barely existing japanese skills to understand what I have to do, but that made it even more worthwhile. It’s way more engaging to have to understand a sidequest and then actually doing it correctly compared to the usual reading manga without any consequences if I dont understand it
It also made me quite happy, that I was able to follow the scenes were the text disappeared automatically. My reading speed seems to be passable
I’m considering “pokemon: let’s go” next. Gonna have to look over our game collection for more hidden gems with furigana.
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And here I thought learning all those money related words was a waste of time! But I started up animal crossing a few days ago and wow, are those words useful all of a sudden Do I pay off my loan via bank account or from cash? What is my balance again? Do I deposit something or take it out of my savings? Was it an educational game to teach kids how to save money all along?
Been extra sick for a week or so and barely managed to do a few reviews, so I’m now working through that backlog. The finishing line for N4 seems to be hard to reach Now I’m just doing 100 reviews a day and waiting for it to settle again. Though I really miss adding new words and grammar points, at least it motivates me to not let the backlog get any bigger
After around 10 books of Takagi-san it kinda gets boring, there seems to be no story at all just the “tease of the chapter”. So I’m looking at new manga RuriDragon and Call of the night are my current contenders, but I’m still undecided and haven’t bought them. I read through their reading samples on bookwalker and both were fun
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I still get so confused about money, train and hospital related words. It all sinks in much better when you actually start using it.
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Totally the same here Though I guess the medical terms might come in handy for medicine related anime. But I’m pretty sure I never watched a train themed anime and probably never will. Unless it’s a train themed romcom or something? Taking recommendations
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That anime sounds all over the place
I haven’t watched it, but I remember reading something about it and thinking “wow, someone really thought this is a good story, and someone else really decided hell yeah we’ll animate this”
notice the ecchi tag
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