Second book for my Spanish Bingo, a nonfiction: Las 101 cagadas del español lv31??. This was a pretty fun and informative read, as it records many mistakes in Spanish made by native speakers, with the occasional mention of forgotten words and explanations on the origins of expressions. Plus it’s made for native speakers, so it doesn’t have that textbook feel.
So far:
Longest in TBR pile done!
I enjoyed it and am thinking about getting the other volumes later on when I finish all my other TBR manga.
That’s a super cute way of doing your bingo! Can I ask how you add photos like that?
Finally, some progress! 
I used の 福音館の単行本 | L16 for “read in a single day” (it was the only one I felt confident I could do it) … and I used 舞妓さんちのまかないさん 1 | L25 for “workplace setting”! I was not expecting a book about 16 year olds to fit that square, but oh well! It didn’t really work for any of the other squares.
I’m advancing my Spanish bingo again, with Aura lv31?? by Carlos Fuentes. So far, everything I’ve read this year has been at the same level, but hopefully that will evolve as more gradings are added. I’m also realizing that I’ve only read rather uncommon books, this one being particularly strange. I spent most of the book being confused, which is apparently what was supposed to happen, I even checked to make sure it wasn’t just me misunderstanding things.
I moved the whole bingo design to Figma so all is done there!! You can duplicate my design and work with that if you want 
Finished 痴人の愛 | L43, which I’m going to count as “something you can read for free”, since it’s on Aozora. (I paid for the paperback, but if I don’t count this square as “is available for free even if you didn’t take advantage of that” I’m never going to fill it…)
Thank you so much!!
Just crossed off the participate in a book club box
I participated briefly and then finished the book in 3 days 
That’s 2 crossed off for me now.
And I have now fulfilled my “1 bingo with a single book” by reading 痴人の愛 (for free, new author to me, book club, bad cover)
That’s only 2 new spots, but it gives a 2nd bingo as well!
Next is the cat book… which is kinda scary, but it will be interesting to see how I handle it, compared to… 10 ish years ago?
Oh, literally! It will be 10 years ago in a month and a half that I got that book! Hopefully I’ll be done before then 
(As usual, I’m going to read some LN before… maybe a manga or two as well)
Category: “Beautiful Cover Art”
Date Completed: Jan. 24, 2024
Title: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 1
Stats: Manga, 213 pages, Natively Level 27
Notes: I always wistfully glance at the cover of this one whenever I pass it at Kino [1] but new volumes there are covered in plastic to prevent reading before purchase. All I knew in advance was that the story lacks furigana (scary for a new reader!) but as soon as I saw this category for bingo I knew Atelier would be my choice. And on day one I found out that the interior is even more beautiful than the cover art 
I so enjoyed reading this volume, even at my slow pace. It’s a good bet that Volume 2 will be my choice for the “same genre” bingo category just so I have an excuse to keep reading ahaha 
it seems unremarkable zoomed out; the art nouveau-style penwork is really gorgeous up close tho ↩︎
I finally finished Diez negritos | L29??, the Spanish translation of And then there were none by Agatha Christie. It definitely deserves it’s pick as my longuest in TBR, as it’d been sitting in my drawer since 2016/2017 
So thought I’d join in. For now, I’m just using the default 4x4, but I might upgrade to proper sized bingo grid at some point:
Girls Und Panzer: Little Army would have been 4 in one, unfortunately not making any lines 
If you like Witch Hat Atelier, would highly recommend this video essay about the way the panelling is done in that manga (I forget if there are spoilers so probably watch once you’re further in). I love the art in that series!
Oh gosh I loved this, thank you!! The influence of Moebius’ style in Atelier is so clear, and the comment about Shirahama’s background with western comics makes soooo much sense because more than once the methods of crosshatching and screentones reminded me of graphic novels I’d read as a kid. It’s so hard to explain why the art is so incredibly good in this manga, but knowing that I was subconsciously lumping the beautiful paneling techniques together with the drawing itself - well, I just can’t recommend this manga enough
sorry for another post so soon, I just wanted to knock out this easy volume before diving back into my pile of slow reads
Date Completed: Jan. 25, 2024
Title: ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん 1
Stats: Manga, 172 pages, Natively Level 15
Notes: I’d read the first 9 pages of this manga almost a year ago when the WK ABBC voted on it for their April '23 read-along. However, despite my enthusiasm when I bought it, I quickly realized that it was a bit too bland of a story for my taste The art is nice but its only storyline is that it’s “cute” which may be great for some readers but is not really my speed. Nonetheless, because I bought it with real human dollars and didn’t want it to sit unread in my Bookwalker shelf forever, I cracked it back open for the sake of bingo. And after a nice 1.5hr reading session, it happily fulfilled the “one volume in a day” category 
By the way, does anyone have suggestions for a “workplace setting” manga? Anything under Level 28 is fine, and “workplace” can probably be interpreted liberally ahaha I’m just pretty new to reading in Japanese so idk what to choose (¯▿¯)
