It’s been a while, work is as tiring as ever. I finally finished コンビニ人間 and decided to put it in “set in a workplace” instead of “won an award” because the former was harder to fill haha.
I’m on volume 5 of 9 for the DIgimon manga and intend to focus on finishing it and Adabana (“Book club”…I am so behind) this weekend. Fingers crossed I finish both by Monday.
I had started both 転スラ volume 1 and 本好き volume 2, but decided to focus on 転スラ for variety after I finish Adabana since P5V10 in English just dropped for Bookworm. There’s still 7.5 months left in the challenge, so fingers crossed I can finish the rest of the books by EOY. It’ll be a real challenge for me to have that many books in my docket but I’m still gunning for black out bingo <3
I finished this some time ago, but I’ve been traveling so couldn’t update my card. ユー。 ジャニーズの性加害を告発して | L34?? was my ‘one volume in one day’ book as a very short and pretty quick read. I wrote a review so won’t repeat myself here, but I’ll note that it’s nonfiction and deals with sexual abuse of minors so be mindful if that’s something which would bother you to read about.
Same Genre as Another Square: とんがり帽子のアトリエ Vol. 2 (L26)
Both 気になってる人 and ハピネス were one-day reads - it’s very exciting to be able to say that since it’s a sign that my reading speed has been secretly increasing. When I read the first volume of 気になってる人 last October it took me just over two days, which felt extremely fast at the time, too. It’s a nice feeling to stumble across signs of improvement. The second volume of Atelier took me a little longer, though by the end I was reading over a chapter per day. Definitely moving onto the next volume asap ^^
I didn’t really know if I could edit it later or if I’d need to redo the bingo, so I filled mine ahead of time.
Non fiction was particularly difficult to find since I had no plans to read it, not sure if it’ll work out.
I’ll have to join a book club I guess, why not.
Also I changed “bad cover” to “a book I’m planning to read exclusively for the cover”
Green marks are completed.
Just finished 遠巷説百物語 | L42 which I am taking as “finished a series”, because it’s currently the last available book in its series. (But only just – Amazon says the next book in the series is up for preorder and available from June 24th )
I was looking at my data to find the shortest stuff in my TBR, and it’s 春琴抄 | L52??. I could use it as “hardest ever” as well Next shortest book is 銀河鉄道の夜 | L32, which is fine too.
I had plenty of free time today and thought it would be the perfect opportunity for what will likely be the biggest challenge for me in the bingo card: the “read in a single day” space. Especially since I wanted to read a novel and not a book for children (mangas are out of scope of my bingo card anyway).
I chose the shortest book in my 積読 pile for this: 天国はまだ遠く | L28
The text itself is only 177 pages, but I assume it still took me roughly 6 hours. Definitely the most I have ever read in Japanese in a single day.
The book was ok. Nothing special, a bit unconvincing at times. An easy read.
What annoyed me, though, was something that has got nothing to do with the novel itself:
The text on the back cover already revealed the outcome. Why?
Yeah, sometimes publisher decisions in this area are bizarre. I know of one set of editions of a well known set of detective mystery novels where the front cover illustration gives away the murder method, when “but how was it done?” is a major plot point in the story…
PS: congratulations on getting the “single day” square! I also am doing my bingo as novels-only, and that square and “higher Natively level than you’ve read before” I have pretty much written off as unlikely to be completed.
For a detective mystery novel? That is really really bad. Compared to this, it was just a minor issue I had here.
Oh, interesting. That she survives her suicide attempt is the whole point of the story, yes, and is revealed early on. Fine. (Is that what you were referring to, by any chance?) But it would not have been necessary for me to have been told before reading myself that she will finally realize that 「自分の居場所がここにない」. I would have had more fun reading it if I had been left in the dark as to whether she will stay in that remote village in the end or not, in particular because what I liked about the novel was the gradual development of the relationship between the two main characters.
Thank you!
You never know, you might be able to eventually tick off the box, too. It is only May! Actually, it was my second attempt. My first was 西の魔女が死んだ | L28 but that was so boring for me that despite it being quite easy and thus (theoretically) fast I could not make myself push through it in one day.
I have not given up on any of the spaces yet (but my highest Natively level is not that high, around 34/35 perhaps? Will check eventually.).
Besides, I am not planning to repeat the challenge anytime soon. It is (not surprisingly) so much more fun if I read as much as I feel like at any given time instead of going “ok, I have about XX hours of time and XX pages to go … now XX pages to go … only XX pages left … done”.
幸いに, a book that I happened to read happened to have won an award! I wasn’t sure what I’d do for this one, since I used サマー・ランサー for the debut square, the other tricky one. (Much less 幸い though is that this was one of those books that I’d thought I’d like more than I did…)
)
Next shortest book is 
Definitely the most I have ever read in Japanese in a single day. 
