As above, I also just read 妃は船を沈める (光文社文庫 あ 42-6) | L31 by the same author. Definitely hits a lot of the classic murder mystery vibes.
From what I’ve read the author’s keen on ‘classic’ style mysteries, no social commentaries, just sorta unfolding a puzzle, so depending on your preference they might be a good pick!
JP bingo card update
New additions to my JP bingo card:
Retirement age or older: おらおらでひとりいぐも | L35 not my favorite book that I’ve ever read, but it really fit the spirit of the “retirement age or older” prompt and was reflective about aging, family, and life.
Language related: 日本人の心がわかる日本語 | L25 from the non-fiction club. This was fine. If I was still new to learning Japanese I think it would’ve been more interesting.
Genre I don’t usually read: 光のとこにいてね | L31 I am going to say this fits under the genres yuri and sentimal 本屋大賞 nominee book haha (I kind of made that second one up).
I’m only counting vertical bingos because bingobaker shuffles around the squares vertically every time I edit the card to add the cover images, so still no bingos yet.
Korean bingo card update
Set somewhere I’ve lived : 달에 웃다 - This is the Korean translation of the Japanese BL novel 月に笑う. No link since it has 19+ content and isn’t accessible on Yes24 without an account, so I can’t add it to Natively. But…I still read it and it is set in Japan so I picked it for this square (choosing a translated book feels like cheating but whatever! 
).
Bingo update! Finished わたしの幸せな結婚 | L31 yesterday. The main character’s sister features pretty heavily in this, so it was good opportunity for the siblings square, which I wasn’t sure how I was going to fill.
I’m trying to not include manga, but I have no ideas for what I’m going to put as curious title, so for now ダンダダン 1 | L26 is gonna sit there.
I also added 明日の世界で星は煌めく | L28 for sci-fi even though I think it’s probably more of an urban fantasy, but I don’t have a lot of faith that I can read a sci-fi novel at my Japanese level, so it’s going there for now.
And I swapped in 四つ子ぐらし 2 三つ子探偵、一花ちゃんを追う! | L24 for second volume in a series.
Second Volume: 放課後、恋した。 2 | L18
Number in Title: 100円ショップ店員が異世界トリップした結果。 | L26
Published in Birth Year: 吸血鬼はお年ごろ | L24
Finished リカ | L25??. It could fit “random choice from TBR” (chose it with random number generator) or debut, but since I didn’t enjoy it very much, I thought the least it could do was give me a bingo, so “new author to me” it is. 
And another poll for future reference. I have this prompt, shortest title in TBR. Looking at my TBR, I have several 2-character titles, and this one:
今昔百鬼拾遺 鬼 | L35
Finished おらおらでひとりいぐも | L35. It was painful. I have one nice thing to say about the book: the yellow cover is very pretty on the BINGO card (seriously it’s not all that bad, but was way too difficult for me to enjoy it fully)
Completed squares, sorted by order of completion, 16/25:
1 - Cover is primarily composed of your favorite color:
→ BLUE!! とんがり帽子のアトリエ 6 with the IMC (Jan 4th)
2 - 2nd volume of a series:
→ ダンジョン飯 2巻 with the IMC (Jan 4th)
3 - Book you keep hearing about but haven’t read yet:
→ 容疑者Xの献身, previous ABC (Jan 5th)
4 - Read the next book in a series you have started:
→ スーパーの裏でヤニ吸うふたり 4, Read volume 1 with the BBC in March 2023 (almost two years ago!), it was hard. Feels easier now! (though still doesn’t feel easy! manga is hard) (Jan 7th)
5 - Has cats 
→ おじさまと猫 1, has a Book Club on WK (Jan 8th)
6 - Read a book that doesn’t have any ratings/gradings/reviews on Natively :
→ 南くんの恋人 got it as a gift, I am apparently the first one to read it (Jan 8th)
7 - Read a book someone else thought you would like
→ セロ弾きのゴーシュ, children book, got it as a gift. I found it WAY harder than its grading, some sentences were very long and full of kana and very hard to parse. (Jan 11th)
8 - Read something you can read for free
→ 桜の樹の下には Short story, read it for free on Aozora, found it here:
🎄 2024 Aozora Short Story and Essay Advent ⛄ (Jan 11th)
9 - Read a book at a Natively level you haven’t covered yet:
→ Candidates were: below level 14, level 18, level 22, level 24, level 28, level 32, level 34, above level 35. Looked at my backlog and settled for 怪人二十面相 level 28. How can you not want to read it after reading this post from javerend? And it did not disappoint, I really enjoyed reading it (Jan 19th)
10 - Read something with a one-word title
→ orange, previous BC on WK. Not gonna lie, was pretty happy with myself when I decided to read this one for the one-word title haha. Had this book in my backlog for a long time, as it was being read here on WK forums at the time where I was actively studying Japanese and kept seeing the threads popping up. Thought I would just read the first volume but I enjoyed it, plus now I’m hooked and need to know what happens next! So I am planning on finishing the series before starting on the next Bingo case (it’s only 7 volumes) (Jan 22nd)
11 - Read something that has won an award
→ 世界から猫が消えたなら, has a thread on WK, keep seeing this one popping up and was wondering what it was about.
What a book. I didn’t know anything about it when I started it, expect that it’s quite popular (or at least that it’s been read a lot, I can see now that not all the comments are positive). “wow this book is pretty funny”, “wow this book is pretty sad”, I don’t know which one fits best but this book gives a lot of food for thought. Especially touching if you are mourning / thinking about your own mortality. (Feb 10th)
12 - The title includes a number
→ 3月のライオン: Read the first volume. Not sure how much I like it yet, I think I will read at least two more volumes to see if I want to read the whole series. I found it pretty hard language wise! (Feb 14th)
13 - Finish a series
→ ラブひな: The square says “Finish a series” but I made it to “Start and finish a series” 
I’ve read all 14 volumes in January and February!
I wanted to finish a series that I hadn’t started yet and that was completed, and this one was already in my backlog due to being one of the few manga I read in my youth. I didn’t want to binge it and read that only (would have probably gotten sick of it very fast), so I just read one chapter between whatever else I was reading. Technically I even started+finished Orange first as it was while reading Love Hina, but still wanted to keep this one for my bingo square.
While ecchi humour is not usually my favourite, this manga is a bit special to me because it’s one of the few that I had read in my youth, basically while I’m reading I completely forget that I’m not 14 anymore haha (懐かしいですね). So I had a lot of fun revisiting it (well, up to a point. didn’t enjoy that much the last 5 volumes or so). The ecchi-part is not as often as I remembered thankfully, there were sweet and funny moments too. And funny how it made me realize that I know a lot more now about the culture in Japan now, so many things must have flown right over my head at the time, to just name a few: the legend of 浦島 太郎, or about ホワイトデー, what’s a 浪人, 七夕, etc etc. Maybe I also enjoyed reading it now because it’s a level of difficulty where I’m really comfortable now, so it felt a lot like actually reading and not deciphering for a change! But finally it’s done now, and happy to be moving on! (Feb 15th)
14 - Read something with a title that sounds curious to you
→ 走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること: I enjoy running myself a lot so was very curious to know Murakami’s take on it.
…Don’t really know what to say now that I’ve finished the book. Don’t want to say something bad about Murakami (how would I dare), but I guess I did find the book pretty boring. It’s basically a guy who enjoys running as a hobby who talks about how he got into it and tells about his (albeit impressive) performances. I mean, if it wasn’t for Murakami, I’m not sure I would have liked to read more than 200 pages about that. But it was Murakami, so I guess it’s nice to get some insights into his life and his personality, and of course any Japanese practice is nice. But for my next pick I might try to find something where I feel more engaged in the story, maybe non-fiction is just not my type (Mar 9th)
15 - A genre you don’t usually read
→ しまなみ誰そ彼 1: I have never read a Boy Love manga before, so checked which one was the most popular on Natively in that category. It has also been read on WK before.
The art was really nice and got engaged in the story, the series is only 4 volumes so I think I will finish it! (Mar 10th)
16 - Read the book that has been in your 積読/TBR pile the longest
→ NANA―ナナ― ! One of my goal when I started Japanese was to read this manga in its original version, as I loved it as a teenager. So happy it has happened now. I can even sit with the book and read it physically without look ups and follow fine. I do a re-read afterwards with the club though, where I look up everything I didn’t 100% understand at the first read. Loving it and looking forward to continuing the series! (Apr 2nd)
17 - Main character is retirement age or older
→ おらおらでひとりいぐも: was a very tough read due to Tohoku-ben and to the narrator mostly talking to herself in her head. Maybe if my Japanese level had been better I would have enjoyed it more. Interesting (end of) life reflections. But can’t really recommend it. (Apr 16th)
Sounds like a real 恩田陸 
Another book finished, another update. I started out by trying to read 세상의 마지막 기차역, but it’s just so boring to me so far at 15% in. I do have it earmarked for a square so I will continue later.
Unfortunately, the remaining Detective Galileo long-form books (as opposed to short-story collections) are not in ebook form, so until I’m able to purchase them, I won’t be able to keep reading. Very sad. What I should be reading, slowly, is the other 기억술사 for the book club.
Edit: my plan for the rest of my bingo is to manipulate it so that I can fill it with the most Japanese murder mysteries possible. If I get my hands on a Detective Galileo book that isn’t translated into English, I will move that into the “not translated into English” category and put the book there somewhere else. Muahaha
3rd update !
character with a disability - 소리를 삼킨 소년
A boy with autism and mutism witnesses a crime.
The best kind of YA- sweet(?) but with some dark parts as we learn how this teenage boy, who communicates by typing on his phone to everyone, navigates the world and eventually, the source of his trauma. The way this boy was immediately like “oh, this is a crime I am witnessing. All crime shows show the criminal gets rid of witnesses. Uh oh.” Is so me lolol.
published the year of my birth - 나는 나를 파괴할 권리가 있다
just finished this one so I’m still unsure about it. It’s ostensibly about a man who guides those who want to end their lives (the title being, I have the right to destroy myself). But it’s really digging deeper into the lives of two brothers, and the woman they meet who ends up in both their lives and beds lol… aaa it’s so strange. From a feminist perspective, this book is so dark in how it shows women in the males lives— the two brothers and also our male narrator. These women (mostly focusing on one woman) are in pain, obviously, as they are the characters with the thought of ending their lives. Yet they aren’t really the main characters, and we rarely are in their POV. We don’t really see or hear about their pain, we just see how the men see them— as flippant, dangerous women with no cares in the world. I got the same uncomfortable feeling reading some parts of this as I did reading Han Kang’s the Vegetarian. I don’t think they are super comparable, but just the vibes from one male character really lol.
Also there were so many art references in this that I just glazed over trying to read lolol oops when did this become a review. But I’m glad i read it as it was short and another from Kim Yongha who has been hit or miss from me.,somehow I keep coming back tho lol.
The hard part will be the next couple squares. For “new natively level” I guess my only real option is to go higher than I’ve read before,but it also must not have a ? Level. So my options are small for that since there’s not many graded higher level novels lolol. I’m considering 쇼코의 미소, 우리가 빛의 속도로 갈 수 없다면, 파견자들 as they are all abt level 33/34 which is new for me.
EDIT: ok tell me why I just graded I Have the Right to Destroy Myself and its level 33….now I have to read something 34 for a new natively level OR try and find something else that was published my birth year… 
Also set where I’ve lived…I guess any book set in Korea but I was hoping for something more specific to the region I was in. But it’s somehow difficult to search for books with a specific setting lolol
No ratings on Natively - 나는 실수로 투명인간을 죽였다
Science fiction - 회색 인간
Title includes number - 남편을 죽기는 서른 가지 방법
Features cats - 뉴서울파크 젤리장수 대학살
Curious title - 칵테일, 러브, 좀비
not set in Korea - 비정근
keep hearing about it - 죽이고 싶은 아이
new topic to me - 뒤틀린 집
non-human protagonist - 긴긴밤
No way I did not realize this! We all need to read some hard books to add more
to be honest… I think this may be an issue with the natively rating system in general. I rate the books that I add high, because in my opinion basically every book is TOPIK 5 or above, but when I grade, if I consider a different book that I’ve read harder than the new book and that different book is ranked lower, then I feel like the new book gets pulled down to below that rank… I don’t have any ideas how to fix it but I just do not feel like most of the difficulty ratings for Korean books are accurate. 대도시의 사랑법 is probably one of the hardest books I have in my book catalog, still. It’s literature. It’s rated 27 for some reason.
And this is why I chose not to do any squares that involved Natively rating, lol.
For you, ddochii, I suggest 보건교사 안은영. It’s currently ranked 35.
I think part of that is probably that there are a lower number of rated Korean books overall so the ranking has less to compare with. 대도시의 사랑법 definitely doesn’t seem like it would be level 27 based on the translation.
Read another book: 천 개의 파랑. I did not enjoy it.
In other updates, I am reading 기억술사 along with the book club, and I am going to start 악의, another Higashino book, with Discord friends. Nothing like a good Higashino book to make me forget the mixed feelings of a mediocre read.
For someone this will be exactly what they’re looking for
*ears perk * Umm, what is this book and has it been translated to Japanese or English?
It has been translated into English as A Thousand Blues and Japanese as 千個の青. I also randomly found out it was translated into German as Tausend Arten von Blau.
I just scanned the machine translation of the summary on cdjapan and it sounds nuts. But the cover is so pretty! And I love healing stories!
shoehorned all my books read so far this year into my card
One Word Title - 하우스메이드 Ironically neither the normal word for housemaid in korean nor the term actually used in the book.
Some else’s Card - 용의자들 nabbed from Sua’s card. I enjoyed it more than she did 
Set Outside Korea - 이상한 그림 originally in jp, naturally takes place in Japan
2nd Volume of Series - 죽이고 싶은 아이 2 a sequel that didn’t dissapoint
Curious Title - 너만 모르는 진실 pretty good title for piquing the interest
Favourite Colour Cover - 우린 그림자가 생기지 않는다 awful book, good cover
Rec - 그래서 우리는 사랑을 하지 i don’t see a lot of queer lit recs in kr yet, this short story collection gives you a taste of different authors in the field.
Unknown Premise - 뜻밖의 계절 I picked this one up blind just because it seemed to be on other learners’ read lists so I figured it would be at the right level for me.
I think i’ve used up almost all the easy spaces, no idea how i’m going to fill the rest now!
I finished 宝石商リチャード氏の謎鑑定 | L34 and put it as ‘Didn’t know the premise before starting’. I’ll write my review for it later, but this book was 100% an impulse purchase thinking it would be an easy mystery book with a Sherlock and Watson dynamic based on the cover characters and seeing 謎 in the title.
It is not a mystery book 
It’s just BL bait human drama.
I can easily see this being someone else’s book for sure though, so it’s very much a case of ‘not my cup of tea’.
