Added a first person narrative tag.
4 Likes
Thanks! I had no idea tags for narrator POV existed, but TBH I hate first-person so it’s a good thing to have flagged 
Based on the pace I finished that one at, I’ll have the second book finished in the next month or so, and then I can go through and decide which tags apply to the whole series and which ones will go on the books individually.
5 Likes
slowly getting squares got a couple in April but hadn’t updated the card and today finished vol 5 of fudanshi kazoku so figured about time for an update (though still no bingo)
there are a few more books in progress that will help knock out some of these squares - my progress always feels slow but it’s at least forward
#2 - features yakuza char 拾われ子猫と元ヤクザ 1巻 | L23
found it cute but surprised sometimes some of it was more difficult (yakuza speak) than I would have expected (have vol 2-4 and will eventually read them)
#4 - something with a dragon 骨ドラゴンのマナ娘 1 | L25
this one would be a good pic for the BBC at some point though also found it sometimes more difficult than I expected (but I don’t read a lot of fantasy stuff) will finish off the rest of the series eventually
#24 - read the next book in a series already started 腐男子家族 5 | L24
been working on this series for some time now…personally I really like this mangaka and the humor only 2 left in the series to finish it up!
past books ---- whoops guess I never bothered with a template for this so uhhhh see previous posts 
11 Likes
Filled new slot for “Has Cats” with 私の可愛い子猫ちゃん | L24
Cats! 
This manga has a cute kitty called Chibi whose presence indirectly triggers the relationship between two roommates. Sadly the series is not finished yet (only two volumes so far), and it seems the mangaka (Morinaga Miruku, of GIRL FRIENDS | L23 fame) is working on this series at her own pace so progress has been slow.
In a lot of aspects, the relationship is a lot more mature than in many other Yuri manga I’ve read so far - mostly in the fact that instead of a romance it feels more like the development of a marriage, and the different ways the two main characters need to balance work and married life.
Here’s my collection of cute Chibi pictures with no spoilers!
#MyFoodTrayIsEmpty!
#OmNomNom
#NadeNade
#CatBestCureForTummyAche
#OnakaIppai!
#YattaGohan
#Scratching
#KyattoTawa~
#Yawn
#Gomen
#EmotionalSupportCat
#ThanksForTheFoodButCanYouOpenTheCanPlease
#SameExpressionDifferentMentalState
At the end of volume one, there’s a Kakioroshi (extra chapter that wasn’t in the magazine where the manga is published) where the point of view changes to Chibi’s
Did I mention this manga is very cute ? (though also borderline R-18 in some parts, in case that’s an issue for anyone interested… )
16 Likes
Sold. 
7 Likes
Bingo update:
妖魔と下僕の契約条件 1 | L29 for “Shortest on TBR”. It’s not actually the shortest, but it’s way down there and if I don’t use it for this square I don’t have another candidate square for it. 推し、燃ゆ | L36 might technically be the shortest for me. 
But my bingo, my rules!! 
16 Likes
Bingo update: I finally got a bingo!
Cats: 악의 (a cat is in the book. It is not a wholesome feature) was a pretty fun and twisty mystery novel with an ironic structure.
Favorite color cover: 금단의 마술 (my favorite color is purple, and I couldn’t really find any purple books whose covers I actually found pretty, so I’m going with this reflective silver cover of a book I own irl). This one was mid honestly. One of the most mid Higashino books I’ve read. I can see why it wasn’t translated into English. The ending was so unsatisfying.
15 Likes
With how many books Higashino has written, theres bound to be some duds in there. Sigh. But please continue on your Higashino body of work journey so I know which ones to go for
8 Likes
finished one bingo square:
- Unusual genre to me - とらドラ! (1) - usually I do not read romcoms, I just watch them, but here I luckily made an exception, after I watched the series several years ago. I gave the book 4+1 stars, +1 because of chapter five.
7.9 look-ups per page, no zero-look-up page, currently L32. Based on these numbers for me the book is under-graded, but this is of course an average value: the first half is difficult, the second easier.
and I started one new bingo square:
- Features cats - マリカと魔法の猫ボンボン: あたし、ネコになっちゃいました! - after an orange level book now again a purple one. The book is aimed at high elementary / middle school children; therefore it is a “half“ furigana book i.e. it has no furigana on easy kanji.
9 Likes
I know I’m basically spamming this thread, but I had to give what I feel is a pretty big update.
I finished 대도시의 사랑법, which is actually the first book I ever started in Korean, 3.5 years ago. It was way too hard for me back then and I dropped it after 30 pages or so when it became due at the library. It wasn’t really a fun read even now, because it’s not my style, but it is ~literature~ and I had to finish it just for the symbolic value. And now it’s done! On to the next~
19 Likes
Nah, you’re just living the dream of being able to read so many books to update with!
11 Likes
not only that but…everytime i see it …
it’s not a smaller 4x4 or std 5x5…but a 6x6 card!!! 
like bonus points even 
5 Likes
Hahaha honestly I did it that way because my goal is to hit 100 Korean books (not webtoons or manga, but webnovels do count) this year. I’m at 88. At the start of this year, I realized that 36 books would put me just (edit) BELOW 100 total books read in Korean, so I decided to be a little ambitious! My reading pace in Korean is so much faster now hahaha
8 Likes
I’ve been trying to wait to post until I had two new squares, but I just gotta put this out there. I got a shiritori square!
#7 Shiritori title (Hitoribochinomarumaruseikatsu → Tsuredzurebiyori) / Went in without knowing the premise: 徒然日和 1 | L20
I had been strategizing a shiritori bingo square (where the title of the book is a correct shiritori answer to the title of the last book I read) for a while, and in the meantime read this manga. Then I went to log it on bookmeter and suddenly realized I already pulled it off (Accidentally)!
In other news, I figured out that I’ll get my first bingo when I fill square 14, which doesn’t actually seem tooo far away.
previous squares
Free square: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 5 | L27
#1 Read a book and watch the adaptation/Join a book club: ひとりぼっちの○○生活 1 | L21
#2 Cover is primarily composed of your favorite color / From someone else’s board: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 6 | L27
#3 Workplace setting / Character speaks a dialect: 舞妓さんちのまかないさん 12 | L25
#4 Reread: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった | L25
#5 Non-human protagonist: しろくまカフェbis 2 | L19
#6 Second in a series: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった VOL.2 | L24
11 Likes
that is so fun! Now I’m going to look at my book list and see if I have any…
… and discovered after a quick search that you lose in shiritori with a word that ends in ん (which makes sense I guess, but I was kinda expecting in that case you could start with the last 2 syllables)
4 Likes
4th update !
Moved some things around…and it ended up with me having a bingo! (I swear that’s not why I moved things lol I needed 나는 나를 파괴할 권리가 있다 to be my new level at 33 instead of the year thing so I didn’t die trying to read a harder book;; )
- Published my birth year - 악의
I liked it! A kind of murder mystery that kept me guessing. The vocab was a little out there to me because of the setting (idk 90’s?) and also prob because it’s a Japanese translation.
- Set where I’ve lived - 가짜 모범생
Might change this one if I find a better fit, but it’s a Korean book set…somewhere in Korea lol.
To summarize, a kid deals with his twin brother’s suicide while under pressure from his mom to take over his brother’s #1 school ranking spot. This book was a good look into Korean educational pressures (esp by moms). I didn’t read it for so long because I thought it was going to be a really typical school story (I never really read summaries so lolol) and I’m glad I ended up picking it up. Really felt like 대치 or just 강남 엄마 vibes to me. If you’ve seen Sky Castle, that’s basically where I worked. Crazy to think these kinds of parents exist but they really do sadly…I remember parents would try to buy their way into higher rankings when my 학원 (private academy) didn’t even give actual grades (feedback only) or rank students. I worked at a terrible place, but I will say that not giving grades/rankings was the one good thing…though the parents hated it lmao. How can I say my kid is better than another if there’s no number to prove it?! Anyways, I rec if you like those kinds of stories. I might even read the sequel.
past picks
- 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
- character with a disability - 소리를 삼킨 소년
- new natively level to me (33) - 나는 나를 파괴할 권리가 있다
15 Likes
Another couple of books to add 
Unknown Premise - アッコちゃんの時代 | L34
This was really all about 80s Japan, which I sorta knew about, but also really didn’t know a lot about going into it too.
Non-Human Protagonist - あたしはビー玉 | L30??
From the point of view of a marble who falls in love
Past Picks
Character with a disability - 妃は船を沈める (光文社文庫 あ 42-6) | L31
Sequel - 気になってる人が男じゃなかった VOL.2 | L25
Title includes a number - サード・キッチン (河出文庫 し 31-1) | L31
Unusual Genre to me - しまなみ誰そ彼 1 | L25
One word title - 伊藤潤二傑作集 1 富江 上 | L25
Character of retired (age!) - 三世代探偵団 次の扉に棲む死神 | L24
No Reviews - ぬるい毒 | L35
Past book club - 木洩れ日に泳ぐ魚 | L32
New Topic - 店長がバカすぎて | L31
Favourite colour - スマホを落としただけなのに | L28
15 Likes
#8 Main character with a disability: ゆびさきと恋々 4 | L20
The main character in this series is deaf, and reading it really makes you (or, me at least) want to learn sign language! I already started volume 5, and the first chapter has kind of a sweet flashback to what made her childhood friend excited about learning sign language.
previous squares
Free square: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 5 | L27
#1 Read a book and watch the adaptation/Join a book club: ひとりぼっちの○○生活 1 | L21
#2 Cover is primarily composed of your favorite color / From someone else’s board: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 6 | L27
#3 Workplace setting / Character speaks a dialect: 舞妓さんちのまかないさん 12 | L25
#4 Reread: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった | L25
#5 Non-human protagonist: しろくまカフェbis 2 | L19
#6 Second in a series: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった VOL.2 | L24
#7 Shiritori title (Hitoribochinomarumaruseikatsu → Tsuredzurebiyori) / Went in without knowing the premise: 徒然日和 1 | L20
11 Likes
お久しぶり～
Two new BINGO since last time 
18 - Past book club choice
→ 薬屋のひとりごと 1: previous ABC. I didn’t know anything about it previous to reading. It was pretty brutal at the beginning, a lot of new vocab, and not even that, a lot of things are implied and not written explicitely. I struggled a lot but thanks to the old threads of the book club I was following along. I feel like as I was reading it was also getting easier. Really liked it, I could see myself continuing the series. Would maybe be better though to wait until my Japanese is a bit better!
19 - Read a book about a topic you previously didn’t know about
→ 銀の匙 Silver Spoon 1: read with the IMC. Unlike the main character, not everything was new to me about the agricultural world, but still, quite a lot of new things, in particular I knew nothing about ばんえい競走 and there was a full chapter about it
Previously
Completed squares, sorted by order of completion, 19/25:
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)
To do, not sorted 6/25:
- Something from someone else’s bingo card
- Main character is retirement age or older
- Read a book with a non-human protagonist
- Ask what you read next in the Seeking Recommendations Thread
- Released the year you were born
- Read a debut (an author’s first book, whether they’ve written more or not)
- Read the latest book you bought
15 Likes
Still no bingos, and even if I fill in my free space I’m still at least two books away. Ah well.
I have a few updates this time:
Unknown Premise: 夜が明けたら、いちばんに君に会いにいく | L25 I think all I knew about this going in was that the author is pretty popular on Natively and that it had an audiobook. If you’re ok with a sappy romance going in, it was decent.
Keep hearing
about: 本好きの下剋上~司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません~第一部「兵士の娘2」 | L32 technically it’s not this specific book that I keep hearing about, it’s the whole series, but I’m going to count it because @eefara read it a bit before I did, so I did technically hear about this one in particular and I’m counting it 
Curious Title: I swapped out Dandadan for GJ部 1 | L24.
I think I’ve now cleaned up my board and I’m back to all prose… but I may get desperate and add in some manga if I keep reading books that aren’t going to go anywhere on my board, lol
Past Squares
Curious Title: ダンダダン 1 | L26
Sci-fi: 明日の世界で星は煌めく | L28
Second Volume: 四つ子ぐらし 2 三つ子探偵、一花ちゃんを追う! | L24 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
14 Likes
