Only 4 to go now! I know what I will read for “Released the year you were born” and I also saw some comments here that made want to read a certain book for “Something from someone else’s bingo card”. I will go and ask for a recommendation at some point for the “Ask what you read next in the Seeking Recommendations Thread”. I expect “Read the latest book you bought” to be the toughest one to fulfill 
Previously
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)
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. 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! (May 16th)
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 (May 17th)
20 - Read a debut (an author’s first book, whether they’ve written more or not)
→ 木曜日にはココアを: 青山 美智子 seems to be a popular author and I hadn’t read anything by her yet. Then a club on Natively was made just at the time where I decided to read this one! Unfortunately I ended up not liking it so much. I can see why it can be liked though, just not my preferred genre at the moment. Would like to give her a go again though. (May 25th)
To do, not sorted 4/25:
- Something from someone else’s bingo card
- Ask what you read next in the Seeking Recommendations Thread
- Released the year you were born
- Read the latest book you bought
but I’m sure some will come along soon.
stars for being the first to rate, grade, & review on Natively.
) and I’m afraid the SF book I started will not be among them. I have high hopes for September! 
