Going to put in one more
This is slightly off, but it’s the closest book I own to my YoB & I’m happy enough to not give away my exact age 
It was hit & miss essays from an early Banana Yoshimoto, some too much about 80s/90s culture, but some sweet essays.
This is absolutely hilarious; thank you so much for the write-up and examples! That poor translator, I’m sure they felt a sense of impending doom as they worked through the assignment.
I don’t think I’ll get any more bingos this year, but here’s a new square: Set in a country where your target language isn’t spoken: 네버 라이 | L27
우리우리 복댕이 | L15 Non-human protagonist
호랑이 들어와요 | L17 Book you keep hearing about
우리들의 식탁 | L17 Genre you don’t usually read
숲속의 담 1 | L18 Didn’t know the premise going in
딱 하나만 선택하라면, 책 | L18 A book about a book
숲속의 담 2 | L18 2nd volume of a series
나빌레라 1 | L19 Main character is retirement age or older
좋은 날이야, 네가 옆에 있잖아 | L19 FREE SPACE
히카루가 죽은 여름 2 | L21 Recommended to you
히카루가 죽은 여름 3 | L21 Favourite colour
노인의 꿈 첫 번째 이야기 | L20 Title includes a number
기억술사 1 | L26 One-word title
당연하게도 나는 너를 | L24 Title that sounds curious
긴긴밤 | L20 Adventure-themed
너만 모르는 진실 | L25 Topic you didn’t know about
열세 살의 걷기 클럽 | L22 Share a hobby with the MC
디어 시스터 Dear sister | L21 Related to language
네버 라이 | L27 Set in a country where your target language isn’t spoken
=^.^=
Oh interesting, hadn’t heard of this manga before. Thank you for the info.
I’ve completed my 64 book bingo with most of the month to spare. Instead of going back to English books, I’m going to try to read 6 more books before the end of the year, but that won’t make a nice square, so this will be my final 2025 bingo update.
61: 소문 (teen girl power). A fun 5-star mystery read recommended by Discord people.
62: 급류 (trending in Korea). First I see it on Booktube, then I see it on 환승연애. I immediately bought it and read it in 2 days. Well, it was surprisingly smutty and not what I was hoping for.
63: SSS급 죽어야 사는 헌터 1 (webnovel I dropped). Everyone raves about this webnovel, and I tried reading it before but only made it about 6 chapters in. This time I pushed through the whole first volume. It wasn’t bad, but I can’t see myself reading more webnovels anytime soon. I mostly read it because it was already in progress and I need to read all the in-progress books I can if I want to reach 70 books.
64: 세상의 마지막 기차역 (book I dropped earlier in 2025). And the bingo ends with not a bang, but a whimper. What a shit book. I bought this at least 3 years ago because I liked the cover and title, and tried to read it earlier this year because someone on Discord said they loved it. I dropped it 25% in when I realized it was basically 4 loosely related short stories designed to maximize tears from the reader. I’ll read a short story collection if I want to read short stories, thank you very much. Anyway, I decided to finish it for the clout and for the ambitious 70 books goal, so I sped through, and yes, the subsequent stories were even worse than the first. Especially that third story. Yikes.
Congratulations!
64 books is a lot 
, you read significantly quicker than I do!
Thanks! I mean, I have been reading books in Korean for longer than you’ve been learning Japanese according to your bio… 
Wow, congrats! And with time to spare, too! Are you going to do a similar challenge next year?
The first thing I’m going to do in 2026 is read the 5 English books I’ve been desperately waiting to read (reread the first two books in The Library trilogy by Mark Lawrence so I can read the third, which came out this year, and reread The Will of the Many by James Islington so I can read The Strength of the Few, which came out last month and for which I have been counting down the days until release for 2 years). The fact that I haven’t already read The Strength of the Few when Islington is one of my favorite authors and The Will of the Many was one of my 3 favorite books of 2023 – especially when I’ve got someone on discord who keeps reminding me about it – shows incredible willpower and dedication to my goal, I think. lol.
I originally planned to read those as soon as I hit my 64 book goal, but I still want to see how much I can read. Next year I will read those first (unless I keep dangling them like a carrot in front of my face) and then see how I feel about another all-Korean challenge. There are so many good fantasy books to read in English, and Korean fantasy is very lacking.
There are a lot of books I want to read in Korean – Japanese mysteries, sci-fi mostly – but I can’t commit myself to another year of no English books (I read one last year, in January). I also would like to read fewer shitty books, of which I read a lot.
So that’s the long way to say that yes I will be doing a bingo, but I will start with 6x6 and I will probably read fewer Korean books than this year if I’m reading in English too. A milestone that would be nice to hit next year is 200 Korean books. I’ve read 128.
We’re getting down to the wire and there’s no way I’m finishing my bingo board. Eventually I’ll fill in my free space and get my one bingo, but honestly based on what I’m currently reading and how close we are to the end of the year, I think that’s gonna be it…
One word title: カラフル | L27
Favorite color cover: イケメン王子とオタクな俺2: 〜その後のふたり〜 | L26
Set in a place you’ve lived: 夢は翼をつけて | L24
Book and its adaptation: [小説 僕の心のヤバイやつ | L28]
Non-human protagonist: 小学館ジュニア文庫 女優猫あなご | L22
No gradings, ratings, reviews: 初恋ロスタイム | L26
Uncommon genre: 木曜日にはココアを | L27
Related to language: 日本人の心がわかる日本語 | L24
Unknown Premise: 夜が明けたら、いちばんに君に会いにいく | L25
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
Curious Title: GJ部 1 | L24 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
Woowee 4 months later, I am done with both, meaning that I only need one more book to finish the whole board. I’ll make a proper post when I have a computer on hand.
Mieruko vol 2 ended up having cats, but we’ll ignore it for this exercise, since I have not yet used the same series for two boxes.
Legend:
Done:
To finish:
To start:
Congratulations 
It’s really an amazing feat!
I can’t even read this many books even if they are in English 
Thanks! When I was in high school or the start of college, I used to read 150 books per year in English. My junior year of high school, I even read 200 books.
Since I started reading in Korean, I don’t think that’s a number I can hit again 
Korean just takes up too many resources.
it would be nice to read 100 books in a year in Korean someday just for bragging rights!
For the “Low interest book club nomination“ prompt I read
and got my second bingo 
. It was a simple book but was enjoyable. I was able to read the book in 10 days which is very fast for me.
My last remaining goal for the year is to either read enough manga or watch enough anime episodes of Konosuba to tick off the “Read a book and consume an adaptation of it” prompt and get a third and final bingo. (I already read the first 3 volumes this year)
I got vol 2 by mistake because I was set on the cover from Mara’s bingo, and I’m very glad I ended up reading both vol1 and vol2.
Vol 1 really made me feel like the male lead is some yandere serial-something and our MC is one move away from getting his attitude flipped 180. Vol 2 is just… cute. Gradual. Wholesome. Makes you feel guilty for assuming the worst.
Square N5 filled! No bonus stars for being the first to rate/grade/review this time, though 
In addition to a couple of co-workers telling me I’d like the series, this book was also a gift from a friend who thought I’d be into it. She intended to buy me the novel version and accidentally got me the manga instead, but I’m glad she did, because I was relying a lot on the visuals to understand what the dialogue was referring to, and I feel like without pictures the novel would have been too confusing for me to appreciate what was going on.
Having never watched the anime or read the light novel, and approaching this knowing nothing about the story in advance, the manga felt like a good way for learners to be introduced to the series. The only things I felt were outright challenging were not related to the language level of the writing, which while it uses its share of formal and archaic forms, was mostly very clear and uncomplicated to parse. I don’t consider this manga particularly good for learning with, just because the nature of the language and vocab used is not very broadly applicable, but it’s enjoyable so far and feels worth reading if it’s up your alley.
I think this will be my last physical book for the year, and I’ll just be diving through my stash of free BookWalker mangas next, to see how many more squares I can fill in the next 2.5 weeks.
Alright, as promised, here’s the computer version.
New:
Title includes number: クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27
From the seeking recommendations thread: らせん | L35
So only “set outside of Japan”. I was thinking of 伯爵と妖精 | L30 (any volume) but I somehow don’t feel like it right now or セマンティックエラー | L32 but the beginning is just insanely cringe so far (it’s on purpose, to establish the personality of one of the main characters, but oof). If anyone has any other recs that fit? Worst case scenario, I just move 貝に続く場所にて | L41 there and pick something else for “favorite color”, for instance 舟を編む | L34 (not my favorite hue, though, 貝に続く場所にて is really the better pick, if I can just leave it there)
I could also pick any isekai and say it’s not set in Japan, but that feels like breaking the spirit of the law. Help?
How about something from this series: 薬屋のひとりごと 1 | L39
It’s one of my favorite series, but still not a real world country (well, countries), plus it’s a mix of different things that includes Japan anyway.
I will probably read volumes 15 and 16 (I own both) sometime soon, though.
