TBH I just joined last week myself, so I have no idea how challenges really work yet 
Learning as I go.
I think you add it when you finish, but after you join a challenge an “Add to challenge” button seems to appear on book pages whether you’ve read them or not.
I guess I’m reading Fractale then, as it is to my knowledge the only Japanese anime/manga/LN series set in Ireland lol. All I know of it is it’s set in Ireland, it wasn’t particularly well reviewed and there’s a decent chance that the background designer looked at one of the photos I put on Flickr in the 2000s as a location shows up that did not have very many photos online back then.
This is despite Irish mythology getting an actually pretty decent volume of representation in Japanese media, there’s Cu Chulainns and Morrigans and geases all over the fantasy franchises, it almost feels like I see Irish mythology in Japanese media more than Norse mythology, which isn’t even true of Irish media.
A bit late to the party (because the thread mysteriously switched from “watching” to “tracking” 
) but here is my bingo card!
My goal is to try to fill it with as many of my 積読 books as possible, therefore I will call out any books that I bought in 2025 by adding a red outline.
I’ve thrown out some ideas so far, but nothing is set in stone yet. For many of the fields there are quite a number of options, so I will decide at a later point.
For one thing, I found it incredibly hard to find a book that’s released in my birthyear I checked the Akutagawa prize but the only applicable book clocks in at level 47 
Then I checked the Naoki prize but the only applicable book is not on Bookwalker 
And finally I checked a Mystery prize that is long-running enough to contain a relevant entry, but the book that won in my birthyear was released the year before already 
And then I gave up for the time being. If somebody has a magical recipe to find such books, I’m all ears!
Also I’m a bit confused about “new topic” vs. “unusual genre” - in how far is this the same thing or a different thing? My thinking is that genres often imply topics and vice versa, so I find it hard to draw the line. I’m trying to find good candidates as I think that this is an interesting hint, but if I fail I will just replace one of them by “Award Winner” or something…
I think a lot of people are using their birth decade for this reason (and also privacy concerns)
I had to go double check the wording here:
A genre you don’t usually read
Read a book about a topic you previously didn’t know about
I kind of take the first as ‘I don’t usually read romance, so pick a romance book’ or ‘I don’t normally read about yakuza, read a yakuza book’ and the latter as ‘I know little to nothing about Edo Japan, read about it’ or ‘I know nothing about boxing, read about it’.
Are you only intending to read prize-winners or something? For me making a list of candidates for that square was as simple as going through the books I have access to and looking up the year they were published.
Wikipedia has categories for Japanese novels released each year, if you’re looking for ones famous enough to have an English Wikipedia article. OpenLibrary, Kinokuniya, and Amazon also have advanced search options to filter books by year, and I imagine there are other libraries/booksellers that do, too. If you’re already using Bookwalker and willing to log manga in your Bingo, most of their rolling free selection are older mangas and you should be able to find a handful at any given time that would qualify for your year.
Yes, I am aware of that, thanks! It’s just that I’m not fuzzed at all about this, and I thought it’s an interesting challenge to find a matching book
Ah, no, not at all, it was just the first thing that came to my mind that would give me easy access to a book released in a given year that is of good quality at the same time (which is what I very much care about).
Ah that’s a neat idea - unfortunately my birthyear is missing from that list but the Japanese wikipedia has the same category and even contains ~40 entries 
Thanks a lot for the help 
It seems you got the problem solved, but what about the books that were nominated to those prizes? I assume they would be entered into Wikipedia, but who knows…
I haven’t checked it carefully yet, but here’s my card. I actually have one square done already actually, but wanted to post the clear version for now.
No review/grading/rating: 双子王子の継母になりまして嫌われ悪女ですが、そんなことより義息子たちが可愛すぎて困ります~ ベリーズファンタジー | L29
Edit:
Unknown premise: 追放悪役令嬢の旦那様 | L28??
ブナの森のアリア 第1巻 | L25 is set in Ireland!!! (And it’s cute!)
Ah, that’s another excellent idea! Thanks 
Ok, bingo items shuffled and template set up for this year!
Now I don’t need to mess around with an image editor, hopefully I’ll be better about filling it out…
Currently reading this and can confirm it is indeed super cute
Well let’s try this again I guess. 
I made a bingo card and then never updated it in 2024. Here’s to more success in 2025. 
Finished the first square.
Released year of birth: 夏泊殺人岬 | L33
I liked it. You could tell that the author did his research and I got to learn about the 笙, a weird instrument I didn’t know existed.
My first square!
This is my first bingo challenge, therefore my first square ever, so it’s only fitting that it’s filled by a manga that I ended up thoroughly enjoying.
It begins!
I read the pre-release for 気になってる人が男じゃなかった vol. 3 (missing the omake pages) and since it’s not on Natively until the official release drops, I think that that counts as not having any ratings or reviews
Finished my 2nd Bingo read:
Character retired (age) prompt: Frieren manga. Liked it so much I’m going to read the other 12 now as my book to read during work.
I finished 火花 | L35 yesterday. It fits the one word prompt! 
I already sourced a book for the birthyear prompt as well and started reading it. Going well so far. 
