Another year, another bingo challenge! No need to reinvent the wheel, I’m copying everything from last year’s post by @bungakushoujo 
The 2026 Natively Bingo Reading Challenge
The reading bingo challenge is a fun activity for readers of all levels to participate in if they wish! Anyone can join if they would like to, with no pressure to compete!
Link to 2025 bingo thread for reference: 2025 Bingo Reading Challenge ✅
How It Works! 
Voting on the prompts
The people have voted: for this year’s bingo we will vote on a series of prompt nominations, and choose the 25 most voted options to form the official 25-prompt list!
To establish the prompt list that we will vote on:
- The list of past prompts below will be included in the vote, so if you’re interested in one of them, no need to re-nominate it. In fact, please check the list before you make a nomination - it might be in there already!
- If a prompt you would like to see included is not in the past-prompt list, feel free to nominate it! Let’s try and keep it to a few nominations per person, if you’re feeling really inspired maybe share your top 3
- The prompts should be “language-blind”, as we will hopefully have learners of all kinds of languages join.
Past prompts that will be voted on this year, roughly organised by categories:
Genre / Plot / Adaptation
- Science fiction
- Fantasy
- Historical fiction
- Something spicy
- Biography or memoir
- Non-fiction
- Non-fiction about something you didn’t know about
- A genre you don’t usually read
- Cataclysm - about some kind of disaster (earthquake, fire, tsunami…)
- Meta - A book about a book (someone is writing a book, or searching for a special book…)
- Read something related to language in some way (other than being a language-learning textbook)
- Plot involves revenge
- Book about a topic you previously didn’t know about (politics, keigo, sports, etc.)
- Going in Blind - no knowledge of the concept, only choosing it based on vibes
Natively-adjacent prompts
- Join/Participate in a Book Club
- Past book club choice
- Low interest book club nomination
- A Natively level you haven’t covered yet (i.e., it doesn’t have to be your hardest book yet, although that would count, it could be a level you skipped over)
- A higher Natively level than what you’ve read so far
- A book that doesn’t have any ratings/gradings/reviews on Natively
- Over 10 Reviews/Ratings - time to see what the hype is all about, can be tough to choose one if you’ve already read lots of popular titles
- A book that you added to Natively
- Random book - go on Natively, pick your desired level range and book type, and just randomly select and read a book among the results (as long as you can get your hands on it)
- Book from someone else’s bingo card
Author & Publishing
- Legacy - Last work of an author that has passed away
- Read an author you’ve never read before
- Book that has won an award
- Published the year you were born
- Published the year you started learning your target language
- Published >30 years ago
- Published during or after 2020
- Untranslated (at least in a language you can read)
- Read something from the free samples/something you can read for free (such as syosetsu, kakuyomu, tonarinoyj, etc)
Setting & Characters
- Has ghost(s)
- Has cat(s)
- Non-human protagonist
- Mythological/fantastical creatures
- Disability - One or more of the characters have some sort of disability (blind, deaf, cannot walk, cannot speak, is missing a limb…)
- Elderly main character(s)
- You share a hobby with the protagonist
- At least one character speaks a dialect
- Setting is a workplace (any occupation is ok)
- Takes place, at least partially, at a shrine / temple
- Set in a country that is not where the book’s language is spoken (ie, Japanese book set in Britain)
- Set somewhere you have lived (or spent a lot of time)
- Set in a period that’s not modern
TBR / Bought / Recommendations
- Book you keep hearing about but haven’t read yet
- Book someone else thought you would like
- Ask what to read next in the Seeking Recommendations Thread / What do I Read Next Megathread
- Book chosen randomly by lucky draw or with a qualifier from the qualifier list (see below) from your TBR pile
- 2nd volume of a series
- Finish a series (can be either one you are already reading or you can start a new one)
- Book you planned to read in 2025 and either gave up on or replaced with another read for the 2025 bingo
- Why is this in my TBR? - for titles in your TBR that you keep skipping over
- Lowest-leveled book on your TBR list
- Book that has been in your TBR pile the longest
Title / Cover / etc
- Book with a bad cover / book you bought or wanted to read despite the cover
- Prettiest book you own
- Cover is primarily composed of your favorite color
- Title includes a number
- One-word title
- One-character / one-syllable title
- Title that sounds curious to you
- Read 1 vol. in a single day
The list of past prompt was getting massive, so I have taken the liberty of removing past nominations that gathered less than 10 votes in their respective years. They can still be included in the vote, someone just needs to re-nominate them!
Low interest past prompts that will not be voted on - unless you ask for it
- Read a book and consume an adaptation of it (e.g. a book and it’s film adaptation)
- Read something with no other adaption
- Adventure-themed
- The Lonely Genre - choose a book to be the sole representative of a genre, for example: must be the only romance book on your bingo card
- Read something wholesome
- Read something nostalgic
- Fiction version of a non-fiction book
- Read a debut (an author’s first book, whether they’ve written more or not)
- Book nominated for but failed to win an award
- Read the cheapest (but not free) book you own
- Read a book or volume as soon as it comes out
- Written before 1940
- Book that has been translated from a language besides English
- Audiobook
- Book about siblings
- Protagonist has an animal sidekick/companion
- Metamorphosis - one (or more) of the characters turn into an animal
- Aliens - Involves creatures or people from outer space
- Book that contains not even a mention of a middle- or high-schooler
- Mostly set in a school
- Set at least 20 years in the past and not written during that time period (fiction or nonfiction is fair here!)
- Set in the future
- Set in the past
- I forgot I bought this - similar to “why is this in my TBR?” a book that you forgot you owned
- Read something chosen by someone else for you (can be from the forum or IRL people in your life, maybe someone random working in a nearby café)
- Read something suggested by the site you buy content from that you would normally ignore
- Longest book in TBR
- Finish a book that you’d previously stopped reading
- (4-5 spots that will align to make a bingo) set up a a rainbow bingo on the board (cover is predominantly: red, yellow, blue, green, etc, pick 4-5 for each version of the board)
- No humans on the cover
- Food-related title
- You learned something new from reading this (a bit harder to plan, as it can only be awarded in retrospect!)
2026 Winning Prompt List
Expand me
- Has ghost(s)
- A book that doesn’t have any ratings/gradings/reviews on Natively
- Going in Blind - no knowledge of the concept, only choosing it based on vibes
- Join/Participate in a Book Club
- Fantasy
- Past book club choice
- Book you planned to read in 2025 and either gave up on or replaced with another read for the 2025 bingo
- Finish a series (can be either one you are already reading or you can start a new one)
- Science fiction
- Mythological/fantastical creatures
- A book that you added to Natively
- Published in 2026
- Read an author you’ve never read before
- Book you keep hearing about but haven’t read yet
- Why is this in my TBR? - for titles in your TBR that you keep skipping over
- Historical fiction
- Has a creature/lifeform you have never seen in real life
- Has cat(s)
- Set in a period that’s not modern
- Book from someone else’s bingo card
- Book that has won an award
- I forgot I bought this - a book that you forgot you owned
- Prettiest book you own
- Title you didn’t understand when you first saw it
- Main cast character hides (part) of their identity.
You can now create your own unique bingo card at https://bingobaker.com (or using your favorite image editing tool) and play along, marking off a square with each book you read that matches a prompt.
Optional - when you create a bingo card at bingobaker, you will receive a unique serial number and link which you can add to the wiki post below this to bookmark it. This will be the card that you play with in 2025.
The Rules 
- You only need to fill 5 squares in a row to get a bingo, but you can fill more for additional bingos and a challenge.
- You will additionally have one “free space” that you can use to mark out any prompt you want, so use it wisely.
- If one book falls under two different prompts, it can only apply to one. So, make your best choice!
- If you are unsure whether or not something counts towards a prompt, feel free to use your own best judgment – the goal is to learn and have fun and you know how you do that best!
The Prizes 
Reading is rewarding in and of itself, but we all need an extra bit of motivation to keep going sometimes.
Any bingo you complete will get you a shiny badge and prestigious title!
We are currently working out the specifics, but make sure to enter your name in the table included in the next post, and update it at the end of the year to claim your prize! (We’ll remind you to update if you forget.)
Difficulty Modifiers 
If you want to make it more challenging, or change the way you play, check out the modification list below! (Copied from 2024)
Modifiers
- Take on the bingo challenge with only one type of book (manga, LN, novel, etc.)
- Take on the bingo challenge reading only books from your backlog
- Take on the bingo challenge without reading any books from your backlog (RIP your backlog
) - If any of the books you read has a different media adaption, also consume that media adaption
- Read only books that no one else has (at the time) used for their challenge
- No books you fill out the challenge with can be the same level
- All books you read are either physical or digital; no mixing
- Each book title/author read must start with a different syllable (e.g.: can’t read two books whose titles start with か / 가 / ga… You get the idea.)
- Bingo entries must abide by shiritori rules
- Extra spicy: your final book title must end with ん
- Fill your bingo card with books from just one genre
- Don’t use your free space
- Finish your bingo with as few books as possible (one book counting for multiple spaces)
- Extra spicy: read a single book that qualifies for an entire bingo line
TBR Selection Qualifier List 
You can use the list below for the prompt “Read a book chosen randomly by lucky draw or with a qualifier from the qualifier list (see below) from your TBR pile”
(These are also included as regular prompts in the promt list).
Expand me!
- Read the book you bought the earliest
- Read the latest book you bought
- Read the book published most recently
- Read the book published earliest
- Read the book with the shortest title
- Read the book with the longest title
- Read the book with the most colourful cover
- Read the book with the simplest cover
- Read a book with warm colours on the cover
- Read a book with cool colours on the cover
- Read the book with the darkest cover
- Read the book with the lightest cover
-
- Read a book by a male author
- Read a book by a female author
- Read the next book in a series you have started (if applicable)
- Read a book that you don’t remember why you bought/what it’s about
- Read the longest book in your pile
- Read the shortest book in your pile
- Read the easiest book in your pile
- Read the hardest book in your pile
- Start the book you hesitate to read the most
Frequently Asked Questions 
Can we make a specific bingo card for beginners/manga/genre, etc?
This bingo board is meant to be general and for all levels so that anyone can participate. If there is an appetite for creating a beginner, intermediate, or advanced card or any other permutation, feel free to use any of the guidelines or suggestions/methods here for references and to organize! 
I see people talking about completing the card with as few books as possible, but I thought one book = one square?
The standard rules are that one book = one square, but there is a modification in the modification list to try and complete the card with as few books as possible.
I want to use one story/book/volume/whatever to complete a square, but I'm not sure if it counts.
You can feel free to use your best judgement, but if you aren’t sure you and want a second opinion, you can ask in the thread as well to hear what the community has to say.
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