Finished the last volume of 光が死んだ夏 1-8 (f) today. Not quite what I was expecting and it may just be me but it feels like it went off on a tangent, or maybe it just meandered a bit in the beginning. That being said, I have enjoyed what I’ve understood of it and I’m looking forward to it wrapping up in the last 2 volumes once they’re released.
Making good time as I’m now slightly ahead of schedule at 53/ 175 volumes read.
Next up is ドラゴンクエスト ダイの大冒険 勇者アバンと獄炎の魔王 1-14 (f)
Using ソードアート・オンライン プログレッシブ2 | L35 for my No Ratings on Natively… Which is unexpected since 4 ppl finished before me. Probably looking at クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった9 | L27 as my Added to Natively, though I might/should finish the yuri studies book for that
Will update card graphic when I have time at a computer
Took me a while to finish the next book, ゼロの焦点 | L34
I read it in preparation for the May edition of the Japanese Society UK Book Discussion Events 2026 
I liked it a lot and I think there will be a lot of good discussions around it.
As it stands, I am at 5 積読 books vs. 2 newly bought books 
I read コンビニたそがれ堂 | L26?? and really enjoyed it. It was my first time reading a short story collection and I think I by chance picked out a really good one for my first one.
Spanning a mere 180 pages it’s a short book which contains 5 stories of variable length. There are other volumes as well but they’re quite a bit longer.
Reread: 霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | L26
I had read most of this book before, but never got past chapter 7 (out of 8). The parts that I had already read were mostly my favorite but I’m glad to have finished it now and there were a few more really special moments to join my favorites.
I was also reading the recent translation alongside it (for the sake of the illustrations by Miho Satake mostly) and it was interesting to see a few places where the translation diverged from the original. For one thing, all the instances where Rina is called fat are simply skipped over. But in particular, the story around the toy shop ends up being explained in a completely different, newly-invented-by-the-translator way. Whereas in the original it seemed like the family had a fight and everyone was too stubborn to make up until the boys got toothaches and Rina fixed the broken doll, in the translation they say that the witch doll got offended and cast a spell on Kinu-san to make her stay away until the broken doll was fixed!
While it’s easy to see the removal of the body-shaming as a necessary localization/modernization, the change to the nature of the story at the toy shop feels sort of intrusive. I get why it doesn’t feel palatable to share an unchanged story of domestic disturbance, but sometimes the unpalatable things have a reason for existing and I think this one did. There’s a reason it’s called めちゃくちゃ通り!
Anyway! I can definitely see myself revisiting めちゃくちゃ通り someday. And the afterword by the author was really sweet as well.
| B | I | N | G | O |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past club | Finish a series | Cats and Dogs | Title doubletake | Fantasy |
| Dropped | Meta | Nonfiction | About language | Non-modern |
| One word title | Someone’s card | Reread | SF | Unseen lifeform |
| Pretty | Ghosts | Mythological | New author | Multiple contributors |
| Queer | Final Boss | Natively Unreviewed | MC hidden identity | Award |
Finish a series: 夜の名前を呼んで 5 | L22
So soon after my last update, but I finished a series and am only 1 book away from my first bingo! (Although that probably won’t be the next square that I fill in. It’s my first row of four though!)
Thoughts on the book? I read this series over a long enough period that I don’t remember everything that happened clearly, so finishing kind of made me look forward to the eventual reread. The final chapter was a nice meditation on living with illness. My conclusions: Ultimately, illness is a part of us and it shapes our lives. Mira doesn’t draw any sappy, unrealistic conclusions like “it’s all worth it!” but rather decides that the good things in her life / the people she loves are too precious to give up in exchange for an easier life. Her having a moment of agency, where she could have made the choice to live a different life but instead embraced her life as it is felt cathartic and I thought it made great use of the fantasy genre to offer a sort of “healing moment” to those of us that don’t get that choice in real life.
| B | I | N | G | O |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past club | Finish a series | Cats and Dogs | Title doubletake | Fantasy |
| Dropped | Meta | Nonfiction | About language | Non-modern |
| One word title | Someone’s card | Reread | SF | Unseen lifeform |
| Pretty | Ghosts | Mythological | New author | Multiple contributors |
| Queer | Final Boss | Natively Unreviewed | MC hidden identity | Award |
I continue to be reading very slowly since I can no longer slack off and read during my job.
I read a few short books the past few weeks. 일억 번째 여름 was a random sci-fi book I picked up and read in a few days. It was decent, if a bit contrived and childish-feeling at times.
I finished 한밤의 시간표 a bit early. Did not like this one. The first story was absolutely the best.
Just binged 1/3 of 통역사 to finish it and decided to slot that in for 1-word title. It was a decent book, but honestly very chaotic and confusing. Still, the representation of foreigners was very good.
I’m currently 40% through 13.67 (when will I finish this book…) and making progress on 가공범 by Higashino Keigo, for which I have a little Discord buddy read group going. We started it on 4/1 but no one is reading that fast, lmao.
finally made some time to finish 1 vol of manga and get a single square on the manga card 
no where near seeing any bingos yet because I started reading ツルネ which is slightly different from the anime, but the book is going into some insane detailed stuff, very special vocab and kanji … which the anime left out… so it’s been slow going (and taking up lots of reading time - being physical only) hope to finish by end of july … this years bingo chances are looking bleak… certainly I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew… oops
long long ways to go…
Manga Square “O” : Completed 24-Apr-2026 スピナマラダ! Vol 1 
I really loved this and found it not too difficult to read…artwork is great! I haven’t read ドッグスレッド yet, but they are essentially the same, but ドッグスレッド is newer and the artwork was redrawn. Arg Vol 1 stopped on a major cliffhanger 
but that’s to be expected of course…
anyway… since it’s already almost May and I only have 1 square each on the LN/Manga cards… bingo for 2026 hmmmm… 
not linked to natively stuff yet - cuz lazy
| B-Square | Manga to Read in 2026 | Vols to Read | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん | 5-8 | 15 |
| B | 40までにしたい10のこと | 2 | 21 |
| C | 冴えない僕は、君のヒーロー | 2 | 28 |
| D | #BがLする 4ページアンソロジー ~好きがあふれて止まらない! | finish vol2 | 28 |
| E | くノ一ツバキの胸の内 | 2-9 | 20 |
| F | 夜画帳 | 2-7 | 30 |
| G | 峰岸さんは大津くんに食べさせたい | 2-3 | 24 |
| H | 腐男子家族 | 6-7 | 24 |
| I | 俺が見つけた、コンビニの恋 | 2-3 | 17 |
| J | 骨ドラゴンのマナ娘 | 2-7? | 25 |
| K | 拾われ子猫と元ヤクザ | 2-4 | 23 |
| L | キリング・ストーキング | 2-9 | 29 |
| M | 光が死んだ夏 | 1-8 | 27 |
| N | 不機嫌なモノノケ庵 | Vol1 for Bingo 20 Vol total | 26 |
| O | スピナマラダ!-COMPLETED | Vol1 for Bingo 6 Vol total | 23 |
| P | 番長×番長 | 1 | 24?? |
Bingo update
I finished two more books since last time:
3월 2일, 시작의 날 | L28 - That one is going in the Free Space, as the first short story anthology I’ve ever read in Korean.
소여동의 빛 | L24 - This one is for “Title you didn’t understand at first”, turns out 소여동 is just the name of a neighbourhood 
It looks like I am being careful about not having more than 2 books in a row 
Finished 後鳥羽伝説殺人事件 | L32 with the Mystery Series Book Club over at WaniKani, which takes me to:
I have plans for most of the squares already, so let’s see which one I manage to tackle first 
Decided that I’m only going to update once a month.
I completed three novels this month.
Bookworm vol 2 i started and stopped so many times over the last two years so I put it as planned for 2025. Quiet room is one I watched the movie for many many years ago and have been putting off reading the novel because it’s more literary and difficult than my usual reading material. I added it to natively so it fills that square. Eminence of shadow I loved the anime so I thought I’d try the novel and it was worth it. It fills the yet unread author square.
masochism senses tingling 
I might just have to pick this one up. Tho maybe I should finish 凜として弓を引く | L27 first
it’s physical only 
no idea why this was never digital … so it’s slowing me down more than I’d like and also cannot really read this w/o 
and 
if you do read this one … for a lot of the special terminology, been using jp-jp jisho, image/video search and the internet to make heads/tails out of the detailed stuff.
One thing they went into detail about was how to wrap the string where you nock the arrow…thankfully found a video and went back and reread and it made sense… it has reached piratey book level difficulty … 
Expecting it to get easier when we get more into Minato’s story and less martial art teachy … Overall though knowing what should be coming in this first vol is enough to keep me going 
yeah 2p club
bingo update. a bit slower than I’d like so far but am getting close to finishing the first full row
Finally made myself a cute lil bingo card, so time to make my home post!
Replaced prompts:
What a cute card! I love it!
Thanks! 
I had a vision of what I wanted but couldn’t find a good existing template, so I finally went and learned a few new Canva tricks to make something myself. I like being able to see the book and prompt together on each square, and it feels like a motivating reward to drop the finished book covers into their squares now 
Some interesting selections there. Thx for sharing!
April update~
2N: “Finish a series” - 探偵学園Q 1 | L27 is done with 23 volumes (according to this thread, I was in the middle of vol 5 when I added it to my plans). Yay! This was yet another totally not gay shounen that is gay, but the author pretends otherwise.
3B: “Added by you” 不可抗力のI LOVE YOU 1 | L20 - 8 volumes instead of planned 3. The author explores teenage boy toxicity, senpai-kouhai (+ he’s popular and she’s not) power imbalance and also the attitude towards sex in a way that I don’t often see called out in shoujo manga.
The way the author had to add a page to explain why sexual themes are necessary before chapter 40 and then in the afterword explained herself again really gave me those AO3 “I’m sorry I’m writing this, but I want to, but please don’t be mad” author notes.
Also, I’ve never seen girls in shoujo manga watching p_rn - this was very educational because my first question was “huh? just Google it?” and it seems harder than that in Japanese.
4I: “Published in 2026” (vol 22 is!) I have waited over a month until a sale, read it in under an hour and ended up binging fan translation until ongoing. I love to cry. Anyhow everyone should watch and read 薫る花は凛と咲く | L20
4N: “Has cats” and it’s a fluffy smol tsundere! 新しい上司はど天然 | L22 is a BL-coded episodic office iyashikei comedy. I’ll definitely read vol 2.
5O -“Couldn’t understand the title” 転生悪役幼女は最恐パパの愛娘になりました1巻 | L29 - it’s hilarious that right before getting to this one I read another mana-musume thing (AkuMana) and this time I managed to read the most important part of the title ( パパの愛娘). It’s cute! But also, so much stuff is happening off-screen I want mangaka to “show, not tell”. But cute! My 3 owned volumes ended at what feels like the beginning of the actual story, and I’m definitely continuing the next one too.
I’ve decided on my special sprinkle here.
When I’m done for the year, I’ll update the number of volumes I ended up doing for each square.
I am reading enough novels for a bingo out of them, but as I’m doing mostly manga and limiting myself to a volume per square, this could be a fun thing to do (and a way to grow my board without growing it).
P.S. Can anyone tell me why my lizard brain decided in April that I’m in danger of not finishing the board? What kind of psych op is this?
