I may or may not listen more today, but I’ll update now.
I decided to stop ノーマンズランド because while the flashback scenes about the cold case were easy to follow, I could not keep myself focused during the police scenes due to the aforementioned issue with too many characters. Maybe I’ll go and listen to the first book in the series and see if it’s better, but I’m not rushing to do so.
I started listening to こんなにも優しい、世界の終わりかた (小学館文庫 い 6-4) | L30?? because it’s on 聞き放題. It’s relatively easy and might be an alright walking and listening book that I would never read. I have different standards for audiobooks
I watched an episode of an old cop show, some anime with @shablul, and a tiny bit of youtube. Altogether this worked out to a little over 3 hours again today.
I listened to all 3.5 hours of 斜陽 in one sitting which turned my brain to mush but I regret nothing. I was so engrossed in the story that it didn’t even feel like multiple hours. I need time to digest everything still, but it was a fantastic read. I want to watch the movie adaptation now to compare, since I already noticed they changed a few things based on the trailer :
It takes place during postwar Japan, and since I recently read 小さいおうち, which is also a wartime story, I already had a lot of the context and vocabulary so it felt way easier than level 38. There were some bible passages in it written in Classical Japanese, though… (the more I dabble with older/harder books this year, the more it becomes clear to me I need to at least learn the basics…).
I also started 一生モノのジャズ名盤500 小学館101新書 | L30??, which is an intro to different sub genres of jazz along with famous albums from each written by a jazz cafe owner. I quite enjoy listening to jazz when reading or to relax, but I don’t really know much about the different things out there besides what random Spotify playlists give me, so let’s try this! (I love how audiobook.jp has random books about absolutely every topic available in the 聴き放題 lol, my curiosity is always satisfied).
The first album that is introduced is “A Night at Birdland” by Art Blakey if anyone is curious
I’ve been sick this weekend, so watching magical girl anime has been apparently exactly how hard my brain wants to work.
I watched 6 episodes of カードキャプターさくら | L20 and 2 episodes of 東京ミュウミュウ | L20. With theme songs plus establishing shots, action, and the like, I usually count anime to be 18 minutes long (although honestly, that’s probably still a little generous). I don’t think I’ll keep at this pace forever, so for now I’m going to keep my previous goal of 10 hours, but I’ll change it if I end up blowing past it.
I spent around 5 hours listening at 1.5x speed today. I’m finished with 本好き6, which means that 5 days in I’m officially past the halfway point to my goal. I highly doubt that I can keep the pace though.
Day 5: total time - 2 hours 25 minutes approx. (edited because I just realised Howls moving castle is 2 hours long and I did around 25-27 minutes of other stuff).
I listened to less today but still managed one podcast with about 95% understanding and a short story with about the same. I also just finished watching Howl’s moving castle as I haven’t watched it in a while. There’s still some nuances
I don’t get but I haven’t seen it in English in years and then only the once. I have however watched it multiple times in Japanese without Subs so decided this time to watch it with subs to check comprehension as I already know the story.
Hopefully at some point, I’ll also be able to read it in Japanese
There’s also a lot of easy seeming BL audiodramas if that is the direction your interest is going. I don’t personally have any recommendations there, but I see plenty of them just browsing for new listening material.
For anyone looking for more books to listen to I have, well not recs, exactly, but I have an (aptly named) random collection of audiobooks that had covers that I liked and/or sounded interesting.
You’ll see I made an effort to sort things at one point and then haven’t been back since. For anyone looking for N3 level books, there’s some at the end. There’s also a ton of ungraded books for anyone brave enough to roll the dice.
Most of these are going to be audible books since I will add books to my list and/or Natively every time I get an email that new books have been added to their catalog. I imagine there’s a few at audiobook.jp, but I can’t bring myself to pay for two services’ worth of kikihoudai, and audible’s payment structure is a lot easier to navigate.
I’ve been doing my approximately 1 hour a day, but today…not so much. I wasn’t feeling the best today, so I watched a couple of anime episodes with eng subs which I’m obviously not counting. Eh, such is life.
I tried listening to 舞姫 by 森鴎外 since I’ve read some short stories from him before, but I got 1 minute in and realized…wait…I barely understand any of this. If you don’t believe me, see for yourselves: 森鴎外 舞姫
So, I am now reading more 太宰治. The short story I listened to today is different from anything else I’ve read from him and was somewhat funny.
Did about an hour of https://www.youtube.com/@SoraLee_Korean and half our of Didi. Then in class today we did an hour of listening exercises, so 2 1/2 hours more tallied up of dedicated listening
It looks like there is a manga version which is free to read right now, skimming it may help clarify any unknown vocab / give you something to hook onto to understand the plot
Or I can summarize the gist of the set up if you want
Also I forgot to post my numbers yesterday but I mostly just listened to audiobooks I had a headache and just didn’t really want to look at screens much. A little under 2 and half hours total
:
(the more I dabble with older/harder books this year, the more it becomes clear to me I need to at least learn the basics…).
If you don’t believe me, see for yourselves: 
I had a headache and just didn’t really want to look at screens much. A little under 2 and half hours total