100% of the time (silently or outloud). The only times I don’t are: skimming/scanning, or skipping the word bc I understand the representation’s meaning (see next section), and am either too into it or tired to pause.
My take: kanji are the representations of the words, not the words themselves. The fact that you can sometimes accurately intuit/recall the meaning (or even the reading) of the representation is like a nice side bonus, but it doesn’t mean you actually know the word (you might). So either you need to learn/reinforce the word, or you need to strengthen your link between the word & its representation (kanji spelling).
These days I almost always stop and think for a few seconds before looking things up. I think it’s more beneficial, and also lookups are more disruptive for me, since I only read on tablet or physical. Sometimes I even find that the word will pop into my head as I’m starting the lookup, if I spent a few seconds thinking about it.
I wonder if it actually slows down your reading as much as you’re worried it might. (If you have some sort of hover lookups, probably yes. But otherwise maybe less than you think?)
Just finished #5. A book every two days is still pretty leisurely for me, even now that we’re past the anime (I was a little worried about that). Would probably be ready to start #7 this weekend sometime.
I’m good to start 7 on the weekend but not sure if I can match the pace of a volume every 2 days and maintain it. I could do every 4 days maybe?
Also tell me how you’re liking it. I really enjoyed this arc and can totally see why they are adapting it as a movie instead of series, it feels really fitting.
A volume every 4 days (or longer !) is great with me; I mostly wanted to push to catch up since I was two volumes behind.
end of book 5 thoughts
I’m to where we just found out the girl that Denji met was actually a Russian agent (of … some sort?) and is telling him to quit the 公安. Which was a huge reversal of thinking she was gonna get all her skin flayed off to now being worried for Denji in about 10 pages
I love just how painfully innocent Denji is too, thinking that Makima has any feelings for him and trying to stay “faithful” to him. He’s such an interesting character because he’s obnoxious and also chainsaws people in half, but then he’s so innocent in a lot of ways despite the terrible upbringing he’s had. I fear terrible things for everyone in this manga, but esp Denji
I agreeabout Denji. Honestly, I didn’t expect to care about him nearly as much when starting, but now I just want reach in and protect him somehow. Also in vol 5 I was very impressed with the more calm introspective chapters like Denji and Makima at the movies. It is easy to see why Denji is so thoroughly fooled by Makima.
My sense of time is all messed up because of holiday schedules so I thought today was Saturday most of the day and thought I was doing a good job being on track
Vol 6 thoughts
I don’t usually read a manga and think “I can’t wait to see this animated”, but that’s mostly all I could think about in this one. It’s such a good self contained story that I can also see why it’s going to me a movie and not a second season. I don’t remember why I stalled out in reading these but I’m so glad I’m reading them again!
Agreed completely! It felt almost like i was reading a storyboard for a movie , it felt so cinematic in itself. Also I really love Reze, she instantly shot up on my favorites of the series. She’s such a sad character too, kind of broke my heart when she pointed out she never went to school either after spending a volume talking about how odd denjis upbringing is. Then the end with rats and Makima… It’s not that I thought things would turn out well after all that, but that scene was still very effective. I’m not sure whether she is dead or not considering how much punishments devils can take, though.
and now, by regular update
Finish WK deck level 30 → on track
Finish マウス → Almost done with the book 12% left according to my ereader. Should be done this week.
Finish おジャ魔女どれみ → On episode 29
Finish at least one route of code_18 → I read some of it? I really should time my sessions ot have a better feel on how much I’m reading of this.
Finish part 1 / first 11 volumes of Chainsawman → This was on hold for this week but I will start it again today
Finish the digimon adventure 02 movie → done! really weird movie, I ended up looking up the english subtitles at some points not because the japanese was particularly hard, but because I kept thinking, surely they wouldn’t say that. I couldn’t find jp subtitles for this one and autogenerated them (using this ), and they were pretty accurate for the most part.
this was for sure the hardest volume for me on account of the myriad of new characters. I’m still confused on some things, especially regarding the three brothers. Like, two of them died, I think? But then there was a flashback(?) of one of them in disguise? And they are also immortal? huh
For the other characters I assume Quanxi will be the most important as she is the one I keep seeing fan art of. Her introduction was a bit too much for me, and thorough the volume I couldn’t help but feel like in a sea of human feeling characters she stood out as a caricature. There seems to be more to her though so I’m keeping an open mind.
The bit with power and kobenis car made me actually laugh. I didn’t know you could have great comedic timing in a manga.
It ends in the middle of action so I actually read the first chapter of vol 8 too because I couldn’t leave it like that. My heart goes out to people who followed the tankobon as they came out.
I also finished マウス a few days ago. I enjoyed it but maybe I was a bit too low level for it. I didn’t have trouble following it , but from what I know of her books in english, there is more to them than what goes on on the surface. I don’t think I quite understood マウス on the level I would have lied to. Though I still enjoyed it. The hardest parts for me were the exceprs from a kids book, because of lack of kanji.
I started 奇譚ルーム because I wanted to try something easier. I started it the same day I finished マウス and just flew thru the first chapter. I haven’t touched it since but it’s pretty intriguing.
Chainsaw man vol 8 is confusing me so much, I went and read two chapters of it in english too. The good news is, my confusion doesn’t stem from a lack of understanding japanese. The bad news is, I’m still confused.
The truth is I generally am bad with following manga. It’s better with some manga than others. I think that’s partially why I dropped the gl pick a while back, all the characters were hard to distinguish, which made it hard to follow. In this case the actual plot events are confusing.
as for code_18…I am putting it down for a while. I realized I was making the same mistake as when I read バケモノたち: reading something that’s too far above my level. While I can certainly work my way through it, it isn’t effective for learning. Neither is it enjoyable to read while looking up things so often, it gets exhausting and I can read only a little at a time. So there really is no point in going on right now. I’m kicking myself I didn’t notice what I was doing sooner, I thought バケモノたち made me learn my lesson.
So that goal is cancelled. I do want to pick up another vn, though it’s not the easiest to find something that is right for my level and also holds my interest. I will not add whatever I end up picking as a goal this time.
How many look-ups per page do you think is optimal for a non-manga book? For me it’s about three. Below one the book is too easy, above five it starts to feel difficult.
Nonetheless, I read some overly difficult books once in a while, to see how it‘s going.
Hard to say. I read digitally, so idk exactly per page. But I can tolerate much more than 3 per page (I imagine if I was reading physically I would get sick of it much sooner though). The moment it is too much is if there are too many unknowns in a single sentence for me. Because that makes the sentence increasingly harder to grasp. Right now I still read more for learning than enjoyment (I do read for both I pick books I think I will like of course. But I’d say 75/25 learning to enjoyment). But there is a treshold where it becomes not conductive to learning nor fun. I can’t really put a number on it, it’s more of a I know it when I see it thing.
Ugh I’ve been slacking. I’m halfway through #7 and struggling. I think because of the new arc and a bunch of new characters and not much action. Planning to do more reading this weekend and get back on track
I assume you didn’t check my thoughts on vol 7 but when you go back and read it, you will see I complained about the new characters also. Last arc the only new character that mattered was Reze (and Beam) now there is a whole bunch of them.
I’m having a bit of a hard time with vol 8 so I might reread some parts so feel free to take your time
I had a lot of the same problems as you… Something I’ve noticed is that I have trouble telling male characters apart with his art style. It so far hasn’t mattered much because it’s usually some generic 公安 suit guy who is pretty interchangeable, but in this book it really got me. There’s a lot that happened with the brothers that I’m not even sure what happened because I have no idea which brother was which.
I flipped back through the middle to try and sort things out. At first I thought that one of the brothers had killed the jacket guy that comes into the alley, but at the end of the volume he uses the octopus demon so that can’t have been true so I’m thinking you’re right that the two brothers are dead?
I assumed that the part that you were wondering if it was a flashback wasn’t a flashback but it was the last brother who took the devil hunter’s face and that happened in real time? The brother who was looking at the photograph was the one with the two scars over his eyes and he was the youngest/skittish one and not the one who got hit by the car, as far as I can tell. But I am also very confused and hope that #8 will clear things up. I was thinking of maybe seeing if I could get the English ebook from the library, but I don’t think much of this is a language thing. There are shape shifting characters and I’m really not sure who is who anymore
This was the absolute highlight for me of the volume. Power is probably my favorite character in the series because she’s just such an awful snotty brat and has zero remorse for it. And she loves her cat, I mean, I can’t say no to her
I was also thinking early on in the volume that Denji has Makima and (had? ) Reze who he really wants to be with, but he has a lot of moments with Power that feels like what actually being in a relationship with someone is like. I wonder if that will come up later in the series.
The introduction for Quanxi and her 魔人 was a lot, but I can tell why people would like her and I have a feeling I’m going to be a part of people once I know her more… One of the things I like about this series is that despite being very shounen it has good female characters, so I’m holding out hope for Quanxi. I did like the short adventure they all had at the kaitenzushi restaurant
I brought the volume to bed since I had two chapters left and figured I’d do one before bed, found action and then just went through to the end. But vol 8 was so far away in the other room so now I’m on that cliffhanger! It’s not quite reading it in Jump monthly, lol, but …
Oh and I just remembered there’s the other pair of new characters who did the nail curse on Denji… I kinda didn’t get that, like she stabbed him with a nail twice and no one noticed? I’m guessing it’s some strange curse logic because it never came up afterwards that they noticed that at all.
I had assumed only one of them had/could turn into the same person. I really don’t know now.
Speaking of someone who actually did check the english, it really did not help lol . But it was a bit relieving to know its not a language issue at least.
Now admittedly I am biased against straight relationships in fiction (inevitable as it might be in shounen), I really don’t see power and denji in a romantic light at all. To me they feel like siblings. I actually did like denji and reze together despite my biaias though, something about them even beyond the reveal, felt like it truly clicked together. I think she is similiar to denji, someone who has been groomed to be used as a tool, and when she was calling out those aspects in denjis life, she was really relating to him.
I already wrote a few times during the week but here is the year end goals update
Finish WK deck level 30 → done with new cards !
Finish マウス → done
Finish おジャ魔女どれみ → On episode 30-something
Finish at least one route of code_18 → dropped
Finish part 1 / first 11 volumes of Chainsawman → still on vol 8
Finish the digimon adventure 02 movie → done!
so only the chainsawman and doremi goals left. I am having a lot of thoughts on what I want to change for my process or keep, but they aren’t fully formulated yet.
I feel like there was one line in the middle somewhere that said all of the brothers had a (why can’t I think of the English word for 契約 ) with the skin demon, so I assumed that they could all do it?
But it wasn’t until I flipped back that I realized that the brother that I thought had been the one to transform into the Kansai-ben guy in the first place wasn’t the brother who actually had
Phew, I’m glad because I didn’t think it was a language thing but then I was wondering if I was deluding myself and I was going to be sad that I was missing so much. But up until 7 I wasn’t having problems following the story at all, so it felt like a very volume 7 issue and not a me issue. Glad that’s mostly confirmed
Mind you, I’m not shipping them at all. I love my bratty little Power and don’t want Denji’s grubby hands all over her (although, I suppose we’ve already had that, lol). I just feel like in quiet moments (before they fight over food, because it’s always food) they remind me of the closeness that I see as a hallmark of a good relationship (romantic or otherwise). I don’t have siblings of my own, which is not to say that I don’t understand a sibling relationship, lol, but it’s not always the first thing that comes to mind. I guess now that I think of it, my point is more that I see that Denji has an actual (platonic) relationship with Power in a way that I doubt he’s had with anyone in his life before, and while he’s idealizing what it’s like to be with Makima or Reze, but what it actually looks like when you are comfortable with someone is the interaction that he has with Power. If that makes sense?
See, I didn’t as soon as we learned who she was. I feel like Denji is so naive and honestly kinda emotionally stunted that I feel like she would have just been able to manipulate him the whole time. Which… is kinda what she was doing.
I could have seen them in some imaginary future once he’s figured out himself and the world more coming back together maybe and like you said, bonding over their kinda shared pasts, but as it was I would have felt an ick of them together in the same way that I feel in age gap relationships.
Fwiw I started vol 8 and it’s been a lot easier to follow as far as I got (2 chapters in). Although I got confused about what happened after Denji steps on the nail (blurred just in case I’m farther than you, although I don’t think I am). I stopped at the end of that chapter so I’m waiting to see what happens next to decide if I’m actually confused or not.
I originally wrote this for the 2025 goals thread but I feel it got too long and rambly. I’m posting it here and I might post a more condensed version in the thread later
I didn’t have any specific goals for 2024, I didn’t expect I would suddenly take japanese so much more seriously (in short, it was a way to distract myself from some life events). I did make a lot of progress thanks to this but I feel I’m still one of the lower level jp learners in this thread. I will make some goals for 2025 to not lose momentum.
hidden for length
Daily goals
spend one hour with japanese everyday min. I wish I could be one of those people who spend multiple hours on jp, but that’s just not realistic. I’m not sure whether I should count my kanji review time within this hour but ultimately probably doesn’t matter too much.
Do my wk reviews everyday. The wk deck has worked miracles for my brain which just didn’t want to remember kanji so I’m not giving up on it. Anyway I’ve been doing this for almost a full year already, so this is just here as a formality
Reading and Listening
I want to read some of the physical manga I read. I normally run my manga through mokuro so this will definitely be harder. But I want to read the higurashi answer arcs manga that I have. I already am very familiar with the story so it shouldn’t be a big problem. As well as a single volume of a random manga a friend got for me that I didn’t vibe with. I think I should finish that still as it was a gift and it’s just one volume.
Strech goal: I don’t have all of the kai manga but depending of how the above goes I want to read the rest of the higurashi manga I own (and can supplement the volumes I don’t own digitally as I don’t have room for more manga right now…)
I was not a big manga reader before this year, but I thiink I really am seeing the potential in the medium now. So I have a general goal of reading more manga. Apparently I read 48 volumes this year, next year I am aiming for 75. Which feels like a reasonable amount.
As for novels, I only read one this year (might finish another one), next year I want to read at least 5. I am keeping this number low because I want to be realistic and also not incentivize myself to read super simple books I have no interest in.
Listening…to me reading the written language is more important, so it isn’t a priority. Most of my listening this year came from satori reader which I won’t renew. I want to get more hours of listening in, but I am still thinking what form it will take.
Lastly I want to finish a regular length visual novel.
By the end of the year I want
be at least in wk 45 , I could do more levels, but I realized I prefer the slower pace, and I think at this point I have the super common kanji mostly under my belt. If I feel like kanji is bottlenecking me again, I can increase this.
to be able to return to code_18 by the end of the year. I’m not too happy about leaving it unfinished, even though I think it’s the right choice. This is kind of a vague goal but, it didn’t feel that out of reach, so I think just with regular study I might naturally get to this level in a year.
I followed/understood so much more of this volume than 7. I’m still a little confused about what’s happening with Makima, but I feel like that’s kinda the point of the arc so you’re supposed to be confused?
I also kinda don’t get what happened with the 弟子 guy after they got Denji with the nail the third time. He turned into the old man? It didn’t seem to matter all that much to the rest of the volume’s plot so I ignored it.
Denji’s strength of being young, dumb, and invincible shined through (literally ) in this volume. Like I’d hate to have to interact with this kid, but I kinda love him in this story.
I finished vol 8 today, I will read your thoughts when I have a bit more time but I wanted to let you know in case you are waiting for me to catch up, feel free to read on.
I pulled 9 off the shelf but didn’t start it yesterday, so I think I’m the only one holding me back
I will probably start it today. I think I’m finally done with book club books for the week so now I only have this and one more book that I’m actively reading.
