I was actually thinking I might make an unofficial book club/discussion thread when I start again. There might be others interested in reading, who don’t happen to check my thread.
I want to rewatch the anime soon, so I might start it then and make it an all encompassing chainsawman thread.
But for the manga part 2 /LN I’m not in a hurry. I’m reading marimite which is level 29 which feels like the upper limit of what I can read and still enjoy at the moment. So no LN for me for a while (though I do want to read it this year - Happy 2025 from Turkey btw)
another light novel I’m waiting to start is 処刑少女の生きる道. It has no difficulty ratings, but it’s a fantasy light novel so I imagine at least 30. It would be made easier by me both having watched the anime, and having read the first volume in english before, but I want to read the whole series, especially because it was announced it would be finished this year.
Doing a quick glance at the stats for 処刑少女 on jpdb, lower L30s seems fitting. And like you said, having the anime + English knowledge should give a boost.
I take it you liked the anime a lot then? I’m probably going to be a bit short on things to watch in January, and I do remember considering it when it came out
Yes I actually love it. I expected it to be very generic, and the first episode is certainly not great. But it really picks up afterwards. I think the world and lore, as well as the twist to the characters relationships is very interesting. It also uses some tropes I just really like.
Things that are on the weaker side are the art direction in general I’d say, everything looks rather generic and not super cohesive, especially not a fan of some of the character designs. It also has a few fight scenes, which aren’t awful but they’re like, the bare minimum? While the fights aren’t the core appeal of the series, I feel like a bigger budget on them would have elevated it. In general it feels like a low/mid budget series.
I only read the first light novel in english, and it covers the first arc of the anime (3-4 eps I think). It’s a pretty faithful adaptation, the only thing the anime cut was some backstory content for an (important) side character. Which I understand, it did feel a bit out of place where it was.
OKAY I was doing my wk deck reviews before bed, and I already think I might change my goal of 15 levels. I grew frustrated with some of the ordering of kanji/vocab in wk by default. For example 寂しい is in level 56, by my planned speed I would get to this in 2026, despite learning all the radicals already. Same situation with 挨拶. I reordered them to be my next new cards. So I decided from now on, in the circumstances of common vocab + kanji where I already have the radicals learned in prev levels, I will simply reorder them to the front of the deck.
I’m largely happy with this decision, but that will potentially make the levels lose meaning. Depending on how many cards I use this on, it might be pointless to have a level based goal I will wait and see for now, if I end up doing this only for a handful of cards its no problem but otherwise might end up changing my goal to be more in line of x amount of new kanji and related vocab instead of by level.
edit: okay this is silly. why is 唄 level 60 it’s a super simple kanji and pretty common. I don’t want to mess with the order TOO much since wk so far has been the only thing that truly worked for me for kanji, but come on…the level I’m in has far less common kanji
Is it? I was super surprised when I first saw it in ささやくように恋を唄う, and my phone was even a pain about it for a bit. Is assume it’s cuz it’s an alternate form of the more common 歌う. Also it’s secondary school on the jouyo list
That said I agree WK’s ordering was kind of ??? at times - but that’s true for like any ordering, especially since learners are gonna be encountering totally different kanji, based on their interests/consumption
Unless you’re taking them from all the latter levels, in the long term it shouldn’t make a difference. The kanji you’re doing earlier will then make whatever level you took them from shorter. Iirc there’s like 20-30(?) kanji per level? So unless you pull that many, it shouldn’t really shift anything much in the first place
I’ve seen it occasionally in novels(?) probably (don’t ask me which ones?). Always makes me think about why the author went for it (for ささ恋 it makes sense at least)
Unfortunately I am feeling kind of burnt out this week, at least on reading. Not a great start to the year but I focused more on listening instead of reading.
Kanji: finished up level 31 content as well as the things I added ahead.
I finished 2 volumes of manga, as well as more marimite (a bit over halfway through).
I also am still going through the mata onaji yume audiobook. I have to say going through the whole thing again made me realize what the twist is going to be (I think so at least), also makes the lead go from charming to annoying, but I suppose not really her fault I am almost where I left off in the ebook, and I think I will attempt to go past the point I left off in the ebook in audio only. I’m curious how it will go.
Then I got into hunter x hunter and watched like 20 eps. I startedd with dual japanese and english subs. Something I don’t do generally but I was already feeling burnt out so I wanted a quick way to double check meanings. I did end up closing the english captions though as it was distracting.
As for doremi sharp, I never watched this season as a kid, and have no nostalgia for it. On top of it it has my least favorite childrens anime trope (random baby appears). I think I will have to skip some eps on this one for my own sanity.
Goal stats
anime eps: 20/???
manga vols: 2/75
books: 0
days studied 1 hour min: 6/6
This may be unnecessary/unhelpful, but if マリみて is causing you to burn out, please feel free to slow down a bit. It’s not going anywhere
It’s funny how going through something a 2nd time can change it. Some things are enhanced, others are dulled, some things are easier to accept, others are more frustrating, etc.
I didn’t get that far in また同じ, but can definitely see her getting annoying
I guess you like it then? I tried it for like a week, when the was a WK club for it, but didn’t stick with it. It seemed like it might have potential, but I never felt motivated enough to try the manga or anime since then
It’s supposed to get really good later on, for now I’d say it’s fun enough but nothing super impressive. The manga is probably the better choice though, the anime has some censorship, and personally I find the visuals and ost unimpressive. The manga art isn’t my absolute favorite or anything but I found it more expressive and less…boring-looking. I am sticking to the anime mostly because it’s my preferred medium for this type of story. If I really love it, I might pick up the manga later (I just skimmed through some chapters which I rightfully suspected were censored out of curiousity, I didn’t read it at length).
I finished ぜんぶ壊して volume 3. I liked the series and I have to resist reading further into the chapter releases rather than wait for the next volume.
However I think this is one of the hardest manga I read despite it’s level. I’m not sure why but I often had moments of “I know all the words here but I don’t know what it says” or “I know what this says but not how it logically flows here”. I had to reread and check the fan translation more than any other manga with this volume.
I…really don’t know why It shouldn’t be so hard. I don’t usually do this but I think I will reread this volume again.
Idrc where vol 3 ends, but the latest chapters have been quite something
I can super relate (tho I’m usually fine with this particular series). One thing I always say is that levels can’t tell you why something is hard. And sometimes a particular section of the story will just randomly be harder.
I’ve been really trying to hone in on this sort of thing with マリみて. Some sections I can just read without difficulty, and others can just be like a labyrinth, until I double check the translation. I find manga can be especially hard with comprehension tho. And even when I do comprehend it, I’m not always confident about my comprehension (which in turn affects my comprehension going forward).
The problem then is often an unknown grammar point. It could also be a misread character, like read a き, but it is in fact a さ; if both words exist this can be an evil problem.
This is a big part of what I like about physical manga, the “huh?” *flip back 8 pages* moments
I also think manga is less forgiving on lack of comprehension than novels are. If there’s a quick gag or something it’s usually fine, but often if you miss even one or two panels’ meaning you can be lost for the rest of the conversation.
Or miss the speech bubble/out of box text that was really close to the inner margin, which your hand was blocking or they you didn’t open the pages far enough to see
I also find speaker identification much harder in manga
so little time and skill
I will wait and see for now, if I end up doing this only for a handful of cards its no problem but otherwise might end up changing my goal to be more in line of x amount of new kanji and related vocab instead of by level.
