２０２３年１２月２６日 ちょっと忙しい
ひげひろ、初めてのオーディオブック
I read the 5 main novels of ひげを剃る。そして女子高生を拾う。 (series) | L27 last week. It’s very imperfect, and I have a lot of opinions, but overall really enjoyed it! A large part of why was because I read it along to the audiobook!! It let me read a lot more extensively (for better or worse), and let me get through it way more quickly than I would otherwise. The downside there is that I didn’t take the time to stop and reinforce the vocab.
I had a bit of a crisis over whether or not I could log reading progress, since I was relying on the audiobook. In the end I decided it felt more unreasonable not to.
If feels like cheating different than actual reading though, and I worry I’m short-circuiting my development there… But most of the things I’m reading don’t have audiobooks anyway. I absolutely plan to use them more in the future (next with また、同じ夢を見ていた, then maybe I could go back and complete 本好きの下剋上 1), but definitely won’t stop reading the standard way either. The only difference is that now I don’t feel like I have to reread for it to count.
I watched the anime as well, and having done the audiobooks made that really easy.
SAO 2
I finished the Silica story!! Gotta really appreciate how well A1 adapted that. The only difference were very minor, and in all cases I prefer the version in the book, but think the anime works great too. So far this has been slow, but enjoyable
Liz story: also finiahed! it’s amazing how an author can make a 失恋 story heartwarming at the same time!!
I’m on Yui’s story, and having to pause every 3-10 pgs. Tbh I don’t really want to read it (or Sacchi’s), and I prefer the first person style of the others. So I’m letting myself read much more lazily than I would otherwise. But I want to be able to mark it complete, by the end of the year. So I’ve got 27 pgs/day to get through. Maybe it would be better to drop it, but one of my goals for 2024 is to finish all the SAO LNs (including Progressive), and I’d prefer to write a review for the whole book, instead of half.
他の読書
I’m still sticking with the “slow and steady”, read a bit of each thing approach for now (except SAO, which I want to finish soon). Definitely won’t start the next SAO book anytime soon. I’ll need the energy for 後宮の烏, and I in general wanna get my “Now Reading” (tho almost everything I’m reading is a long-term thing anyway… So not too much I can do there)
兄友 (series) | L22 is my easy-ish read, though I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by the last two volumes. So if I’m not into vol 6, I’ll probably drop it).
読書会
後宮の烏 | L35 starts up in a few days (🇰🇷 🇯🇵 Home Thread for 後宮の烏 / 후궁의 까마귀 🪶 👩). I gave the first page or so a read. It’s definitely going to be really challenging. Not sure I’ll manage to keep up, but I’ll try to stick with, even if I’m behind. It does feel a bit easier than 薬屋のひとりごと 1 | L38 and the vocab overlap will certainly be helpful
また、同じ夢を見ていた starts at the end of Jan (home thread). I read-listened to half of the first chapter, and it’s definitely on the easy side, so I’m not at all worried about that. Gonna read it without checking translation, since I’m not hyper invested in it, and there will be the book club threads anyway.
アニメ
I recently re-watched .hack //SIGN | L27 which is one of my favorites animes from when I was a teen (the other being 鋼の錬金術師 S1 | L27 ( FMA 2003))! I was really relieved to find I still loved it, and I can appreciate it in a new way, as an adult. Also it’s great to see something with a complete absence of fan service, tired tropes, and cheap jokes!
I kind of want to rewatch FMA 2003, but I don’t think I have 51 episodes in me, for an anime that’s probably going to be way too hard anyway. I started watching FMA 2003, and besides some of the alchemy words, the level is a lot easier than I was expecting… So I guess I’ll watch it after all!
Besides finishing ひげひろ (an ok, but not great adaptation), I’m staying up to date with:
SRSは別に嫌いじゃないだろうか？
I’ve been doing more SRS lately, and it’s been odd/interesting to find the right balance. On one hand, I’d like to be making a lot more reading progress. On the other hand, studying does だんだん help reading work better.
What I’ve been SRS’ing (all decks from scratch, except the nouns/proper names):
Premade:
- Ringotan (writing Kanji)
- Proper Nouns anki deck
- Japanese Names 人名用漢字 deck
From scratch:
- 声優 deck (making this really eats up time)
- SAO 2
- SAO Lycoris
- 兄友
- 薬屋のひとりごと 1
Creating the 声優 deck really eats up time (tho got better once I figured out the flow), but is also the most fun, and I’ve attached pics of associated chars + VA.
The decks were adding up to around 1 hr per day rn, due to the name ones, but I’m getting more aggressive about suspending, and lowered the new cards to 1 per day for now. Ringotan can also eat up a lot of time, but I reset it b/c too many reviews piled up, so it’s manageable again.
Names are annoying, bc a lot of kanji are (almost) only used in names, and even the common ones use weird readings. They felt more relevant when I was reading 日本の歴史 more actively (I’m on and off with it)… But it’s really more of a long term thing anyway. A lot of the time I’ll get 3/4 kanji right, but a lot of the time I’ll totally not realize I know a certain combination until I see the answer. There’s some overlap with names and kanji in the 声優 deck tho, so that’s helpful!
レッスン
I added a new teacher, R-sensei. She’s my favorite of the ones I’ve worked with so far. Our lessons are half talking, and half Tobira, and I’m surprisingly really enjoying Tobira. I find she’s the easiest to talk to. Despite her mentioning being an otaku in her intro vid, we’ve barely talked about anime or manga at all!
I dropped lessons with K-Sensei. It felt a bit too structured, and I didn’t feel like we were clicking/communicating very well. I also didn’t like some of the tasks we were doing (it was the sort of stuff I’m bad at even in English). Just not the right fit for me rn. So I decided I’d rather use the money for lessons with R-sensei.
I’ve moved on to doing manga in my other lessons - ぼっち・ざ・ろっく! 1 | L28 with Y-sensei, and 私がモテないのはどう考えてもお前らが悪い! 1 | L25 with T-sensei. I feel very refreshed, since it’s more aligned with what I want to do. ぼっち is hard, btwn the lack of furigana, and the sentences + text density. わたモテ is fun so far. I think both manga are the right fit for their respective teachers (ぼっち was my pick, わたモテ was T-sensei’s).
