Inuyasha anime: up to ep 83 & still loving it! I’m skipping all the filler eps for now, unless they’re InuKago or Kagome 現代 sorta stuff. I’ll probly watch them later… but wanna complete the main story first, and stay ahead of the manga.
Inuyasha manga 1-4: Loving it!! It’s also making me really appreciate the anime adaptation so far. They really did a solid job, at least for these volumes. I bought up to vol 17 on bookwalker b/c the physical volumes haven’t even shipped yet and I really don’t want to stop!!
ボクガール 1: is nice, b/c I can “just read” it (with a few lookups)… also the artwork and expressiveness is really something else. I’m glad I bought it, and can (probly?) chill a bit about some of the upsetting stuff this time around. Guess I’ll find out…
ツバサ 9: is taking a slight push to get back into. I left off (9 months ago) smack in the middle of the Ashura arc, and the visual tone is soooooo much darker and busier than anything else I’ve been reading lately. Also it’s not something I can “just read” (tho I’m gonna try anyway). I might pause it till I finish the Inuyasha volumes though. Surprised it doesn’t feel a bit easier at this point.
https://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ - I didn’t have anything useful come out of it, but also I lost interest fairly quickly, cuz I’m fickle like that. Sorta like how I only ever manage to use HelloTalk for short periods of time.
Thank you. I’ll check if out later when I have time. I’ve been using conversation exchange and it sounds similar to this platform. I’m still struggling to find a Japanese conversation partner and I kind of gave up on Hello Talk.
Finished Inuyasha anime & really loved it!! Had some adaptation choices I didn’t care for, but overall it’s really splendid! I’m up to vol 15 in the manga now. While I was able to mostly understand it, there’s definitely finer details that escaped me - so I’m looking forward to getting a better sense of things in the manga.
I kind of want to watch Yashahime, though I’ve read really mixed things about it. Anyway I have all my weeklies to catch up on, and should take a break anyway. I’m seeing the Evangelion movie with a friend next month, so I might give the series a try, since the last time I watched it was in high school, and it’s only 26 episodes.
Finished わたモテ 1, and need to decide what to do next with T-sensei. Also same for lesson with Y-sensei tonight, since we finished Bocchi 1 last lesson. Probably I’ll just keep reading the next volume for both series.
ボクガール: I caved and let myself check the translation here and there for ボクガール this time around. I’m annoyed by that, but over already read it once without translation, so I figure it’s better to clarify anything I’m still missing.
犬夜叉: With Inuyasha I check the translation a lot (usually for confirmation, but occasionally I just don’t get something). I’m hoping by the end of the series I won’t have to. I’ve also been doing an anki deck, since there’s a lot of repeat vocab - and I have a good idea of what it is, since I finished the anime already.
Really annoyed the physical volumes haven’t shipped yet. They finally shipped, 22 min after I wrote this I’ll probably be a bit less than halfway through by the time they get here. Better late than never though
I’ve definitely internalized some vocab from Inuyasha (yay!!). I’m still checking the translation here and there for Inuyasha & Boku Girl. I find a lot of the time if there’s something I don’t quite get, it’s b/c I’ve misidentified the speaker. I’m not checking for Prisma Ilya (even though its hard than the other 2).
Finished 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン | L33 and kind of hated it (my longest review ever lol). I’m still seeing the End of Evangelion w/ my friend in a few weeks tho. It will have EN subs, which is a relief, b/c it’s above my JP level!
One thing that’s interesting, despite Bofuri being L25, I find it easier to understand than Tomozaki (L23)… I think in part b/c Tomozaki has longer sentences that get split over 2-3 lines sometimes. Also Bofuri really has like no depth to it, where as Tomozaki is talking about a lot of social, emotional, and psychological stuff in an analytical manner.
This happened largely b/c I’ve been thinking about reading speed a lot lately, b/c I’d like to get to a point where reading a LN like お隣の天使様にいつの間にか駄目人間にされていた件 | L30 (or SAO or Log Horizon) is comfortable. Also b/c it’s hard to read physical manga laying down in bed, so I added some digital series
Anyway, I reached the following conclusions:
I need to read more things without furigana
I need to read things in n+1/n+2 range, to reinforce what I do know
There’s too many unknown words
I need to absorb as many words (and repeated words) as possible on a regular basis
I should do some anki most days, for stuff I’m actively reading, being very picky about words I add. 30 min at most. (If I don’t though, it’s fine)
Wrt No. 3, I realized that audiobook LNs are the probably most efficient way to do this, due to the steady stream of words, at a fast pace. If I think about it, one of the things that’s improved my reading speed over time is watching anime w/ subtitles. If that’s correct, then audiobooks are a more optimal form of that. So I picked up Tomozaki-kun again - no stopping for lookups. Plenty of words I don’t know, times where I’m fuzzy, etc. The point is reading speed tho, vocab acquisition and comprehension are just bonuses here (I already know the general gyst from the anime).
At this point, I can read a volume of Inuyasha in 1-1.5 hrs … haven’t tried tracking anything else recently. While that’s not bad, I could probably do it in English in 20-30 min… so there’s still a long way to go lol.
One thing that’s been interesting to note: books w/ furigana are often harder than books without, around the same level. Ex: Inuyasha (L25) is appreciably harder than Boku Girl (L22), 墜落JKと廃人教師 1 | L24, and ケイヤクシマイ 1 | L25 - both for vocab and grammar
I second this. I started reading with audiobooks last fall mostly as a way to bring my listening skills up closer to my reading, but at this point it’s got me reading a lot faster and longer, and is also good for my ADHD.
At this point I’m so addicted to reading+listening that I feel like it’s becoming a crutch
Cool to hear! Many of the LNs I want to read don’t have audiobooks unfortunately(?) so I think I’m relatively safe from that. Even with the audiobooks they take so long though! Like even at 42%, I still have about another 5 hrs left for 弱キャラ友崎くん Lv.1 | L28 … tho one cool thing, they actually recorded the あとがき!
Do you stop for look-ups with audiobooks, or do you just keep going? Also, any you’ve particularly enjoyed? At this point I’ve only finished ひげひろ and 70 % of 本好きの下剋上 1 … would love to find some more below L30 for when I finish Tomozaki-kun (tho if I do the whole series, that will be a long while lol)
Yeah, most of them are in the 7-10 hour range, but they read faster than I do right now anyway, so I’m going to spend that much time to read the book anyway.
You’ve read most of the books that I’ve also read. I’ve also done コンビニ人間 and 天気の子. I enjoyed 天気の子, but a lot of other people didn’t so much. I’m also reading また夢 (great audiobook, I recommend if you do plan to get back to the book) and ふしぎ駄菓子屋 with the book clubs. I started 四つ子ぐらし and so far haven’t dumped it, but am awfully close to pulling that plug. I also couldn’t get into/couldn’t stand the narrator’s voice for 最弱テイマーはゴミ拾いの旅を始めました. I just started 時をかける少女 mostly because it’s short and I own a physical copy. I’ll probably go back to the ひげひろ books after I’m done.
I usually do lookups because I usually read digitally. I won’t do lookups if I’m getting the gist (which usually means it’s just onomatopoeia words I’m missing). I usually can’t be bothered to do lookups in physical books, but that’s kinda true whether or not I’m listening to an audiobook.
I didn’t realize 時をかける少女 was that short… Definitely bumps it up on my list
また、同じ夢 audiobook is excellent. I just wasn’t that excited by the story (not that it’s bad either). I feel bad bailing on my own book club , but at least I’m keeping the threads going.
Any specific reason? That’s on my maybe read eventually list
Audible JP seems to have picked up on the fact that I’m in the US, but hopefully it will chill sometime soon. It’s so annoying how much more platform-locked audiobooks seem to be
I think it’s fine. It’s not like it’s a dead club or anything, we have a lot of activity in the group each week.
It’s just cliche the way that kids books are. It’s not bad, but it wasn’t really making me excited to read. Meanwhile, I read 150 pages of hirohige in two days…
I think it’s out of my “I’m just excited because I can read this” threshold and I’d rather spend my time reading other things. I wish I had found it last year because I think it would have been a great series for me then.
I read through all of オレが私になるまで | L20 earlier, without translation, and really loved it. Afterwards I reread a fan translation, and was pleasantly surprised that I got almost everything right, for all 4 volumes.
The story and main character brought up a loooooot of feelings for me, and helped me realize something important… But that’s unrelated to language learning
Of course I said this, and then proceeded to forget anki exists lol!
I was looking at reading speed just now, and it looks like for L23, my speed has doubled since Jun 2023 (1.2 vs 2.5 pgs/min), which is nice to realize. I don’t have the largest sample size (it tends to affect my reading when I’m conscious of timing it), but that seems like it fits. Curious to see where it will be in another week or few.
My reading speed for Bocchi is substantially slower (.27-.3 pgs/min) - though some of that is b/c of asking my teacher questions… still, even w/o that, it’s definitely significantly slower.
I just get curious every once in a blue moon… tho I will may do it slightly more now, to evaluate whether the audiobooks are actually improving my reading speed.
One thing that was interesting is I had to look closely at what I actually timed… at first it looked like it stayed the same, and then I was like “that just doesn’t make sense”. Of the two things I timed back then, ホリミヤ is nominally the same level as Inuyasha (tho I find it harder, personally), so it was a good point of comparison.
I’m bummed that the show will only be on HIDIVE, which hardcodes EN subs for the JP audio versions (but not other langs ). Hopefully the eps will be torrentable, so I can get around that. If not, it will be a rare exception to my no EN subs rule.
Physical Media
I did a spreadsheet to see basic details on what I currently own.
Stat
Value
Physical Items owned
267
Read/Watched/Played
31.8%
Read/Watched/Played (incl. digital)
74%
Any of the ones in digital are planned for an eventual reread. It’s gonna be hard to keep the percentages up, as I get more stuff each month. It’s cool being able to see things like "I’m 80% finished with Inuyasha series)
Watching - extensive & intensive
I’ve been doing much more extensive watching now, and it’s really satisfying… to the point where it makes me not want to watch things I can’t extensive watch (oops)
The percentages mostly match difficulty level, tho don’t feel like I can do Tomozaki or Yubisaki extensively… Or at least I don’t want to, for comprehension reasons. Some of those definitely benefit from already having read the manga, or seen w/ EN subs, but most of them are new.
Reading Extensively - extensive, intensive, and speed
My reading speed is definitely gradually improving, but more importantly my sense of comfort with reading is improving (in some places… like Inuyasha, or that interview I mentioned above). I finished up Tomozaki-kun 1, and started Tomozaki 2 + https://learnnatively.com/book/68077c24cd/ briefly, but paused so I can finish up Inuyasha and hopefully ボクガール by the end of the month.
Being able to extensive read 青い花 is a nice surprise. I put it down 6 months ago b/c it was too hard, but now it feels relatively comfortable… tho it’s still a little hard to follow, and I think I’d be a bit more lost if I hadn’t already seen the anime (there’s a lot of abrupt jumping between scenes/time, and also a lot of characters to keep track of, some of whom look too similar at first). I’m probly gonna order physical volumes at the end of the month, so I might pause after this volume. Update: after the first volume I started running into enough unknown vocab that I’m stopping for lookups & double-checks now… it doesn’t feel hard to read though, at least.
I’ve been intensive reading Inuyasha for most of the series, but am pushing myself to look up/double-check things less… both for time purposes, and cuz sometimes the details really aren’t that important, and things get redundant.
(Btw if anyone’s wondering… no I didn’t keep up w/ anki (forgot it exists) - so scratch that lol… I should still do it for the names tho)
I’ve been pretty anxious lately, so started bouncing around w/ games today rather than pushing myself to finish Inuyasha (51/56). I’d been hoping to finish it over the weekend, so I won’t be tempted to read it during work, but oh well.
イース セルセタの樹海 - vocab is hard, a lot of words I semi-know… starts off in a mine, so it reminded me of 灰と幻想のグリムガル, which I’ve still never finished
Smash Bros - language is pretty simple and has furigana
Black Desert Online (暗い砂漠) - Korean MMO that’s literally taking 5 hrs to download. Played in EN before, and I liked the gameplay, but stopped b/c I burnt myself out
I like イース セルセタの樹海 (Ys: Memories of Celceta) so far, and might keep with it in small doses… though I’m also thinking of starting the second 五等分の花嫁 game, which will be at a good comprehensible level for me. Smash Bros I’ll just play for a few min here and there for stress relief.
Finished/Will Finish Soon
DanMachi S4 - decent comprehension, and really love that season
Bofuri S1 - good comprehension… ok as a fluffy watch. Don’t think I’ll watch S2 soon
Frieren - amazing as ever! comprehension tricky
Tomozaki - final episode is this week
薬屋のひとりごと - 3 eps left. Love this, but looking forward to it being over, so I can stick with easier material
What's Next
Since my current reads & watches are winding down, I’ll probly get back to the Tomozaki novels when I finish Inuyasha… plus there’s NHKにようこそ & Kusuriya book clubs coming up in April (not sure I’ll manage to keep up w/ the latter). Will probly buy physical copies of NHK and Tomozaki next weekend. Kusuriya I’ll hold off on b/c of difficulty, so I can buy other things I’ll get to sooner. Trying to be more selective about what I buy in general, but also may try to slow down a bit, until I’ve read some more of what I have.
Strongly considering job hunting in the near future, which if I do may cut into my JP learning time… that would be frustrating, but it also means I’d eventually have more money for books
Deleted all my Anki decks besides the names and 声優 ones… That was refreshing. Edit: also I have those set to 2 new cards a day. So it takes about 2-3 min rn
Read through 今日はカノジョがいないから | L22 - it’s OK if you like that sorta thing (I enjoyed but with critiques), but more importantly is a really easy no furigana read, if you’ve read other high school stuff. Nice to be able to just read, with not a lot of lookups!
On vol 54/56 of Inuyasha. So I know I’ll finish by the end of the month at latest, which is a relief since book clubs start, and I wanna get back to reading Tomozaki kun too, plus have 4 Vols of ボクガール left to finish reviews for
I ended up making a 2024 goals post, so I’m linking it here:
and I really don’t want to stop!!
I’ll probably be a bit less than halfway through by the time they get here. Better late than never though
). Hopefully the eps will be torrentable, so I can get around that. If not, it will be a rare exception to my no EN subs rule.