Not sure if you were aware of メタモルフォーゼの縁側 | L22, but the setup feels quite similar. 
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It’s been on my reading list, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I need to start transitioning away from relying on furigana so much eventually…
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Ah yes. It’s an easy enough manga from a vocabulary perspective, but the mangaka won’t even throw you a bone for some of the names 
You could look into something like Mokuro if you’re interested in fiddling. Or a screen reader, or Google lens if you have an Android. Becoming less dependent on furigana is definitely a skill that I think is underrated, because once you’re ready to leave the nest of children’s books there’s very little handholding between that at even just light novels (which tend to be a lot more generous than novels are).
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Another tutoring session. We ended up talking about food again. I will become very good on one very specific conversation topic. 
I think that’s probably why, when I start dabbling in non-furigana manga, I’ll probably go for something that has an anime adaptation first.
Although honestly I’m feeling a little burnt out on my kanji study… All I want to do is watch Precure… And once it cools off enough that I want to touch my switch, I want to play more Tokimemo…
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Been a little while since I updated…
What I’ve Been Reading
きみの色 | L20 Finished Kimi no Iro. I think it works pretty well as a companion to the movie and (aside from the intro and some of the song lyrics) it’s a quick, simple read with pretty art. It provides a little more to Kimi and Rui’s POV that we don’t get to see in the movie.
ニッターズハイ!4 | L20 It’s the start of a new school year, so a new obligatory first year joins the handicrafts club. Plot twist he’s a delinquent! I can’t believe I only have more volume before I’m caught up.
野ばらの森の乙女たち 1 | L17 I picked this series up and it really is baby’s first yuri from our friends at Nakayoshi. A really simple love story (so far) that just happens to take place at a fancy-pantsy all girl’s school. Not very text heavy, so it’s another quick read.
Back to trying to finish 魔女の診療所 こまったコ、大集合!? | L20?? . I’m still not super into it, but I set myself a goal of 4 pages so it’s slowly coming along.
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2010 shoujo yuri?! Let’s gooooo 
Art style looks beautiful from the first few pages
That’s a good way to put it. And I think I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d thought of it that way, when I read it.
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I love that era of shoujo art. I’m probably going to read the second (and final 
) volume soon, but I like to space my easier reads out with my more challenging reads.
Plus I was supposed to have a tutor session tonight, but italki was down.
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I just flipped through a few more pages - it’s gorgeous!! I think I’ll try to read this very soon
My teacher and I switched to using Zoom (tho the lessons are still booked on iTalki)
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That’s a good idea. I’ll suggest that as an alternative at my next lesson. I was actually looking forward to my lesson, which I hope is a sign that my conversational skills are improving.
Edit: Bummer, my tutor is going to be on a vacation for a chunk of next month, so I can’t reschedule until the end of August. I wanted to talk to her about doing alternate conversation sessions and grammar/lessons so I guess we can start that up in September when I get back from my vacation.
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Just a quick update…
What I’ve been Reading
I finished my third book! 魔女の診療所 こまったコ、大集合!? | L21 A lot less look ups than when I read the Kirby book months ago, so that feels good.
Currently reading ふしぎアイテム博物館 変身手紙・過去カメラ ほか | L24?? for the children’s book club and 夜カフェ 1 | L22 on my own.
Didn’t read as much manga this week since I was trying finish 魔女の診療所
Random
My Satori Reader subscription comes with a beta of the Human Japanese website now so I was perusing that and came upon some deep Satori Reader lore. John and Mariko of John and Friends in Tokyo appear to be from Human Japanese. 
And also, in Satori Reader lore, Akiko of Akiko’s Foreign Exchange wrote Kona’s Big Adventure. (spoilers for Akiko’s Foreign Exchange, if anyone cares) The story is based on wondering what her host family’s cat does after he disappears for a few days, so does that mean it takes place in Seattle? Do I have to judge the Seattle-ness of Kona too? 
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Cool Satori connections. I knew the general relation, but not the specifics
I didn’t get the impression there was anything Seattle about Kona
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Time for an update! Today I had another tutor session, the last before my teacher goes on vacation next month. But the plan is that I’m going to start weekly lessons (instead of biweekly) in September. I’m opting to keep them as conversation lessons, because I can self-study a lot of things, but it takes two people to have a conversation.
But while my tutor is on vacation, I’m going to try writing at least one sentence every night in Japanese in my journal. I really want to try pushing myself past the subject-object-verb phase, now that I’ve gotten past the fear-of-being-wrong phase.
What I’ve Been Reading
Finally, a new volume of manga completed. I went on such a manga binge in June, I must be recuperating now. ざつ旅-That's Journey- 3 | L24 Unlike the previous two volumes, I actually stopped to look up the places they visit. Also, because in this volume, they go to the Iwate and visit the Kenji Miyazawa museum, I read 雨ニモマケズ, his most famous poem.
Novels are still the same as last time…
What I’ve Been Watching
I got behind on all my anime during GDQ, and now I’m trying to get caught up. For seasonals, so far I’m watching
Continuing with アン・シャーリー S1 | L25 although it goes so fast, I’ve lost what’s going on with the plot. Will read the book… eventually.
So far 雨と君と S1 | L23 is a nice, chill anime without much in the way of challenging vocab.
Which makes me feel better that I barely understand anything in サイレント・ウィッチ 沈黙の魔女の隠しごと S1 | L30
I’m also watching Turkey! S1 | L25?? and very much enjoying the absurdity of it. Not what I was expecting out of a bowling anime…
And I’d really like to watch CITY THE ANIMATION S1 | L30??, I just haven’t gotten there yet. Holding off on starting 光が死んだ夏 S1 | L30 until all the episodes are out so I can watch it all in one go and only scare myself over ONE day. (Okay, maybe two, depends how long it takes me to watch it.)
Random
I have been enjoying Maibaru Travel on youtube recently. Very chill, a little aesthetic but very lacking in frenetic youtuber energy.
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It’s currently in book 2 btw, just for reference. Might help to read the Wikipedia episode summaries afterwards
Hopefully it’s still fun anyway
でしょう！？ I don’t think I would have watched, if it was just bowling, but the Sengoku stuff has been fun
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Maybe part of the issue at this point is that I’m not really that interested in who is heterosexually pairing up with who. If I can’t ship Anne and Diana, what’s the point?
It is. I’m looking forward to a re-watch at some point. I can vaguely follow the plot, but the finer points are lost on me.
I’m curious what’s going on with their look-alike characters… And that’s going to happen when their phones run out of batteries. 
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でしょう！？
All of Diana’s stuff has happened of screen, besides like two super short clips. So there’s no feeling of investment. That said, I do enjoy Anne’s current “don’t bring up romance, I can’t process it right now, because my true partner is Diana it might mess up our totally beautiful friendship, even though I’m slowly developing feelings for you” stage.
I can’t wait till you see the 70s version. Anne & Diana are even more over the top there. (Sry I feel like I always mention it lol)
Mm, I have a few of those (Utena comes to mind) - and have gotten there with some easier things. I look forward to the day where I don’t have to say “it’s possible I just missed something, cuz of the Japanese level, but this didn’t quite make sense to me…”, and can instead say “yeah, this made no sense”
I see I need to catch up with the latest episode. This sounds more and more fun.
Maybe they’ll finally decide they actually want to stay in the Sengoku era. Also I find it interesting that they assume any time has passed in the modern day, at all. I feel like they’re gonna go back by the end, and be mid-bowling
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I watched Utena with English subs forever ago… can confirm it just doesn’t make much sense (still love it though)
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Mm, it’s a very abstract and symbolic series, a lot of the time. Nowhere near as bad as Evangelion though, imo. But EVA is an example of “I missed half the background plot, cuz I couldn’t tell what was being said”
Some CLAMP titles (ex Tsubasa) are also “yeah, you have to think really hard to make it make sense”, regardless of the language
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A friend shared this game with me because they thought I’d like it. (Dressing up and playing with cats…) So I’m also passing it along since it wasnt in the English language Nintendo Direct
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You called?
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Long time no update.
What I’ve Been Reading
野ばらの森の乙女たち 2 | L17 Finished this series and it was HIGH drama and a lot of fun. Also it has lovely art!
私の拳をうけとめて! 3 | L22 This is a cute series, it’s feeling a lot easier than when I started it months ago. Progress!
魔法少女ダンデライオン 2 | L24 I love this series! Looking forward to when the next volume comes out!
ふしぎアイテム博物館 変身手紙・過去カメラ ほか | L23 I think the book club for this one is switching over to wanikani, so I’m just going to read at my own pace, I think.
What I’ve Been Watching
雨と君と S1 | L19 This series has been slowly growing on me over the season, I think I might check out the manga too. It’s so chill and relaxing,
CITY THE ANIMATION S1 | L26 I started watching this one and it has beautiful art and animation, but it’s so weird I do not know if the subtitles are helping at all.
侵略！イカ娘 S1 | L19 I started this one too, mostly because the natively level was so low… But unless it really grabs my attention in the next couple episodes, I’m probably dropping it. I’m finding it more annoying than amusing right now. (And to be honest, I don’t know why it’s L19, it doesn’t feel significantly easier than shows that are in the low to mid purple range.)
Random
My tutor is back from vacation, so I had my first session in a while. Took me a little while to get back into the swing of things, but I got a 完璧 for one of my sentences. We mostly talked about the KPop Demon Hunters screening I went to yesterday.
Also, I told her I was planning to take the N4 in December and she did not make a face like that was a bad idea.
Well, that’s all for now. またね！
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