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Pashmina · May 4, 2026, 10:27am

April Recap

April was a good month I would say. Watched several dramas without subs, and though I wouldn’t say I dramatically improved in my listening, I was relatively fine with switching back and forth to subtitles.

Last month I started speed-running Wanikani, I’m now at level 11. I skip all vocab, except selected ones where I feel like I might have forgotten them after burning.

April Stats
New Vocab \| Kanji \| Grammar	181 \| 50 \| 17
Days Read	26
(M)angas/(N)ovels read	2M/3N
Pages read Manga \| Novels	517 \| 637
(E)pisodes/(M)ovies watched	14E/3M
Hours watched	10.1

Recently finished reading/watching

Adore the art style and the story seems quite interesting. The language level varies quite a bit, when it was the little girl, it child-appropriate conversation similar to Yotsubato!, but the lore and other characters speaking was more complicated.

Very sweet and innocent BL live action adaptation of a BL novel which I also read. For me it was a bit too innocent, I didn’t really care too much about the main characters, nothing really happens so it’s a bit boring. But I think it’s a good watch for learners looking for an easy-to-understand relaxing drama-free BL.

Bought it because the cover art looks nice and reminds me of another ship that I like.
The main characters are childhood rivals who meet again as co-workers in the same company. One fateful day after drinking a li~ttle too much, they get handsy with each other trying to prove their ahem longevity. So another bet commences, whoever makes the other fall for them wins.
Yes, it sounds like plot slop to justify the spicy stuff, but hear me out, they do kinda make it work. The character dynamic is superb, their bantering and teasing is super fun, and they’re actually quite self-aware that their rivalry is quite idiotic.
This is basically a one-shot so the story develops pretty quickly and doesn’t get boring. Loved the art as well, the uke is beautiful

I also finished 3 movies that I briefly reviewed in the JFF Movie Club:

線は、僕を描く
 カラオケ行こ！
MONDAYS

Out of the three I think Mondays was actually my favorite, but it’s hard to say because they’re all very different genres. It was super fun and I loved how the co-workers started working together, and I like the soundtrack with the group lyrical school.

Recently it’s finally getting warmer again, so I’m looking forward to reading outside on the balcony, we’ve spent this weekend pretty much getting it read for our kitten and spring/summer.

Pashmina · May 6, 2026, 10:10am

I joined a new community class course recently, it’s been so far the third class (weekly). Officially the class is labeled B2, but I think A2/B1 would be much more accurate, since they work with the Quartet book. Community classes are usually quite slow, and I think that leads to level inflation.

I did join an A2 class before (1+ years ago I think) to get more speaking practice, but that one was even slower and I ended up dropping it. Like, imagine reading full novels and then there are people in the class who still need romaji to read hiragana words.

This current course is also slow, but I like the teacher a lot. She speaks fully in Japanese (except to explain when it gets more complicated) and there are a lot of conversational sessions. She works with a digital notebook, taking notes and transcribing.

Due to my reading history, I’m pretty far ahead compared to the rest regarding kanji and vocab knowledge. For the grammar points, it’s great being able to practice writing and speaking those in practical use and get correction on it. I also enjoy the conversation parts where we tell our opinion regarding a specific topic or question.

shitsurei · May 8, 2026, 2:26am

This also happened with my in person course this year. It was labeled as taking the N2 (so mid to high B1), but it’s definitely not that..

The camradarie is definitely nice, but if I’m being honest, I don’t really work that well in a classroom setting past the very very beginning of a language. It’s frustrating though bc it’s so hard to find intermediate and above courses..

I just died a little inside.

Pashmina · May 8, 2026, 8:22am

Yeah, I internally discussed a lot before joining this one. It’s still more of a repetition and strengthening the foundations. Not sure if that’s a little unfair to the other group members, they seem to struggle a lot (they’re coming from Minna no Nihongo and we use Quartet, which is a pretty big step-up I believe).

Maybe that will give me the confidence to book actual one-on-one lessons.

Pashmina · June 17, 2026, 8:41am

Happy Pride month!

Nothing big to report in terms of studying, reviews are being done, books are being read, etc. I did start a few more dramas and animes.

Finished

Finally done with きのう何食べた？ S2 | L25 and the ending was so good! The character growth was amazing and I was really touched. With the recent news about the government planning to further LGBTQ awareness in education, I feel there’s a glimpse of hope for small change.

Started Watching

From the first episodes I was very intrigued, and I liked how realistic the relationship is portrayed. The way they talked, had agreements and disagreements, felt very natural for me. It touched on a lot of topics about LGBTQ and women’s stance in society. The characters are very interesting, and somehow they remind me of the early side we saw of DaiShun in The Boyfriend (Itsuki reminds me of Shun’s negative and distant side, Yuuma reminds me of Dai trying to please everyone).

They did a GREAT job adapting this and cutting out the sus moments, it was very cute and Nakamura is absolutely adorable. I was skeptical, and I heard of the shitstorm western audience gave the author. It’s a bit of culture clash, as I see the problematic issues they have with the author and some of the themes in this/their other works. On the other hand, I feel like Japanese culture has much more leeway with problematic topics, as a form of open exploration without any censoring. The question is, if the uncommented depiction of these kind of problematic topics lead to a form of normalization in the reader’s thinking.

Something else to report on the more personal and less studying-related side

In an attempt to touch more grass, I have recently begun outside running to be a little bit more healthy (I am trying to lose a bit of weight too but that isn’t really working as long as I keep eating my calories back - welp).

I am a total runner’s beginner, so I did a very easy beginner programm (9 weeks of incremental running intervals, starting from several 1 min intervals to a full 30 min interval). Today I finally completed it and am now able to run 30 min in one go. It’s probably not much for people who run on the regularly, but I am happy that I kept the habit so far. After ‘graduating’, I’ll work in increasing my running interval to 40 min and work a little bit on my running speed.

It definitely feels good for my body and mind, and I hope I will keep it up as now the hot months are approaching.

monace · June 17, 2026, 10:25am

Reply to not-study-related things

Oooh I am also doing a couch to 5k, currently on week 3! Things are ramping up, but so far I have found the increments to be manageable. I wouldn’t have been able to run for 3 minutes straight 3 weeks ago, and I can absolutely do it now, so I guess the programme works

Congrats on finishing the 9 weeks, it takes a lot to keep at it!! And it’s great that you’re still going and aiming for 40 minutes!

How are you finding the “mental” side of things? Right now I am still distracted somehow by the intervals, needing to slow down the treadmill etc, but I’m worried about the longer intervals where you have nothing to do but run. Do you listen to something? Focus on not thinking?

Pashmina · June 17, 2026, 1:05pm

Reply to reply

Yay, another C25K buddy!

There were a few challenges along the program, one was me being sick for a week, then other times when my schedule was busy and I was resting for a few days longer than intended. The most important thing was just to keep going (I know, if it were that easy…)

Most days I luckily felt motivated to start a running session, but then sometimes it was hard midway through. In those cases where you are really exhausted and already dread the next day, I highly recommend to take a slower pace than usual, especially if the total running time goes up. A few times I ran too hard (because I felt I was too slow), and it was really the worse decision because I felt horrible all throughout.

Especially that dreaded first 20 min run, take it as slow as you can manage. I did not repeat any days, and felt it would have damaged my motivation, I prefered to just run the next run much slower. The missing breaks were then no problem at all, it’s even better for spacing out and just focusing on putting one foot after the other. The reason is that you first need to build stamina, only then you can work on speed. So running slow, but for a increasingly longer period is what’s the goal.

Then, having a really good playlist helps a lot. I found that I run best with a Drum’n’Bass workout playlist Sometimes I do an audiobook (double-tasking Japanese studies), but I prefer music. I usually run outside, so that’s also plenty of distraction.

monace · June 17, 2026, 6:59pm

Still hiding the reply

I love how the most basic advice is actually the truest, on days where I don’t feel like going I just think “if I go, then I’m doing it”, and I do go, and I do run, and I am doing it!

I get that, halfway through is when I get bored and I have to… just keep going.

Good tip about trying different playlists, I’ll try to find a genre of music I like running to and let YouTube do the rest instead of trying the find the perfect song.

I hope I can finish the 9 weeks, I’ll use you as accountability partner I’ll let you know when I’m through!

monace · July 3, 2026, 3:16pm

Here to report that I just did the 20min run of w5d3, and I was just fine! I got bored pretty quickly and wanted to stop, so I hid the timer on the treadmill and kept going. It’s much easier if you’re not thinking about the time.

Pashmina · July 8, 2026, 6:24am

Congrats again! I think after this the rest will be a breeze
I’ve completed the program now, but right after that the heatwave hit in Europe, and I decided to sit it out (did a bit of stretching one day–but not much else).
I’ve gone on a run two times after that. It’s a bit of a challenge now to keep the habit. I’m hoping to slowly keep increasing my running minutes.

Now back to studying (or rather, ranting about studying). The year is halfway over, and next week the registrations for JLPT are starting in my city. I will register for N1, but unlike the previous years, I do not really feel well prepared yet. How can it be that despite having formally studied 15k+ words I still see SO MANY unknown on the test papers Considering re-subscribing to Nihongo no Mori for the vocab videos.

Kanji readings were a breeze in N3 and N2, but now I’m starting to feel the wall in front of me. I think I’m even worse at Vocab in context, like how do you study this except “just read more, bro”. Humbly speaking, I believe I do have read a lot, but I still don’t get a better feeling than guessing half of the times. I’ve been trying to focus more on the example sentences when SRS’ing but it feels like treading water.

I think with my listening ability I’ve now reached the point where I feel like I can understand native speaking like podcasts well enough to get the gist, but still not well enough to get the details, which feels frustrating. But I remember that feeling with manga reading. One reason to study Japanese was to understand the nuances in translation better, but as a reading beginner it still all goes over your head, so sometimes I still ended up having to read the translation. Guess there’s no other way than to just keep doing my things and trust the process. I’ve been listening to a few Seiyuu Radios lately, and my impression is that I understand “more” than I did like a year ago.

My community college course has summer break now, and we just barely finished 1 chapter At this rate we will be done with the books in 4 years T_T But I will probably continue as long as I feel that the speaking practice is worth it. Community courses are super cheap, and I’m still not ready to commit to personal lessons.

暁のルナ · July 8, 2026, 2:33pm

You totally should! Very fun, and you can approach from whatever level

Write down the words, and then write out your own (preferably original) sentences with the words. Either that or SRS

The one downside to “just read more, bro” is that the distribution of words is entirely random. There’s no guarantee you’ll see the word often enough. And there’s no guarantee you won’t be focused on other things when you do. Last year was the most I’ve read (53 novels). It also had a huge amount of time spent on SRS

Pretty much, yeah

Yayyyy. Those really helped my listening. I remember how little I understood at first

Pashmina · July 8, 2026, 5:17pm

I think my issue is that strategy just helps me with recognition, but in the context questions when I have to choose either between four words with similar meaning or four sentences with different nuances, it doesn’t help me so much. Renshuu has at least user notes which often comment on nuances and distinguishing similar words, but it’s still not always there.

Memory is such a fickle thing, I can quantify the amount of lookups when reading, but I can’t really grasp how much easier listening has become (“somewhat?? Maybe??”)

Pashmina · August 11, 2026, 12:04pm

Kinda need to update after some time

Finished these books/dramas since the last update.

幼なじみのタイプを聞いたら完全に俺だった | L23 is another BeLuck BL novel, nothing special to say about it. I thought it was a bit drawn out, the MC didn’t particularly strike me as interesting.

Another two NO.6 volumes under my belt, just 6 to go now. They do not feel super exciting atm, I’m still not getting super warm with the characters, but the next volumes where the settings are changing a bit now sound interesting.

果実と怪物 is another manga by るい１ｍｍ, and my first experience with Cakeverse. Tbh, even Omegaverse is sometimes weird for me, depending on how detailed they go into it (or not).

For the uninformed, Cakeverse is kind of like spin-off of Omegaverse, but there are Cakes and Forks. Cakes apparently have a very enticing smell/taste and Forks seem to have no sense of smell/taste except for Cakes. Umm yeah, I don’t know how other works deal with it, but it sounded very cannibalistic to me.
In this manga, they do explain a bit about it, but they do not go super deep into it, or at least a lot of logistic questions I had about this AU remained open. The premise here was: Forks are shunned, as they are said to be violent and may attack Cakes because of their nature. The MC is a Cake but kind of doesn’t mind that because he thinks he does not have any other lovable assets. He meets ML, they befriend each other and become closer.
Apart from getting used to this AU, it was actually a pretty sweet story, much about trauma and healing, and the author even had a few book recs at the end about mental health and child trauma.
So yeah, again as with other works of this author, I am left with a slightly confused, but fuzzy feeling.

Kouhei Takeda in スモークブルーの雨のち晴れ S1 | L29 was of course a must-watch and he did such a great performance. It was a very mellow watch, I think I would probably enjoy the manga more though I would say, so currently looking into it.

I enjoyed ソウルメイト a lot, the scenery taking place in Berlin in the first episodes was particularly interesting to me. The flow of the relationship and the friendships was slow but felt meaningful. I read that some viewers saw the introduction of the friend plotline was distracting (the female friend marries a friend of MC, and they get pregnant), and while I did find the one event leading to more drama a bit overdramatic and unnecessary, I actually liked the part where they were living together as a patchwork family. For me it was a depiction of different forms of love, and family.

I feel a bit behind with N1 study, the gap seems pretty large to me more and more. I did some online tests, and failed pretty hard, did not do any actual mock tests yet.
In my grammar book, I’m doing okay, but the readings have a lot of economical and historical vocabulary that’s tripping me up.

I’m still speed-running Wanikani (currenly at level 23, using re-order script and only add “difficult” vocab), feels like a gamified repetition for some vocab and some kanji that I used to brush over, so I’m gonna keep that.

I found a few Japanese Youtuber that I like, gonna add that to my listening practice to do when I’m at work.

Kinda think about traveling again to Japan next year, my husband tells me “already? but you hated it there”. I did not hate Japan at all, but I really disliked Tokyo. Somehow the crowdedness and display of capitalism and consumption really messed with my mind. I do come from the largest city in my country, but still I didn’t deal very well with the people masses, even though I had no problems navigating and transiting. But I hate shopping, I hate malls, and not being able to take a break to sit somewhere where I don’t have to consume anything. I was constantly overstimulated by the visual and auditory noise.

I actually did enjoy everything we did that was approximately outside the Yamanote line.
Next time I would probably spend 3 days max in Tokyo to stock up on books, and then travel the smaller cities and countryside. Actually the two bullet points I had for my first trip, I couldn’t do either of them.

cat · August 11, 2026, 1:00pm

While the selection won’t be as huge, there are plenty of bookstores in the smaller areas and the lack of Tokyo-ness might be a relief. Or even just one of the outer areas of Tokyo? I stayed in some random non-touristy neighborhood last time I was there and the bookstore near the train station and the odd BookOff were quite nice.

I relate on not loving Tokyo though. I adored Nikko and Nara and Osaka but parts of Tokyo, especially Shibuya just rub me absolutely the wrong way.

Pashmina · August 11, 2026, 1:10pm

BTW how do people navigate the big bookstores? I can barely read the shelves, also I have really big decision issues when trying to find “something interesting” (that’s not restricted to foreign language books)

cat · August 11, 2026, 1:53pm

So this varies by store but what I’ve noticed is you usually have things organized by genre+publisher or in some awful cases just publisher seemingly? Which some imprints stick more to specific genres than others but ugh. But then within the publisher you have things alphabetical by author last name following the Japanese system.

I know what I like so I tend to gravitate towards mystery/horror/thriller which covers on the end caps give away even if aisles aren’t well marked, but I also tend to just browse a lot and eyeball author names. I’ve been reading long enough I know a lot of authors, though, so that strategy is a very “YMMV”

bungakushoujo · August 11, 2026, 3:24pm

Usually they are organized by publisher and then alphabetically. Each publisher tends to specialize in a certain type of book, so if you are vaguely familiar with that publishers brand and other books they have it can be fun to go browse in their section and discover a new gem you wouldn’t have found from the algorithm. But, if you’re looking for all the books from a specific author it can be annoying if their output is split across publishers - you have to just look up and know which publisher that particular book is under. Otherwise, the big bookstores also have computers throughout the store where you can type in a title you are looking for and it tells you the floor, section and shelf it’s on!

crispetynougat · August 17, 2026, 5:01pm

I can’t stand Tokyo, and I would never go back there if I could help it. Unfortunately, my one good friend lives there So, you are not alone. Smaller cities and the countryside are where it’s at for me. Even large cities that aren’t Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, or Nara are highly enjoyable–for instance, I had a wonderful time visiting Nagano and Fukuoka. With your level of language skills, you can easily travel off the beaten path. Do it! Do it!

Belerith · August 18, 2026, 11:05am

Same here; we usually spend 2-3 days there just to sleep off jetlag and then make off for greener pastures until 2-3 days before we have to leave again. Last time we spend our initial 2 nights in Kawasaki instead, which was just as close to the airport and much more chill.

Any additional time I spend in Tokyo (and Osaka/Kyoto) is usually owed to the meeting of friends, but even so I try to keep it low. Tokyo in general and the tourist crowds in Kyoto and Osaka stress me out. Luckily my SO also prefers the remote regions.

Btw; if you’re ever planning a Hokkaido trip, they have some of the best bookoffs I’ve been to so far! Great selection and much cheaper than Tokyo. I especially liked the one in Otaru.