I finally finished writing some SQL queries on my data set so I can easily do monthly summaries again.
Total pages
946
Manga
139
Book
807
Total listening hours
20
Audiobook
8
Podcast
3
TV
9
February was probably my first month ever where I read more novel pages than manga!
I finished the third 四つ子 audiobook this morning. The books are pretty easy listening at this point, even when I’m not giving them my full attention. I’m still planning to keep going with them for a while (I have to see what happens between Mifu and Minato-kun!), but I am keeping my eyes out for another, potentially more difficult series to start listening to once I’m bored with these (or if I finish these, but since there are something like 20 audiobooks I’m pretty sure I’ll get tired of them before I finish them).
I also finished 婚姻届に判を捺しただけですが S1 | L28 yesterday, which I enjoyed quite a bit (I left a review). That and ブザー・ビート～崖っぷちのヒーロー～ S1 | L27 have given me the courage to start pushing into orange for shows with subs (), although I’m the only grader for Buzzer Beat and I honestly don’t think it’s as hard as the site has it graded. I’m a little annoyed that my listening comprehension has been taking off and my reading still feels pretty remedial. It’s not the end of the world, especially with audiobooks (and TTS) to help, but it’s not the way I had expected my learning journey to take me. It’s more like how people learn their L1, so it’s probably a good thing to have my listening be my stronger skill, but I have so many books I want to read, darnit, and being a weak reader is not something I’m used to .
I’ve started to think about what I might buy when I’m in Japan. I think I’m actually going to be looking for some textbook and textbook adjacent books more than novels and manga. Right now I have so many physical books that are waiting until my Japanese is Better™, I prefer to read digitally things that aren’t at a comfortable reading level, and I’m not super interested in things that are at my comfortable reading level. I think I’m maybe going to try and find some of the 吸血鬼はお年ごろシリーズ since I was able to read that without many lookups, but the ebooks are only ¥440, so I wonder if even that’s worth it.
There are some full color/larger manga that I’m going to do some searching for at Book Off or any other secondhand stores I end up going to since those will be a lot cheaper used, and it’s almost a tradition at this point to grab the newest of the 鋼の錬金術師 books that maybe one day I’ll be able to read, but it’s weird not having a ton of my shopping list. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find something to spend too much money on
On the plane right now about halfway to Tokyo. Decided to combat the tedium by posting a few wins already!
They have a few episodes of ぼっち・ざ・ろっく！ S1 | L28 on the entertainment system. I figured I’d watch them with English subs bc I usually don’t push that much higher than 25 without subs. But they weren’t subbed at all, so I just watched them raw. I missed a little bit here and there but mostly it was totally fine!
Second win feels a little bit cheaty, but I’m definitely following the super fast super keigo announcements that they say after they’ve said the English ones. I know what I’m listening for because they’ve already said it in English, but I’m counting it as a half win.
There’s part of me that’s waiting to get absolutely devastated once we land and it’s for realsies Japanese everywhere, but we’ll see
Hey, I figure if you can make that hurdle of “cashier asking if you want a bag” or “server asking if you want a drink”, then you’re off the hook for everything else, haha. Hope you enjoy your trip!
I’m ready for those questions now, so I don’t get thrown by them anymore, but I remember just being an absolute deer in the head lights freeze when people would ask that
I got asked if I wanted my food heated up at the conbini twice now and didn’t even bat an eye.
I also rejected a bag even though the lady really wanted me to have it (The conbini was in my hotel, and yeah, I had a lot of stuff to carry, but it was just an elevator ride up to my room).
My biggest Japanese win to date:
I asked if they could send my suitcase between hotels and how long it would take and once I got started it wasn’t even hard.
Sadly, it wasn’t going to get there until the day after tomorrow and I don’t want to lug three days of clothes and toiletries in my backpack so I think I’m gonna have to carry back on the shinkansen tomorrow. I really wanted to get away with not having to get a reserved seat. Ah well…
Spent a few hours wandering Kyoto (aka walking between bookstores ) this morning/afternoon. Found the Animate, which was actually way closer to my hotel than I realized, it was very well tucked into the shotengai. It felt like less than half the store was comics (there was a ton of idol promo stuff, a Copic marker section, tons of cute character goods and such), but I did browse (and spent a good long time in the BL section ). I found a few new series I want to keep an eye out for at Book Off (bc I didn’t come all the way to Japan to pay full price for books ).
I also went to the second Book Off near my hotel. They also had a kinda underwhelming comic section, especially outside of like Jump and Sunday books. I found a few good deals but didn’t actually buy any. I’m hoping to complete some sets that I already have rather than start new series, but if I keep not finding what I’m here for at stores I’ll probably be less discriminating
Had another のんびりday of bookstores and other wandering. The rest of my group is inbound, so starting tomorrow I’m back on tourism time™. In addition to books, I visited Mandrake and Surugaya. In Kyoto they’re almost entirely figures, games, and other not-manga (which I knew before going there, but decided to go take a look anyway ).
Found a lot of Sailor Moon goods that were tempting, but I’m not a very good collector (none of the things I have now are displayed and I always feel bad about it) so I was able to pass them up, but ugh.
I really wanted the Sailor Venus figure. I’m not 100% sure that I won’t go back for her.
Japanese-wise, I didn’t think I’d feel a huge difference compared to my last trip, but now that I’ve been here a while, I can tell that I almost always know what people are saying to me, even when I’m not expecting the question, which is definitely new. I still don’t always know how to say what I want to say, but once I get into a conversation, something comes to me, even if it’s not right (and sometimes I know it’s not right even in the moment).
I think when I get back home the thing I want to work on is people talking unscripted to each other. Which is unfortunate because unscripted TV is hard to find overseas… But people talking amongst themselves is definitely the thing that I’m struggling the most with. Not like I need to be 盗み聞き all the conversations around me, but it is good practice
A person walking towards me, was talking to someone else via mobile about an upcoming meeting and then: if I make a reservation at the parking lot, it’ll be OK. I was, eh, did I understand that right? Can you do that here? Do you have to do that here? Then she was already past me…
A mother talking to her child who was lying in a buggy:
Mother: ねんねしたら、あとで…
Child: やだ。
Mother: さあ…
Child: やだやだやだ
Children are the same everywhere…
Very easy to find on youtube though. There’s a lot of channels of like ‘5 people try a new product and talk about it / their reactions’ or ‘two people talk about their thoughts on X with one person off camera occasionally saying something’.
Oh duh, good call.
That’s not the content that I usually watch on YouTube so I didn’t think about it at all. I know you have a bunch of lists so I’ll have to remember to take a look once I’m back.
Hmm. Podcasts I feel like people tend to be better about not talking over each other because they’re recording for an audience, but that is probably a good thing to add to my list.
I managed to grab all of the episodes of ひいきびいき before they got taken down. I wonder if that would finally be a good level for me…
Had my “final boss” for this trip today: meeting my language partner that I met on Hello Talk a few years ago.
We spoke in mostly Japanese the whole time, with me dropping to English a few times when I didn’t know the words (numbers of days are always the end of me , I couldn’t remember how to say ７日, although I was able to come up with ５日). She was definitely a very accommodating conversation partner, but it does feel good to say that I can speak for over an hour in mostly Japanese when the right situation arises.
I had a realization of a show that would really help with natural conversation, so I started (returned to?) テラスハウス ボーイズ ガールズ ネクストドア | L26.
I started it way back when it was on Netflix jp, and now all I can find are fan hardsubs, so I’m doing all kinds of subtitle styling shenanigans to hide the English subs. We’ll see how sustainable it is in the long term, but I refuse to start a new series, even though they have nothing to do with each other.
From a Japanese level perspective, it feels really good for me. And it looks like my stubbornness is kinda worthwhile here since the later seasons are graded a bit harder.
I’m catching up on 4989 American Life since I didn’t have a lot of podcast listening time in Japan, but once I’m caught back up with the podcast club I think I’m gonna start ひいきびいき for when I’m done with 4989 for the week.
I’ve been trying to clean out some of my in progress reads since I got back and have finished about 3 manga. I still have 21 books in my now reading though, so like, hold your applause please
), but I am keeping my eyes out for another, potentially more difficult series to start listening to once I’m bored with these (or if I finish these, but since there are something like 20 audiobooks I’m pretty sure I’ll get tired of them before I finish them).
), although I’m the only grader for Buzzer Beat and I honestly don’t think it’s as hard as the site has it graded. I’m a little annoyed that my listening comprehension has been taking off and my reading still feels pretty remedial. It’s not the end of the world, especially with audiobooks (and TTS) to help, but it’s not the way I had expected my learning journey to take me. It’s more like how people learn their L1, so it’s probably a good thing to have my listening be my stronger skill, but I have so many books I want to read, darnit, and being a weak reader is not something I’m used to 
.
).
