Hello all. 
I’m here to make some accountability for myself by declaring that I intend to dedicate my upcoming August to focusing on reading my physical manga, because my drive to clear out that TBR has been, like previous years, pretty abysmal so far. My priorities are, in descending order, Japanese > English > Mandarin. Any fellow readers are welcome to join in on the festivities. 
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I am always reducreasing my tbr. So I might join with some physical novels.
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Completely forgot about this thread.
I have 2 mangas on my shelves that need reading, one quite long and set in Joseon era so I’m expecting the vocab to be harder than I’m used to. I could have a manga summer too 
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Manga update! I’ve finally finished 椎名くんの鳥獣百科 | L26 , two months after starting the last seven volumes or so I needed to finish. Last two:
The book on the right was apparently a bonus art book included with the limited edition of volume 10; the first half is like a mini illustrated wildlife encyclopedia, and the second half is color artwork from the series.
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Reminder to myself that this is coming up! I actually forgot about it, but then remembered this morning and realized I had fortunately already planned my (non-book club) reading to be done by August 8th anyway, haha. I’m going to probably pull target books and set them aside when we get a bit closer to August and post a picture here. 
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I entirely forgot about this thread, but have been buying fewer books for financial reasons, and as a result reading more of what I have. Most recently I finished 花ざかりの君たちへ (23 vol.) | L25 and earlier in the year I finished ラブ★コン | L24 . I also read through some of 考証少女伝説―小説の中の愛し合う乙女たち | L37 - though put it down bc it was boring.
暁のヨナ | L27 club (outside of Natively) is approaching the end of the series
I’ve been debating how to count “books I have already read digitally, and then purchased the physical copies of”. Strictly speaking my standard is to use the physical copies… But also forcing myself to reread something for the sake of meeting a statistic seems a little silly, compared to other goals.
I haven’t updated my spreadsheet of media I own in months, but I should probably get around to that one of these days
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Okay, writing it down so I may actually do it: I’ve been wanting to cancel my KU subscription for a while, but keep holding off because I still have books I want to read borrowed. Instead of reading those, however, (or my other owned books), I keep finding new stuff to read.
So I want to focus on that for the rest of the year and give myself some added incentive. I may not finish all of them, but either way I’ll cancel my subscription by the end of the year. 
What’s still on there:
Volumes 7-8 
Volumes 18-20
21-24 
Volumes 1-3
4-5 (9)
And 3 how-to books on art, story writing and color theory.
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It begins! I was planning on pulling some manga aside and taking a photo of them, but I think instead I’ll do what I did last year and post pictures of my finished manga pile as it grows. Day one:
(Book 1: D.Gray-man 19 | L25 )
(Note: I cannot promise that the kitty will be featured in all photos. 
)
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As almost every year I‘ll also read manga when it‘s getting hot, so usually I start around end of July, start of August. This year I started on July 21st.
My goal will be to read most of the manga I already own, though usually at most three volumes of a series. And I prefer to finish a series or get up to date with a series. In the latter case I won’t refrain from buying new volumes, though, to reach that goal.
So far I finished:
…and got up to date with:
Most manga I bought at some sale, when I was sure that I‘d like them enough to buy several at once, or I bought a single next volume at the end of last year‘s manga reading season. For me, with some rare exceptions, all manga are non-physical books, though.
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Kitty looks like my old boy.
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It has both a kitty and the D.Gray-man cover where Allen is cool with both of my favorite Noah
Also wait… this thread works for e-books too 
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While I’m taking a short break from Fate/Stay Night, I’m doing some work on my pile. Two yuri titles I can’t add here. One’s a trade magazine, the other’s an old bonus
I also finally got around to updating my spreadsheet. I’m mostly done, and up to 1006 items (across all media) owned so far, and 71% read (incl digitally). I’ve decided I’m not gonna obsess over whether I’ve literally used the physical version anymore.
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August Mangathon 2026
Day 2, with another volume down and one 40% done! Kitty was very kind and made another photo appearance:
(This is her “you should be playing with me” waiting pose, haha.)
Book #2: MOON・TRICK 1 | L25
Finished physical manga so far
Book 1: D.Gray-man 19
Book 2: MOON・TRICK 1
40% done with D.Gray-man 20 | L25; I’ve decided that, even though DGM will likely be my main focus for the month, these later volumes get so dense that it’d be best to break them up over a few days and read easier books in between. Moon Trick I’m hoping will fill that position easily for the first few volumes at least; volumes 1 and 2 are technically re-reads for me, though it’s probably been 4-5 years since I last read them, so I can get through them pretty quickly.
DGM fans unite! 
I’m both excited and dreading catching up with the latest chapters; I’ve gotten as far as v.25 before, though I read that in pretty baby Japanese.
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August Mangathon 2026
Day 3: I finished that volume of D.Gray-man 20 | L25 I started yesterday. Man, I had forgotten how that one ended; there were a few tears in my eye, not gonna lie. Today’s kitty has somehow managed to lie halfway off my lap without sliding off:
No kitty pics in the next few days, as I’ll be visiting my parents! The manga reading will continue, however.
Finished physical manga so far
Book 1: D.Gray-man 19
Book 2: MOON・TRICK 1
Book 3: D.Gray-man 20
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August Mangathon 2026
Day 4: MOON・TRICK 2 | L25
I am indeed visiting family, so it’s a lot harder to find time to read a full volume, but I’ve persevered. 
Moon Trick 2 is another re-read for me, but I’ve read it fewer times overall than volume 1, so it’s definitely far fresher in terms of reading experience. I think I’ve technically read volumes 3-5 or so or something before, but I didn’t even bother marking them as read when signing up on natively years ago, so they’re basically new books in my mind anyway.
Finished physical manga so far
Book 1: D.Gray-man 19
Book 2: MOON・TRICK 1
Book 3: D.Gray-man 20
Book 4: MOON・TRICK 2
(Ah, could someone post and break my chain for me?)
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Sure!
To add something to the topic as well, I am trying to focus on my TBR pile for this year‘s bingo card, but sometimes an obnoxious card gets in the way 
(Like „published this year“ 
)
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I finished reading the 2 volumes I still had borrowed of 乙女ゲームのヒロインで最強サバイバル | L32. 
So I’m off to a good start. But then in the afterword of vol 8 the author of course goes, ‘looks like the next volume will be the grand finale!? And then maybe some after stories after that.’
So now I would of course like to read the next volume before pausing the series to continue with my backlog. 
Good thing (?) these are on the expensive side afa ebooks go for me, maybe I can hold off. 
What to tackle next… The standalone-ish noble on a break, or the Spice&Wolf after stories..? Honestly not sure what to expect from those, which is probably why they’re still unread.
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August Mangathon 2026
Day 5: D.Gray-man 21 | L25 completed!
Wow; I have a vague memory from reading this in English years and years ago about this being a particularly good volume, but I’d forgotten just how good it was. I feel like the mangaka really got to stretch her creative muscles with some of the horrifying monster design in this volume, and I’m here for it. I think I do need to read a breather book in between this and volume 22 though, so I’m going to start reading MOON・TRICK 3 | L25 next, the fluffiest of fluffiest manga.
I was thinking some time before how perhaps it’s boring from an observer’s point of view, only seeing updates from two manga series. Hopefully the different covers are entertaining to see for you all; one of my soft goals this year was, when working on my manga TBR, to not be so scared of my long (i.e. 3+ volumes) series I still had lying around, and it’s been a great feeling to with my way through a series and see every volume marked off as read in my library.
Finished physical manga so far
Book 1: D.Gray-man 19
Book 2: MOON・TRICK 1
Book 3: D.Gray-man 20
Book 4: MOON・TRICK 2
Book 5: D.Gray-man 21
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I’m personally enjoying the updates, I had never heard of either series and now that I’ve seen your posts I spotted D.gray man several times in real life! So if anything, it’s making me notice new things around me 
Also your manga-reading month has inspired me to go back to manga, so.. keep posting!
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I’m so glad to hear! 
I’m hoping this month brings lots of manga goodness to all! 
I sense another helpless person reader I could proselytize with D.Gray-man. Fun fact, DGM was one of the series that got me into learning Japanese!
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