I’ve been reading 美しい村 | L40 by 堀辰雄 this week. It’s giving me a lot of trouble, but I’m also (mostly) enjoying it so far. I keep looking at blogs and videos about it to make sure I’m not missing anything, but it seems like the first section really doesn’t have much of a plot to it. It’s mostly been a lot of very pretty imagery and 5 to 6 line run on sentences. I just finished the second chapter (out of 4) and I think the remaining two are supposed to be a significantly different style, so I’m excited for that lol. This whole book is something of a prologue to 風立ちぬ | L42, which I’m planning to read after.
In between I’ve been reading 魔法少女事変 2 | L28, which continues to be the most fun manga I’ve read in a while. No one else is doing it like this series.
Is there a resource somewhere that lists all the radicals (or at least the most common ones) that are associated with certain sounds? All the ones I have found seem to be pretty lacking
I used a WaniKani user script back in the day, but I don’t know what its sources were. It’s not something I ever actively studied though, so I don’t have any resources to recommend. In the above case, my gut was telling me those were both phonetic components, so I quickly looked up all kanji with those parts in a dictionary to double check before posting.
I’ll see if I have any websites bookmarked tonight, but I won’t be able to vouch for their accuracy or usefulness.
For most of the past month I’ve been making my way through ラブカは静かに弓を持つ, pretty slowly since things have gotten kind of busy with school. The cover is what caught my attention first and then I saw the tagline 心震える“スパイ×音楽小説’’ and got so curious I had to read it immediately. I like it a lot and I’ve really enjoyed seeing the main character’s growth throughout the story. Only have one chapter and the epilogue left to go so hopefully I can finish it today.
Good day, Natives of the Lee, I hope you are all having another productive day trying to find out the true meaning of 気.
September is finally gone, and it is now October, the best month of the year. Did you all meet your reading goals for the previous month (if you had them)? In preparation for this month, I wanted to get ヴァンパイア大使アンジュ (series) | L23 out of the way, so I did. I talked about it a bit already in the 吸血鬼 appreciation thread, but it doesn’t have the strongest ending. Still an okay beginner series though.
So, now that we are in the objective best month of the year, do you guys have anything special you want to read? I know someone already made a thread for horror and mystery recommendations, so there must be some interest. I would think at least some of you would have some plans, considering how big the mystery crowd is.
Personally, I started my seasonal reading with ぼくが恋した吸血鬼 講談社ノベルス | L26, and I am liking it so far! Technically, I started it in September, and it almost feels like it’s a sin to do so considering how perfect this book is for October reading. I mean, the first chapter is literally called 十月の夜に. The plot basically feels like Dracula, but instead of going to Whitby, he goes to Japan. It’s better than the other 吸血鬼-related books I have read so far, but that honestly isn’t a high bar (2 books with zero reviews on Amazon, one somewhat ecchi LN, and a kid’s book series)
I also got over my mangaphobia and ended up reading manga for the first time in Japanese with ハピネス (series) | L17 since it won’t interrupt my 吸血鬼 marathon. Reading with pictures isn’t so bad after all! This series in particular seems to be really easy and pretty popular on Natively too.
Here is my completion of the 赤川次郎 bingo card made by @cat for the first half or so of ぼくが恋した吸血鬼
I’m starting off my October strong by starting 吸血鬼ハンター“D”―吸血鬼ハンター 1 | L39; my English book club is reading it, and I thought it’d be cool to try reading it in Japanese.
…The level 40 tag is intimidating tbh; I’m hoping it’s actually a lower level. Ah well, I’ll find out real quick if that’s the case, haha.
I finished up 美しい村 | L40 last week and just started 風立ちぬ | L42. I mentioned in my last update that the first half of 美しい村 was a bit confusing, but the second half was more straightforward, just like I’d heard. The first half is almost a flow-of-consciousness diary of 「私」's time wandering around the village, but in the second half he meets 節子 (who becomes the deuteragonist of 風立ちぬ) and gains some direction in his life, which in turn makes the book feel more directed and thus (for me at least) easier to follow along. So far 風立ちぬ is the same way, and I’m reading with a box of tissues nearby because it’s clearly going to be that kind of a story.
having finished the first volume in the series (三毛猫ホームズの推理 | L33) i am now gonna start on the second volume.
honestly, while i mostly liked the first book, the latter third of it was so fast-paced with so many twists that instead of engaging it started to become ridiculous and tiring… especially as the suspicions i first had (spoilers) were proven wrong with the first twists, only to be then proved right after all with the second round of twists… there was only one i didn’t see coming - i thought yukiko was the one murdering the girls, not that she the manager director for the prostitution ring. oh well. i am kinda sad and bleh about the ending.
other than that, i will be slugging through mdzs vol. 1 one page at a time, when the mood strikes me lol. it’s more of a pet project so i am not concerned about it much.
finally, i want to fill in the gaps in the level of books i’ve read, so it’s back to level 20 for me! gotta go find something quick but not boring.
So after finishing 十角館の殺人 | L34 last week with the mystery book club (was a really fun book; we should be voting on our next pick soon. Join us!), I’ve been focusing on 吸血鬼ハンター“D”―吸血鬼ハンター 1 | L39. I think I mentioned it before, but my English book club is reading the first three volumes; we’ll be discussing them mid-November. I wanted to get a head start to see how feasible it would be for me to read all three before our discussion date, and having now finished the first chapter of book one, I’m able to draw some conclusions.
The Natively level of 40, going solely by the first chapter (~30 pages) is waaaay too high. The first chapter was like mid-low 30s. There’s still plenty of time for that to change, of course, but for anyone thinking about reading the book, fyi. Some poetic language, N2/N1 grammar, but nothing that would shock you if you’re already reading low 30s.
I don’t think I’ll be able to finish all three volumes by mid-November; I just won’t have time. Even if all three books stay mid-low 30s, I still just read too slowly. :\ Ah well. Even just finishing the first would be a nice feather in my cap; I had not planned on reading Vampire Hunter D this year. I’ll probably read vols. 2 and 3 in English to make sure I can finish in time.
The lack of time thing is going to be exacerbated by two books I’m anticipating starting soon: whatever our next mystery book club pick is, and FLESH & BLOOD 5 | L33 (dang, that cover is blurry), which I’ll either start this weekend or Monday, depending on my mood/energy.
Brandon has accepted submissions of better quality images from recognized sites such as Bookwalker before. He pulls them from Amazon when the book is added, but Amazon isn’t great about quality.
I’d just about need to do it for every image in the series, probably… I’d like higher-quality images, but I always feel like I’m taking up his entire night with requests like this.
Request as you read them? Could also just download the images yourself and send them in bulk so he doesn’t need to go grab them? Dunno, @brandon what say you?
How crazy would reading 三体、死仮面 | L39, ユージニア | L30??, whatever the Mystery Book Club picks, and possibly another JP<>Eng collab book club book all at the same time be? Doable? Horrible? Masochistic? Euphoric?
Could also just download the images yourself and send them in bulk so he doesn’t need to go grab them? Dunno, 
