it was pretty funny to find all the inherited japanese language learning books in my teacher’s hut when I was on Jet and see the various ‘phases’ of learning styles through the years.
The one I found most helpful at that time was learning Japanese through road signs (actually titled Read Practical Japanese by John Braden, I’ve been trying to track down a copy ever since)
Similarly Kodansha’s Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms (2002 but a compilation with minor editing of four earlier 1990s books), How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese (1993) and Japanese Verbs at a Glance (1996). (A lot of the 90s era books I’m thinking of were published by Kodansha, so this may partly be a house style effect.)
It also didn’t entirely disappear in the 90s – Senko Maynard’s Expressive Japanese from 2005 uses both romaji and (furiganaless) kanji/kana, for example.
From an earlier era, Martin’s Essential Japanese from the 1950s is pure romaji throughout, and Miller’s A Japanese Reader (1960s) assumes you’ve already learnt at least some spoken Japanese before coming to it to study kana and the rest of the writing system. And I think we’ve already discussed elsewhere Weintz’s Japanese Grammar of 1904 which confidently states in its introduction that there’s no need to learn kana because the Japanese are going to dump them in favour of the Latin alphabet any day now…
The academic linguistics books I think aim at an audience who may not be familiar with the language, so it makes some sense that they use romaji. And Japanese the Spoken Language I think goes for pure romaji as an explicit pedagogical choice; by the time I heard about it that felt like a very idiosyncratic decision, but perhaps it was less so when they were first published in the late 80s. The original 1980s Japanese for Busy People is also pure romaji, but they are going for a “teach ‘survival Japanese’ to business people” approach in that volume without assuming their audience is necessarily studying Japanese for the long haul.
Oh, and I just found this in the Publisher’s Note in the Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary (1999 single volume republication of separate JE and EJ dictionaries from 1995 and 1996):
Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary is different from its predecessor and other similar dictionaries in that it reflects the latest rationale and methodology for teaching Japanese in the United States, Europe and Australia. Increasingly, influential curriculums in Japanese-as-a-second-language education have emphasized the importance of students mastering the two kana scripts from the outset of their studies. As a result, few Japanese-language programs now use romanization in their instruction. In response to this new trend, Kodansha International decided to publish a basic Japanese-English dictionary for non-native learners already familiar with the hiragana and katakana scripts.
So that’s nice direct evidence from about the right time period that teaching practice had changed and was now influencing the decisions of publishers.
We have! excellent memory! oh how quickly defeating a major european power changed that prediction 
As I was trying to see if anyone had written about this a lot of research came up about meiji era script reforms in japan, but not much about later teaching changes. If I had to hazard a complete guess as to when this started, it would be that a lot of the earliest mass attempts to teach japanese to english speaking people are from the occupation period and immediately after, which probably would’ve been more interested in conversational spoken japanese rather than achieving high reading ability (what books are we reading anyway? most of em got burned 
)
I kept looking for stuff last night and my hunch was that, in whatever time period this switch to learning kana first happened, some of these textbooks or resources would have some sort of justification for this decision, and looks like that was on the mark! Narrowing the date range to somewhere in the mid/early 90s should help quite a bit.
Not quite reading-related but just here to complain
Maaaan, I’ve lost my daily streak in Bunpro for the third time in a row today. 
I’ve been gunning for the 365-day streak badge, and this is the third time I’ve lost it after 300+ days. I told myself last time that if I lost it again I’d give it up, and it’s probably for the best. Thankfully one of Bunpro’s latest updates lets me hide the streak counter, at least…
That really sucks!! 
At least you can think of all the knowledge you’ve gained, streak/badge or not. Missing a day won’t make you lose everything you’ve learned. 
Man, wouldn’t that be awful if it did? But anyway, that’s very true; at least I have good habits from it all.
Doesn’t negate all the learning you did, or every single day that you did show up and get things done. I find streaks inherently demotivating and dislike them.
I think you’re clearly committed to learning Japanese and doing a great job of it whether or not you happen to miss a day here or there 
Sorry to hear that! I was also down the first few times that happened to me, but since then I have been pretty happily hiding my streak counter for years now (with CSS shenanigans).
Streak counters without any streak preservation method just do more harm than good for me when I eventually miss a day by accident…
I do like how Duolingo does it, where you can use in-app currency to purchase one-use items that’ll keep you from losing your streak if you miss a day.
Yeah, stuff like that is nice.
By the way, I just learnt that you can set your streak counter to any value you want in the Reset settings category. So if you want to pretend that there is a streak preservation method (e.g. only use it once a month, or something like that), you can!
Whoa… That seems dangerous. 
I’ll have to think about it.
Streak stuff is just monkey brain monetisation!!! The real (cheaper) dopamine hit is being able to read things at a glance!
Today I started reading 転生ゴブリン because it is on special:
It’s pretty generic so far but not a bad read. I’m about 50 pages in. The story is still being set up so I could see it possibly getting good. It’s not on Natively yet but I’ve put through a request to add it.
About halfway through Unnamed Memory I 青き月の魔女と呪われし王 | L32. It’s not bad, but I’m finding it a bit dull. None of these characters have any real problems, and I’m just not very interested in whether or not two perfect people are going to bang or not, which I gather is the main plotline surrounded by some miscellaneous fantasy stuff of no real consequence.
If I’d wait around for that I would never get my dopamine 
Finished up 向日葵の咲かない夏 | L29 today which was… an experience. No spoilers here since I’m not even sure what to comment on but yeah, that sure happened. I definitely managed to pick up the pace with this book at the end (read the last ~120 pages over the weekend) which makes me very happy even though I’m not sure if it was because I was enjoying it so much or because I just wanted to be done with it LOL
Anyway next up is 准教授・高槻彰良の推察 民俗学かく語りき | L31 and I really hope I’ll enjoy it because it’s been a while since I managed to get enthusiastic about a book series and I kind of miss that feeling
Saturday was death by extra work, so I didn’t have time to read anything beyond the advent calendar story. (Well, technically I also watched one episode of the drama version of セクシー田中さん and listened to one more 本好き drama CD, that’s nearly two hours combined 
)
Yesterday, though, the stars were aligned and I was free the whole day! I feel like it’s been a year or so since I had a full day with nothing to do but read. I started 号泣する準備はできていた | L30?? and read the first story. It was okay, but I’m still not sure I saw the point. It felt just weird without any clear conclusion.
As usual, that’s the kind of time where I start reading something completely unrelated. I had randomly bought 回復職の悪役令嬢 エピソード1 私だけが転職方法を知っている | L28 a while ago (it has 悪役令嬢 in the title), so I just read that. I was a bit suspicious about it, since it’s a 男性向け light novel, but it has no fan service so far. On the other hand, it has no romance either (nor any 悪役令嬢 element so far besides the premise), which is too bad. Also, the world building is really meh and the story full of plot holes. BUT it is extremely easy to read and has that stonks/line goes up/power leveling elements that I wanted to read recently. I ended up reading the first volume in a single day, so I decided to buy the other published volumes, because why not.
Book clubs are going to suffer for a few days
Ah, and the last volume of 本好き is coming out in less than a week! Hopefully I will have time to finish 号泣き and one more non-LN book this month
That book is insane, isn’t it? That sure happened!
Right? I had a good time on the wild ride but I’m mildly concerned about the author naming the protagonist after himself 
Heads up in case you weren’t aware shablul, ババンパイア’s 6th book is out in a couple days: https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B0CM3BJMRM?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_mng_calw_5&storeType=ebooks
