I read both of those and I generally agree (although I am slightly more positive about the first one)
Edit: Turns out that 闇祓 is on my TBR. Didn’t realize it was from the same author.
7 Likes
If that is the case, you will probably also dislike 闇祓 
but it is a funner/faster read since it is basically multiple short stories and converging POVs.
3 Likes
Slowing getting started with my 2024 reading with 羽田圭介s 御不浄バトル | L35??. I know I should have expected it from the title and cover, but there is a lot of talk about toilets and going to the bathroom in this book. 
That may be a pro or con for anyone out there depending on your preferences…but the combo of ブラック企業 x Toilets is very unique.
I am really happy to finally be getting to another 羽田圭介 book, though, as I loved スクラップ・アンド・ビルド | L34 back when I read it! One of my 推し作品 of all times. 
6 Likes
I’m sort of reading 魔法少女育成計画 episodes Φ | L36 in that I read the first chapter a few months ago and I read (most of) the second chapter today. But I’m kind of bored. The first short story collection was actually enjoyable, but I’m not really enjoying this second one. It could just be that the first two stories weren’t good ones, but it might also be that it’s harder to get invested when there are just so many characters in the series now, and there are only so many of them I want to see more of.
I may just start skipping these collections and focus on the main story. Like there are 10 volumes (including this one) that I haven’t read, but from that 4 are main story, 2 are side story, and 4 are short story collection. And that’s a bit much for me. Granted I may read the 2 side story ones since they are highly rated (but super long) and just skip the short story collections. This is assuming I even continue with the series after volume 11 which will finish the arc I’m in the middle of.
4 Likes
I’ve begone reading きょうのにゃこ譚 1 | L24??, which is about a kitten that becomes obsessed with the duck that lives next door and it’s extremely cute so far. I’m only a quarter of the way through the first volume but I’m completely hooked and the language is very easy.
9 Likes
My reading for this week:
 Date |
 Name |
 Type |
 Amount |
 Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 2 | – | – | – | – |
| 2024-01-14 |  放浪息子 1 |
 Manga |
 Chapter 2-3 51 pages |
35m |
| 2024-01-13 | 放浪息子 1 |
Manga |
Chapter 1 28 pages |
25m |
| 2024-01-12 |  この美術部には問題がある！１ |
Manga |
Chapter 5 23 pages |
20m |
| 2024-01-11 |  可愛いだけじゃない式守さん 1 |
Manga |
Chapter 1-6 38 pages |
15m |
| 2024-01-10 |  本好きの下剋上第一部３ |
Manga |
 Bonus SS 8 pages |
1h0m |
 小さな森のオオカミちゃん２ |
Manga |
7 chapters 113 pages |
50m | |
| 2024-01-09 | 本好きの下剋上第一部 |
Manga |
1 chapter 12 pages |
15m |
| 小さな森のオオカミちゃん２ |
Manga |
5 chapters 89 pages |
35m | |
| 2024-01-08 | 本好きの下剋上第一部３ |
Manga |
1 chapter 37 pages |
35m |
可愛いだけじゃない式守さん and この美術部には問題がある are from the Wanikani ABBC and BBC book clubs, they’re ticking along pretty smoothly. One of the better chapters so far for the art club actually. Shikimori is wayyy more episodic than I expected before starting it.
I started and finished 小さな森のオオカミちゃん２ this week because I wanted something easy to read before bed, so the sequel to the easiest manga volume I’ve done yet worked out well. I liked the christmas special at the beginning.
I also finished volume 3 of the 本好きの下剋上 part 1 manga. There was a little short story at the end which helped for getting some book style reading in, as I expected. I can’t remember if volumes 1 and 2 had short stories I skipped, or if this was because they wanted to leave on the cliffhanger they did.
放浪息子 was the “harder” manga I picked up the take the slot of 本好き. It’s on the same Natively level as 本好き but actually finding it harder because the story’s relation with time is so… floaty? Like it’s happy to let conversations trail across scenes which represent multiple days and different configurations of characters, or just hard cut from one scene to the next. It’s the kind of thing where in English content it’d be clear what’s going on, but at my level reading Japanese content it keeps making me second guess what’s going on. Also I think unlike 本好き the illustrations give much less context clues as to what’s going on as they’re mostly just group shots at a few recurring settings, while in 本好き the illustration has often been more directly related to the conversation.
So next week I’ll probably go through more 放浪息子 and also pick something easier up for reading in bed (probably volume 2 of 老女的少女ひなたちゃん) alongside it, along with the two WK book clubs.
6 Likes
I’ve been in something of a fickle mood with reading lately, and I think in order to keep my daily reading habit up I’m going to let myself read whatever I want, extensive in-progress books be damned.
And so I started 魔女たちの長い眠り | L30?? which is the sequel (or at least in the same series) as 魔女たちのたそがれ | L28 which I haven’t read, but so far that doesn’t seem to matter. I’m just about 50 pages in and it’s actually a better horror than many books I’ve seen advertised as horror in Japanese 
It’s from my physical TBR, which includes a LOT of 赤川次郎 and I’d like to knock out a decent number of those this year. Thankfully he’s quite easy to read
6 Likes
Yeah, this is basically the mangaka’s style. I’ve read all of 放浪息子, all but the final volume of おとなになっても, and half of 青い花. They are all like that. It definitely makes her manga more difficult than they otherwise would be. 放浪息子 it totally worth reading though. It was the first full manga series I read and is still among my favorites.
8 Likes
I accidentally binge read all of アオのハコ, and think it’s my favorite romance manga I’ve read so far!!
It does both the sports and the romance really well (and sports are not usually my cup of tea), and I plan to reread it at some point!
Finished あの頃の青い星 (series) | L23 as well (at least until the next volume)
Picked up 葬送のフリーレン 1 | L25 and am able to enjoy it more, since I’ve seen the anime. Really makes me appreciate how well the anime brought it to life as well. Frustrated by the amount that I have to look up or double check translation, but what else is new?
60% through 本好きの下剋上 1, and going back and forth btwn enjoying vs it feeling like a chore. I’m considering pausing or dropping it again, and resuming 薬屋のひとりごと 1 | L38 instead. I only have 3時間44分 left… if I could just get myself to sit down & do it (thanks adhd 
)
Otherwise 後宮の烏 | L35 with the book club, and 私がモテないのはどう考えてもお前らが悪い! 1 | L25 & ぼっち・ざ・ろっく 1 | L28 in my JP lessons. Particularly glad that I’m doing わたモテ with a teacher, b/c there’s a lot of slang, euphemisms, and pop culture references that would be totally over my head.
6 Likes
Alright, I am finally done with 私小説 – from left to right!
This time, I decided to write a review directly instead of typing here. (As expected, it felt more stressful though).
Anyway, it is here:
It was hard to give a star rating to the book. Since the content was a bit rough on me (I started with not caring about the problems of the author, but as I grew more familiar with her, it started affecting me as well :/) I wanted to maybe give 3* only, but at the same time, I really enjoyed the writing itself… I went with 4*, but I’m not sure that really reflects how I feel about the book.
14 Likes
Wow, double posting. Not much activity here these days (or the forum in general, I guess) 
Anyway, I finished 東京ヒゴロ 1 | L29, which is another book I got for Christmas and it was really good as well. It’s about an editor from a manga publication company who quits and tries to get people he knows to make an independent manga, free of the constraints of the industry. The main character is pretty amazing (and it’s nice to have one in his age range).
I also tried to read some ログ・ホライズン 1 異世界のはじまり | L33 and I’m really not into it so far 
I picked it randomly because I saw it praised on the forum, but it’s just another “got pulled into an MMO game” type so far. I’ll keep going a bit more (up to page 100) but except if something drastic happens, I’ll probably just drop it.
Instead, I did go ahead with 後宮の烏 (series) | L35 despite my best efforts to resist the temptation (and am now two weeks ahead of the club 
)
10 Likes
I think a lot of us burned out on book clubs towards the end of the year I’m still chugging along at a leisurely pace reading 魔女たちの長い眠り (about halfway done?) so not much to report until I start my next book or return to one of my unfinished ones
7 Likes
Another one in the slightly burned out club here 
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Yet we still keep coming up with books we might want to read together. The difference being that we don’t start them immediately, I guess.
I’ve spent the past week and a half catching up with the 傲慢と善良 club. That was 370 pages, so probably less catching up and more starting from scratch. There’s only one chapter left in the book, and I could easily finish it in another day or two. But then I thought, what was the point of trying to catch up with the club if I was then going to read ahead anyway? It drives me a little crazy that it will take another two weeks to finish the book, but I made myself stop.
And I started 砂の女! It’s still very early, but I’m liking it a lot. I have a ton of lookups, especially compared to 傲慢と善良, but I’m not sure I’m seeing any kind of L45 difficulty. Maybe later on?
10 Likes
I finished かくりよの宿飯 四, which is my favorite in the series so far! Lots of drama, romance, action, cooking, and some backstory revealing, too. It was my first novel of the year, which is exciting. My first manga this year was 花嫁は元男子。, which was cute and informative. I’m thinking I’ll move straight on to かくりよの宿飯 五 since I want to finish the arc.
8 Likes
I finished 天気の子 the other day, then I decided to catch up with the WK Intermediate Club (赤川’s あなたも殺人犯になれる), but I wanted to read something different in between as a “palate cleanser” so I finished the Oe Kenzaburo short story I had started some time ago (which I only paused because of 天気の子). I finished it but still have no idea what the author was trying to tell me… 
which was exactly what I needed as an in-between.
So then I caught up with several weeks of IBC book club in two days, which included 100 pages of 赤川 on the second day And actually I overshot by a week because I wanted to get to 100 
but this will sort itself out on Saturday, so no worries there.
After that I figured that I could do with another Oe Kenzaburo short story, but it was somehow weird and confusing, and so I dropped it for now and switched to another book which I’m planning to use for my “no reviews” bingo card, which means I cannot give away the identity of the book before I finish it but I can say that to my big surprise it’s a murder mystery! I did not see that coming from the title actually. Will keep y’all posted once I’m done with it (it’s pretty short as well, so I hope it won’t take too long!).
10 Likes
Are you saying that you’re worried someone might read it first and review it before you do if you name it? 
I never thought of that side effect of bingo, but it would be a fun(?) extra challenge to try and foil other players’ plans like that
7 Likes
I liked it a lot too! It was a lot of fun to see her keep evading her cell just to randomly bump into 乱丸 (and/or monkey dude? Forgot his name). Plus, some nice developments between 葵 and 大旦那様 some random fishmonger who’s just passing by.
2 Likes
I didn’t add 麦ふみクーツェ | L34?? until I was done with it (and didn’t mention it until adding it so that it could be a “you added to Natively” square) because of that
(And I kept it untouched until January 1st so that I could do the “read in a single day”, although I wasn’t sure I could do it )
8 Likes
I’m very surprised. I don’t think anyone has ever touched books I’ve added to Natively myself. They sit ungraded and unreviewed until I get to them, like so many others. Everyone has their own long 読みたい lists, and few people here read fast enough anyway that they can just swoop in and grab someone else’s planned book on a whim. But I’ll say it again, it might actually be exciting if we all started acting like that all of a sudden
6 Likes
