Oof, sorry you read that one. It was… Not enjoyable in the slightest. I agree 41 fits it better but I think I maybe was grading it up from the default 30 and I couldn’t push it any higher because I hadn’t read anything in the 40s yet.
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I also got the Read Real Japanese book (easier to get here than the actual story collection, unfortunately) and read the 百物語 story. It was a cool story, and perfect for a spooky October read. The book’s introduction repeats what the blog says, that “it illustrates beautifully what a good writer can do with a language that doesn’t require that the subject of a sentence be explicitly stated” , but in fact I found the subject to be explicitly stated throughout, more clearly than in other Japanese writing I’ve read, even. The story can be translated straight into English without having to work around the supposedly missing sentence subject. I really don’t understand what they meant - the twist was due to the way the story was constructed, not in the way it was phrased.
In any case, I don’t regret reading the story at all, and I’m very interested in reading more from the author. Why oh why is there no digital version available for so many books I want to read?
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So I’ve currently got two books on the go - a thriller which seems like a bit of a slow burn, as I mentioned higher up the thread MIST | L40?? (learnnatively.com) . I think the rating of 40 is off, I will probably revise it down to somewhere in the low 30s when I have finished it!
As I wasn’t completely into MIST, I’ve decided to pair up reading it with a collection of short stories that all contain a trick in the narration; if you solve the trick, you can work out the mystery for each story! 叙述トリック短編集 | L30?? (learnnatively.com) So far I have only read one, there were a few bits I didn’t find entirely smooth sailing to understand but it’s a fun story and the author certainly has a sense of humour. The mysteries range from murder to a blocked toilet 
Anyway my trick for getting into the thriller is reading a short story from the narrative trick book (they each seem to be about 50 pages) and then reading up to the equivalent page in MIST. It’s helping me get more into it as I’m motivated to plough ahead and then get back to the mysteries 
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I just finished reading 僕が愛したすべての君へ | L30. Only took me about a week (fast pace for me), and I enjoyed it a lot! It has a really interesting premise, with a pretty good execution. Premise for those interested: It’s discovered that there are parallel worlds, and as a matter of daily life, people briefly switch over to other timelines without even realizing. It follows the MC through his lifetime, as this knowledge and discoveries related to it progress. In fact, this book is actually one of two, where in this book the MC lives with his mom after his parents get divorced, but in the other book he goes with his dad. Such an early divergence must result in drastic changes in the direction of his life, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s similar and what’s different between the two books.
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I finished RDG3 レッドデータガール 夏休みの過ごしかた | L34 yesterday, and I can say I really enjoy the story so far. As I have been told, the overarching plot is pretty slow, mostly because the main character knows nothing and people who know either refuse to answer, say they’ll answer later™, or tell her to ask someone that she can never meet due to plot convenience.
We still got some insights about what the school is about and the pairing system. Based on everything we have been told so far, it’s obvious that 泉水子 is supposed to be the main and 深行 is the partner… but since she stands out so little (and he is suspiciously good at everything else than spiritual stuff) it’s hilarious that everyone is thinking the opposite. It’s funny to see people trying to assess 深行’s strength, and being confused by the negative result. Conversely, people even took 泉水子 for a 式神 at first rather than a real human.
On a slightly unrelated note, when I was adding the book on Bookmeter, I realized there’s a light novel version of it (and of the whole series, for that matter). Based on the preview, the content seems to be exactly the same, but with illustrations.
I’ve been counting this series towards my yearly goal of “non-light novels” books, but now I wonder. In terms of writing quality, I think it’s fair, but then maybe I could also count things like わたしの幸せな結婚 (series) | L31. After all, it’s even counted as a novel on Natively 
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That actually popped up with another book someone mentioned on the forums recently, Another (series) | L31. The older versions are classed as 小説 but the newer versions have some artwork and are classed as LN, but the actual contents seem the same 
I say count it, LN is such a wibbly wobbly category anyways. I put books on my ラノベ bookmeter shelf that aren’t technically classed as LN but which feel like LNs to me 
Also I though わたしの幸せな結婚 was “ライト芸” or something fancy the publisher came up with, no? 
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ライト文芸, yes. It’s not the publisher, though, it’s an actual category for novels. You can see from the list on wikipedia that pretty much every publisher has at least one label.
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If it helps, both of those kanji have pretty strong phonetic components. The top half of 慈 is always じ (see 磁 and 滋) and the top half of 悲 is often (but not always) ひ (see 緋 and 扉).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I checked, but I don’t have anything bookmarked. The topic for the WaniKani userscript does list some sources though, so maybe check those out.
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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
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Correct
Correct
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.
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The Kodanshas kanji learns course has lists of kanji that have a strong sound association, marked by percentage of exceptions.
I believe the second (or so) of the Remember the kanji books by Heisig is about that topic.
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Finished up 十画館の殺人 and decided to pick up 偏差値10の俺がい世界で知恵の勇者になれたワケ which so far feels like an easier 異世界
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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.
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Finished 邪神ちゃんドロップキック(3) | L18 and continued reading 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ 6 おりがみ地図・空想の出口他 | L24 after a long hiatus.
I’ll try to finish the later tomorrow, only last chapter remains but it’s kinda a long one.
The 邪神ちゃんドロップキック manga are quick reads, I’m really liking them and are good for when you don’t want to sink into LNs because time constraints.
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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.
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