And I’m done! It was great. Now to wait for the next one 
Here’s a souvenier for y’all. Just another day in the protagonist household:
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I finished 水属性の魔法使い 第二部 西方諸国編3【電子書籍限定書き下ろしSS付き】 | L35?? yesterday and gave it 2*
It started with a fun part for the first 10%, had 75% switching to the point of view of extremely minor characters (that originated in the bonus stories written to top off the published version; the author did warn that they liked those character so much that we will see them again…) on another fricking continent. Literally nobody cares, plus they aren’t particularly fun to read about, they are just average adventurers, so it’s not even fun in an over-the-top way or anything. Then their part thankfully ends and we are back to our normal storyline, which is fun again for the last 15%.
Reading that book was painful… I only pushed through because I saw in the chapter list that the last 15% were coming.
At least, the coast seems clear so far on the next volume.
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Finally finished わすれなぐさ | L37 - and that was a ride! Left a review here. I’m finding I really like this whole 訓話 aspect of Yoshiya’s novels, and all the different social complexities that they incorporate. One the surface, it’s a love triangle / 三角関係 - but the heart of the story is about so many other things (mostly family, and the necessity for children to be able to follow their own path - which is interesting, b/c a message like that seems as much aimed at adults as at young teens). Anyway, I’m glad I finally put the time in & finished it, and I ordered a ton more of Yoshiya’s novels (which weren’t available digitally) that I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of. Can see myself rereading it in a few years.
Side note: the whole 訓話 thing apparently was typical of 少女小説 at the time, although the 1938 乙女の港 | L34 doesn’t really seem to follow that pattern, despite being serialized in the same magazine, and published a mere 6-7 years later
Not sure I’ll manage to finish クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった7.5 | L27 today - since Kindle thinks I have 12 hrs left - but I should at least manage to make a good dent.
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Finally finished 美少女戦士セーラームーン 6 | L24 after procrastinating it for 3 weeks bc the Kaguya Hime story was hella boring. The the payoff of seeing Luna’s beautiful human form, and the sweet ending was nice enough. I love the main story as always, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how Unicorn arc is done. I’ve appreciated the portion of it I’ve watched in Crystal/Eternal so far
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I’m halfway through にゃん! 鈴江三万石江戸屋敷見聞帳 | L35?? now. The basic plot set up is “young woman becomes servant in an Edo daimyo’s mansion, discovers the daimyo’s wife is a cat youkai”. It’s definitely more interested in funny scenes than in having a plot, but I’m enjoying it anyway.
As a change of pace I picked up やがて君になる 佐伯沙弥香について 3 | L31 and read about a third of it last night – I ended up not going to sleep til 1am. I’m never quite sure whether to be irritated at myself for staying up silly late or happy that I found something I really wanted to read in Japanese and that was sufficiently not-a-struggle that I didn’t want to put it down. At least it’s a bank holiday today so I don’t need to go to work 
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A bunch of short stories about a young boy 麦ちゃん, and I guess his first experiences with love and attraction. I discovered it when I was looking up ヰタ・セクスアリス 森鴎外集 | L30?? (which was being compared to わすれなぐさ | L36 in an essay in ユリイカ 2014年12月号 特集=百合文化の現在 | L39 - noting that it may have been an influence). Anyway it’s sweet so far. First story is him having some sort of attraction to an older いとこ who’s briefly staying at their house. She seemed a bit unrealistic, but not exceptionally. I wonder if she’ll stick around in an onee-san role, now that she moved out. 2nd story is titled 初恋, and apparently involves an all boys school becoming co-ed. If had an unexpected twist! There’s poems before each chapter too, which is cool.
Reading with the book club - not into it yet
Somehow I ended up reading another sister yuri 
So far it’s just a 4-koma gag manga - I don’t expect any relationship progression. I like it better than the other non-serious ones I’ve read
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…and finished, less than 24 hours after I started it. Very rare for me to finish a book that fast (in wall clock time; I don’t think it was a big outlier from my usual pages-per-hour pace, I just spent more time reading that I normally do).
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Are these three books a light novel adaption of the complete manga series?
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No, they’re a side story about one of the characters. The first book is about her before the manga series, the second covers the time frame of the manga (but really assumes you’ve read the manga and probably is rather confusing if you don’t know the main story it’s filling in around), and the third is about her at university a couple of years after the end of the manga storyline.
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What did you like about it? I have very mixed feelings about the author’s writing style. I tried reading the first one, but it was back in 2023 when it was too hard for me, and I’ve never quite convinced myself to pick it back up
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I finally got up with the IBC for Silent Witch, and now we’re ready for the final week on Friday. It actually picked up and the last two chapters were pretty good. I probably won’t continue for now though, as it’s pretty high up in effort and overall pretty low reward for me.
Other than that, I’ve been playing 13 Sentinels pretty hard and even being keeping notes for the time travel mystery, so enjoy my conspiracy pin up board courtesy of Obsidian
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I’ll start by saying that I liked book three a lot more than books one and two. In the first two, we pretty much know what’s going to happen given the manga plot, and that (spoilers for the manga ending)it isn’t going to turn out well for Sayaka. I’ve never much liked that kind of “foreordained train to a bad destination” kind of plot. Book three all takes place after the manga so doesn’t have that issue.
The other thing I liked is that the books put you in Sayaka’s head pretty much all the time: they’re a lot bigger on describing what she’s thinking than on describing what’s happening in the outside world. She has an intellectual and analytical way of looking at the world that I have a lot of sympathy with.
They are definitely “harder than you might expect” books – I remember book two in particular as having unexpected and unsignalled narrative jumps, because the text is following Sayaka’s thoughts, not what’s happening in the world around her, and because it’s quite determinedly not showing us the events of the manga. So I can definitely see it being a tricky read, because you can’t fall back on “OK, I understand what the plot point / action happening in this scene is, that’s good enough comprehension”.
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I didn’t care for the first two books, for the same reasons you said. I also wasn’t quite feeling the writing style. I still might read the third book at some point though, since it’s a new story.
I definitely felt this as well. The first two books were far harder than I expected given it’s just an everyday school setting.
By the way, does the book acknowledge/discuss the fact that Sayaka’s new love interest looks eerily similar to Yuu? Not asking for spoilers or details. I just want to know if it comes up.
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ユリイカ
Having tried to read a bit more of ユリイカ 2014年12月号 特集=百合文化の現在 | L39 I think the L39 is a pretty fair assessment (and it stayed there after my gradings as well). Some of it is also just hard to read, cuz I have no clue who most of these authors or books are. It’s the sorta thing I have to be in the mood to kind of sit and study, so I’m putting it to the side for now (despite the 2 remaining articles that talk also about 吉屋信子’s works)
Now I’m down to 15 Now Reading back to 16 cuz I started another damn novel
佐伯さやか - thx for sharing
That’s probly(?) the one I’m most interested in. I don’t mind the “foreordained train to a bad destination” in general tho (I’m more interested in how it gets there)
Hmmm could be good or bad. One of the things I found frustrating with 私の初恋相手がキスしてた | L32 and (to a lesser extent) 人妻教師が教え子の女子高生にドはまりする話 | L31 was that it was hard to tell when we were in inner monologue vs description - which is not a problem I’ve had elsewhere.
Unexpected narrative jumps sounds familiar. I remember the manga well enough that that’s probably fine
That said, I tried reading a page or two of vol 1 (which felt way easier than last time), and a page or so of vol 2, and やっぱり I’m just not in the mood for this author’s style rn in the near future. Maybe next time I feel like rereading やが君 I’ll read these concurrently
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No, I don’t think it comes up (the resemblance may be more in the manga artist’s rendering than in the author’s intention).
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Over at the BL 1970s club. Wow this has some interesting stuff. I definitely like this boys school better than 花寺学院 - maybe bc they’ve never heard of 源氏 and 平氏 
Read 白百合 and 桔梗 in 花物語 上 | L38 . 白百合 I loved! It’s about this girl who had a super intense crush on her music teacher (nothing inappropriate happens), and reading her description of the whole thing was just incredibly 素敵 - especially the end. 桔梗 was short, but a little hard to follow (tho I got the basic plot). It’s one of the only ones I wasn’t so crazy about so far.
Read 百合姫 2025年5月号 | L26?? and most of 百合姫 2025年6月号 | L26?? - nice catching up with series like:
百合姫 series I read these months
- キミが吠えるための歌を、 1 | L24??
- 踊り場にスカートが鳴る | L23
- 崖っぷち令嬢は黒騎士様を惚れさせたい! | L25
- ささやくように恋を唄う | L21
- 無力聖女と無能王女~魔力ゼロで召喚された聖女の異世界救国記~ 1 | L24??
- 私の推しは悪役令嬢。 | L29 - now in its final arc
- 現実世界でも幸せにしてくださいね?: 1【イラスト特典付】 | L26 - actually I’m kinda meh on this one. It was cute at first, but it’s just becoming more and more harem
- サボりなら保健室でどうぞ? | L18
- ぜんぶ壊して地獄で愛して(1) | L24
- 陰キャギャルでもイキがりたい! | L30 - this one I have to be in the mood for, cuz half the time it’s hard!!
- 小春と湊 わたしのパートナーは女の子 | L23
- 夢と恋ではつり合わない
- 彩純ちゃんはレズ風俗に興味があります! | L22 (NSFW)
- カナリアは綺羅星の夢をみる 1 | L26 - this is getting particularly interesting
- 僕らのアイは気持ち悪い: 1【イラスト特典付】 | L24??
- きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい 1 | L23
Also I ran into this amusing column in the 5月 one
Also this 君死ぬ spread is so beautiful:
I like reading the magazine, but I’m not always in the mood for everything (even series I like) - or like the series difficulty jumping anywhere between L21-30, in no particular order.
I finished シスコンお姉ちゃんと気にしない妹 | L21 - it was perfectly enjoyable besides the mom being creepy. Tho volume 3 had almost nothing of consequence. Still, easy 4-koma was a nice change of pace. It’s getting me back in the mood to read more yuri manga, but I need to finish some novels first.
Edit: I finished 麦ちゃんのヰタ・セクスアリス 1 | L24?? and left a review. Holding off on next volume, until I finish another thing or two
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*will not be tempted, will not be tempted, will not get tempted…*
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Not me eyeing あの娘にキスと白百合を 1 | L23 and 合格のための! やさしい三角関係入門 1 | L20 that I just bought earlier 
Anyway I’m starting to get the impression that I like 1970s shoujo (or maybe I’ve just been lucky so far)
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fyi Inori said on social media the manga will continue past the current arc and adapt vol 4-5 of the light novel
edit:
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