Ohhhhh I saw that in my Suruga-ya bookmarks earlier, and was like ??? What is this? So thx for mentioning it lol
Good to hear your impressions. Maybe I’ll order it this or next month… Tho tbh I wanna get through more of my tbr pile first. Idk
It actually grabbed me from the description + miko cover. Curious to hear how it is!
There’s a sub-sub genre that showed up around the late 90s/early 00s where lots of manga/LNs had slice-of-life or school romance as ostensibly the main thing, but slowly ramped up an apocalyptic war, aliens, or some violent supernatural thing in the background. I wish I had a good name for it, but stuff like なるたる | L24?? , イリヤの空、UFOの夏 | L34 , 最終兵器彼女 | L26?? , and リバーズ・エンド (電撃文庫 は 2-9) | L27 . Or, say, ひぐらしがなく頃に, which is probably better known.
Aaah, that does sound familiar! I think I’m more familiar with VN entries in that genre, which is why it didn’t immediately click for me. Interesting that it was also present in books… 
Any particular reads you think did it well?
I like all the ones I linked, but would probably go リバーズ・エンド for a casual recommendation - gets the full experience into one book. イリヤの空、UFOの夏 is a classic, but the pacing is very slow.
It looks like there might be sequels? Are they necessary reading?
So long as you’re fine with absolutely nothing being explained (which personally I think is part of the charm - whenever these stories go and explain the background awfulness too much it loses something), the first book stands alone and has a conclusive ending. I haven’t read the sequels though
Oh my. I’m currently reading 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ 4 ひとつでふたつの飲み薬・文字起こしマーカー他 | L23 (my “once a year as soon as I have forgotten that the previous volume was a bit disappointing” series, apparently) and… I think it might contain the series’ first actually creepy story instead of a just a dark twist at the end? I’m delighted.
It’s a christmas very late halloween miracle!
Realising (I think) it’s been a while since I last updated!
I’ve read
パイナツプリン | L29 ,
A few nice essays, a few which didn’t resonate with me.
Murakami’s first novel https://learnnatively.com/book/5e72c049b6/
Enjoyed a lot! Lots of drinking and vibes.
and I just finished
which was very nice too, and very helpful reading along with the wanikani book club, so I could get some of the context to the stories they were based upon.
Finally finished 羽生善治のこれから始める人の将棋~強くなるための覚え方と練習問題 | L26??
It took me nearly a month to work through all the Shogi problems in the book (100 exactly, plus 2 practice exercises per chapter). Mostly, what took the most time was trying to figure out what I got wrong. The solution of a problem would say “The correct move is XYZ, it is tempting to do ABC, but then this or that would happen”, meanwhile I picked neither of those moves. Luckily in one case I found someone asking about a similar problem and asking why the move I picked was wrong. There was one person who replied that the shape was weak, so you would be open to attacks from the side.
And like, sure, but the problem shows the rest of the board as blank, so it’s hard to imagine what could go wrong.
Anyway. I now know much more about Shogi (from a theoretical standpoint at least). I can finally understand some of the scenes from ハチワンダイバー 1 | L26 (a manga I randomly read something like 7 years ago? Better late than never)
I‘ve just finished 美しい村 | L41, which left me a bit confused.
The first half has no real target for what happens in the book. As I understood, the author aimed for a written version of what is called a fugue in music. The lead is on vacation in some mountain village, where he already has been before, to write the novel the reader is currently reading, and to better his health.
For the latter he starts out on some walks into the surroundings of the village, and essentially repeats the same four ways (-> the parts of the fugue, I guess). There he encounters several things, like flowering bushes, water, kids running around, something falling on his head, etc. but on every way or each time he walks the same way, things happen with slight variations. This is an interesting endeavour in itself, but also actually leads nowhere.
In the second half the lead meets a girl and becomes exclusively concerned with her, showing her around (thus walking the ways again), watching her from afar while she is painting, always wanting to be together with her, but not wanting to be seen with her, all in all a slightly weird and complicated behaviour.
The book is not as difficult as I thought. E.g. my 8.1 look-ups per page for vocab and grammar were not more than I had for コップクラフト 3 | L35, that I read mid of this year. But I only read like 11 pages per day, which is a definite minimum for non-manga books in this year. The difficulty lies in long winded sentences of 10+ lines, which came up everywhere, sometimes including memories of how it was when he was there the last time, and you have to notice the moment, when he talks about the present again. I got used to them with time and later reading got easier, but nonetheless.
That’d be a good review to leave for such an interesting book.
Done.
Btw: The author‘s more famous 風立ちぬ | L41 is kind of a sequel to this book, as it has common figures and setting. Therefore they are sometimes published together, I guess.
I got new physical books last week and got tempted on starting one. To not start with the bookclub book I started with
and I really enjoy this one so far 
Today I read through the first 20ish pages of Pinball 1973
After wondering why the narrator was thinking about “middle school kids in Moscow mopping (???) the statues of the reindeers that helped Trotsky escape a labour camp” while his college crush was casually chitchatting with him, I started to question my reading skills and my sanity
After reading through the rant about the invention of the pinball machine being compared to Adolf H., I now see why this novel was never translated and Murakami decided to disown it.
I’m just gonna pretend the book starts at page 24 and hope for the best
Really loved this, and the only reason I’m not caught up to the latest chapter is bc it releases on Twitter, and there’s just no good way to catch up in JP afaik. But this story feels very idk down to earth? familiar? Or something to me, in a way that’s different from other yuri. Also the green just adds so much vibrancy to it. I can’t wait for volume 4 - both in general , and bc there’s something specific I’m looking forward to (that the Internet long ago spoiled for me)
Has come up a bit recently, so I decided to finally give it a read. It reminds me a lot of ボクガール 1 | L23 - but less ecchi (also no SA so far), more “by the numbers” in terms of gags and archetypes. For all my numerous issues with ボクガール, I found that series much more fun and interesting. In かしましs defense, it’s from 2004-7, while ボクガール is from 2013, and seems like it was probly partially drawing from かしまし - tho that is pure speculation on my part.
I do like that it doesn’t take itself so seriously (while also not being so over the top), and I find the characters enjoyable enough. That said, the continued presence of the aliens in the main story is really disruptive, and doesn’t add anything of value, imo. Overall I enjoy it well enough both as a yuri and a trans story - tho it’s rather simplistic on both fronts (some people might quibble with either of those labels. That’s how I view/relate to it). I’m not in any rush to read volume 2, but I’ll probably get to it eventually… There is the anime too, tho apparently that has an alternate ending?
One of my 2025 goals was to finish this. So I’m at least trying, though my interest isn’t super piqued rn, cuz I’m in more of a manga and anime mood lately, and I already know the plot from the anime. Also the archaic language is kinda annoying me rn - but in like an “I’m lazy, don’t make me think” sorta way 
Football yuri - let’s go!! Vol 1 is on sale on Amazon & Bookwalker for 88円, and I’ve been meaning to read it for months. So no time like the present.
Still gotta finish the old lady yuri
Thanks for mentioning it! Snagging the first volume with BW coins 
I finished it, and I’d say it’s ok, but not really grabbing me strongly yet. To be fair it did a lot of setup in a short time - main leads’ backstory, 2 leads’ relationship, soccer team, etc.
I’ll probably read volume 2 in the nearish future, just cuz I’m hungry for yuri that have something original to them these days
Thanks to @ditto20 for mentioning in the promo thread
After all these years, I finally got around to read this book. My original reason for grabbing it is that it was heavily discounted sometime after @Drinos’ post and I thought “it can’t be that bad”.
Well, it is my honor and, truly, privilege to let you all know that it isn’t that bad. It is worse. Not only does everything @Drinos said hold true, but on top of that the setting makes no sense either. The main character has to go in a restricted area to meet the love (?) interest, but manages to do so by just saying “yeah I know that guy inside” (in complete violation with the whole concept of restricting an area; plus it’s just regular labs apparently, so the restriction itself is overkill); the “rival” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever (she is a career woman with literally everything she wants but somehow feels like she has to compete with a middle-schooler-looking girl for a random dude? We aren’t even given a credible reason why she loves that guy; also she is said to “act like a lover” with him, but what that
refers to is tidying up his lab and making him a bento, sounds more like a mother than a lover, but I’d rather not go further into guessing stuff about the author) and on top of all that the middle section is riddled with typos and grammatical errors. Found the part they didn’t have time to proofread, I guess.
Anyway, it’s not even wish fulfillment since I don’t see anyone wishing to be the main character and the love interest it nothing special.
Still 0 adds on bookmeter by the way. Edit: well, 1 with me.
As I updated in Bingo, I’ve read
I read 三毛猫ホームズの登山列車 | L30 over Christmas - which was a fun, tangentially festive, read.
And previous to that I read 日本語からの祝福、日本語への祝福 | L34 - very briefly a memoir on learning Japanese - which was super interesting! I will write a proper review on the book’s natively now.
And I’ve started 国境の南、太陽の西 | L29 - which so far is a little too much horny teenage boy vibes, but is maybe getting a bit more interesting as it goes on
I started reading サイレント・ウィッチ II 沈黙の魔女の隠しごと | L30
It’s the second volume. I intend to read a lot of Silent Witch this year, aiming for at least volume 2 through 6. It’s about the maximum level of difficulty I can handle so I’m sure it will improve my Japanese greatly.
And, judging from the first book and reviews on the internet, it’s a very good series as well 
