One of the bits in Vicarious Language (academic book about “women’s language”) is a conversation with somebody who grew up in a small town in Tohoku, where boys and girls used “ore” or “ora”. (The conversation took place in the early 90s, so she would have been born in the mid 1960s.) When she moved to Tokyo she took the opportunity to completely change her way of speaking and adopt the language patterns that are the “standard way women speak” (かしら, etc).
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You may enjoy this video in English by a Japanese native, it gives a good first idea of how people tend to choose their pronouns. What I found particularily interesting in the case of ぼく, is how even the pitch accent placement (I hope I’m using the correct words here) changes the vibe of the pronoun.
Also, this Wikipedia page has a very interesting set of tables that show statistics of pronouns usage in different contexts and demographics and it shows how varied and personal these choices can be!
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Wow there is a lot more to it than I thought.
Thanks!
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Reading Hell Mode. I got really hooked to the story progression just from the anime. So I decided to start reading the manga. The last series I got this hooked on to was one punch man. I am not used to some of these fantasy vocabs, so its a good reading excercise too.
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I finished volume 3 of https://learnnatively.com/book/8a5621742a/ and immediately went for volume 4 since the (non-romance) plot started moving.
And got really surprised. 
instead of plot, first chapter almost immediately goes into a (somewhat) spicy scene. Most of the surprise comes from the fact that the romance part was kinda stuck in a will-they-won’t-they that seemed like it would go on forever. But I guess it won’t (that’s also why I am not putting all that behind spoiler tags; I almost dropped the series thinking nothing will ever happen).
I found funny how the author seems extremely averse to any explicit description of what is going on, using wording like this instead:
柔らかい場所を何度も撫でられる感覚に力が奪われていく。
（あ、う……っ）
Ah yes, a “soft place”, must be her earlobes. It does feel good indeed.
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I’ve started reading 本当はこわい話 かくされた真実、君は気づける? | L25 ! I saw someone else reading it, checked it out, and it seemed like it’d be a nice level and indeed it is! The format really is nice for learners, with the short stories being followed by explanations of the story, reusing some of the vocab.
Although I am now realizing that while this is my second non manga in Japanese, it again just so happens to be a collection of supposedly horror short stories for children . No idea how that happened but I guess such is my fate, maybe I should just pick up a Goosebumps volume in Japanese afterwards, I haven’t read any of them in over ten years.
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お母さんオンライン vol 7 it is. For some reason reading more than one volume of this in a row isn’t as exhausting as reading several volumes of 青ブタ in a row. (Maybe because it doesn’t have this anime dating logic that makes me cringe so hard, that 青ブタ constantly dialed up to 11)
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Dropped スキュラ&カリュブディス―死の口吻― 1/3 of the way in: I just wasn’t enjoying it even after I started taking notes on the names to make things easier on me. Maybe I’ll get back to it eventually, maybe not.
Started みんな蛍を殺したかった and enjoying it so far, although I’m curious why the score here is so low, it makes me suspect the ending will be stupid, but we’ll see. I also seem to have wishlisted a lot of this authors works not realizing it’s the same author, so hopefully I’ll like this one.
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I’m currently reading Tales of Crestoria manga. It’s pretty action packed so far (almost done with Volume 2) but there are some SA trigger warnings for the series (hinted at in volume 1 but apparently it is more in at least one of the later volumes).
I like the art style and the story has been pretty decent I feel. It is based on a previous “Tales of” Mobile game by the same name that wasn’t continued by Bandai Namco due to technical issues with game play, rather than people not liking the story. Getting through this pretty quickly so will probably end up finishing the others by the end of the week. There are only 6 volumes available that cover the full story.
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Man, it has been a hot minute since I last posted here. This forum (and community) have grown so much in such a short time, it makes me glad to see increasing enthusiasm for Japanese stories. 
I’ve been reading 3 books at the same time like a dork, but the one I’m currently whipping through is ビバリウム: Adoと私. Even outside of Ado fans, the book is… surprisingly easy to understand? I can tell her younger fans can enjoy it too, it would make for an excellent first book to read in Japanese that is an actual novel.
I’ve also been reading 雨上がり、君が映す空はきっと美しい. Excellent for anyone wanting a good self-esteem boost read. lol
And 琥珀の夏. All of these are absolutely worth it, although this one can be pretty slower paced.
Going to read through as many of these posts as I can and try to post more here to stay on top of reading Japanese. 
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Today I’ve been reading Golden Gash. I’m up to volume 5 so far, and I’m loving it! Slowly getting these volumes for my collection so it’ll be slow going but a lot of fun. There’s a part where they’re trying to summon a UFO by chanting “Abduction” in katakana, it’s brilliant.
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Finished みんな蛍を殺したかった | L30 , I understand the low ratings, the last third felt increasingly silly and also mean spirited. But it was still an entertaining and fast read, I’d probably try out more from the author.
Started 夢の国から目覚めても | L36 which I assumed would be historical or fantasy but it actually is about a yuri doujin circle, and according to the reviews focuses on what drives people to create yuri. Which is not irrelevant to my interests, but not what I expected at all. What I get by judging from the cover, I guess. Also not sure why its difficulty is rated so high…
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I read the last volume of 恋した人は、妹の代わりに死んでくれと言った。8―妹と結婚した片思い相手がなぜ今さら私のもとに?と思ったら― | L32 and thought it was pretty good. The series is slow as usual (mostly because the most characters get stunned whenever something happen and takes a full page to recover; come on, move), but the setting is fun and world building is decent.
That last volume finishes on a cliffhanger, so I checked to see if it was a なろう series, got briefly exited to find out it was… and immediately disappointed by the fact the author erased the free version. Checking their page, that author has been doing that with literally all series/books they got published, which feels dumb (well, annoying at least). I know that it’s not a problem with the publisher, since it’s Tobooks (the same as 本好き) and 本好き is still online (and so are the short stories, the spin off, etc).
Extra annoying is the fact that this volume just came out, and they are coming out at the pace of one per year… Bah.
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I started reading コンビニたそがれ堂 | L26?? today. It’s a short story collection and I’ve only read the first story so far but it was really good and was quite touching. Judging from the title the magical store featured in the first story is what ties all the short stories together. The gist of the first story is someone made treated a friend cruelly out of shame, regretted it and the store allowed him to fix it retroactively.
I’m reading it for my ‘going in blind’ slot for the bingo. The language is quite simple, though not being a light novel still quite different from what I’m used to which is a nice combination. The first story was ~20 pages.
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I am 40% through https://learnnatively.com/book/5af12b0bd5/ and it’s been frustrating so far. My two main problems so far are related to the main character.
- She completely disregards (or goes around) consent. When the other main character learns that she is a lesbian, she is not exactly comfortable with it (which I would say feels realistic). Main character still finds a way to trick her into sleeping in her bed and hug her there. That’s really weird. There’s more like that, but that one was a big one for me.
- Main character is supposedly some kind of mad scientist, but is completely ignoring the scientific method. Most of chapter 3 so far is completely nonsensical. Honestly, she sounds like a flat-earther or something.
It’s an easy read, so I’ll finish volume 1, but it would take some serious changes to get me to read past that.
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I did start 夢見る水の王国 上 カドカワ銀のさじ | L26?? and suspect it might be a really good book, but also is something I’m in no mood for.
So, started https://learnnatively.com/book/2ac2384b02/ - which I have a lot of problems with, but is also the right balance of not being complete slop while also being incredibly basic and straightforward. But to complain a bit - it’s a lot like 本好き so far, both stylistically and in terms of what the story is actually about: We have an isekaied person growing up again as a child and excelling due to their adult knowledge. The prose is utilitarian and dull without being bad, but goes on and on and on about stuff that is really doesn’t warrant that much detail. And they even both go on and invent/patent paper because apparently that’s just what you do when you get isekaied to a medievalish world.
So, very similar to 本好き in a lot of ways - especially the plodding webnovel pacing which annoys me to no end. But unfortunately, it lacks the charm of 本好き. マイン has a lot of character while ユーリ is the emotionally distant, serious-man type. It doesn’t have the worldbuilding depth or quirks to the setting either. Both are power fantasies at the end of the day, but マイン starts in a vulnerable position while ユーリ is the oldest son of a powerful noble household and roommate to the heir to the throne.
The complete lack of conquering so far is also bothering me. Like, it’s pretty clear where this is ultimately going - why can’t we get on with telling that story? I don’t mind a slow pace, but so much of this just feels irrelevant - I could tell you everything that happened in the previous book and this one so far 100 pages in and I wouldn’t consider any of it a spoiler.
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Both of those have been problems for me too. I paused the book a few weeks ago to read something else because chapter 3 was boring and goes on too long. I hadn’t considered the scientific method thing, but now that you mention it I do agree that a lot of her claims are just on feeling and lack any proof.
Similarly I plan to finish volume one, but I’m unlikely to keep reading. Which is annoying since I already own several volumes and I’d hoped to make this my next series. Guess I’ll need to keep looking.
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Yeah I am not thrilled with the author’s model of consent in general in this series. Tho I don’t remember it being an issue in vol 2-3. I stopped after vol 4 cuz I got upset about consent and relationship dynamics - particularly in the final section. It’s nice to see y’all mention this too.
While I was less bothered by this (the audiobook probably helped), I think that chapter is the last time it’s anything like that. Books 3-4 have some enjoyable inventing going on iirc - but it’s much nicer there, as it’s collaborative, part of an ongoing plot, and not trying to do a bunch of setup. Personally I don’t really care much about scientific realism in fantasy, but I think that’s a fair critique.
As an aside, I’ve been considering picking up 本好き 2 or watching the anime one of these months… Then again maybe I should pick 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.17 いつか戦いの日にさらばと告げよう | L32 back up first… I should probly finish my ソードアート・オンライン プログレッシブ | L35 reread first though… 
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I’ve been catching up reading with D-Frag now that I found out that the hiatus was over and I had almost 10 new volumes to get.
Up to Vol 9, sometimes the ツッコミ and some of the games are a bit hard to follow, but I’m not as lost as the first time I tried the series.
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3 weeks later… I finally finished https://learnnatively.com/book/69980ca8b6/ - it was every bit as excellent as I remember, and I even managed to start listening at 1x speed by the end!
The latest main series volume just came out! I’m 27% in, and so far the Underworld portion is more interesting than the Unital Ring portion … And it’s still basically at setup… The UR portion has largely been “let me remind you who every character and animal in the setting is”, whereas the Underworld portion featured a prisoner/captive scene.
In any case, it’s off to a better start than vol 28, but… I’m starting to get tired of having such a huge cast and split plot. I think I’d enjoy that more in anime form. The language is a nice challenge tho… Idk if his style has evolved a bit, or if I’m just noticing new things, but it’s felt a bit more expressive, in choice of phrasing, than I remember. It’s making me wanna read more stuff on this level. Tho honestly I would love to read something shorter… Not that 230 pgs is long.
Pretty decent so far
series thoughts
たゆたう恋の散り際に - I continue to enjoy. The character pushing them was fun
ささやくように恋を唄う - Aki x Shiho サービス!! Also that scene with Miki awkwardly answering the door to Shiho, and then being like “yeah I’m going for a walk now…” was gold
誰かオオカミさんのしつけ方知り - I don’t read this
ませんか!? 骨に願いを、星に呪いを 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~ - continues to be fine
私の百合はお仕事です! Loved this chapter. Mitsuki’s dad! And Hime is clearly slowly catching some sorta feelings for Mitsuki… Tho I’m still hoping she’ll be aro in the end
大室家 don’t read
ゆるゆり ひなちゃんが生きてるなら don’t read
今日はカノジョがいないから Seriously this storyline is so £√¥¢^£ annoying. Just go back to the main couple and volleyball girl already
キミが吠えるための歌を、 tbr
僕らのアイは気持ち悪い 《完結》 - decent ending. While I often want more chapters, I think this was a good stopping point for the series
私の推しは悪役令策。continues to be great
マユノウタ 陰キャギャルでもイキがりたい!
ようこそこちらの世界へ
ぜんぶ壊して地獄で愛して 現実世界でも幸せにしてください - it’s been improving. This was a pretty interesting chapter… The main couples’ decision around Mine and Isanuma is intriguing… Nobody is a hero, nor trying to be
Also just came out, and the cover suggests graduation (and inner pics confirm)… I checked the あとがき, and next volume will be the final one. Based on the chapter titles, this book ends with graduation. I just hope it’s better than last book
Was fairly enjoyable, despite my conflicted feelings on the genre. Looking forward to volume 2. 4 panels per page (instead of 8) makes for a surprisingly fast read… Tho I guess some of it is just the easy reading level
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