Yes, I think there is still a niche there I need to figure out, a level gap between “can read Yotsuba” and “ready for a first book”. But there’s probably an easier children’s book somewhere. Going to check in at the local Jpn foundation library and see.
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ながいながいペンギンの話 | L22 it’s a full length book but perfect for people in the N4 bridging to N3 range IMO. Lots of repetition and while there is some niche vocab (it’s about penguins after all) I remember some of it being easy to guess given the pictures.
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And I finished both yesterday.
In the end 化物語 (上) was okay, but there’s not much progression. I guess it keeps an episodic nature for the rest of the book (and series?). If so, I will just stop here.
推し、燃ゆ was interesting. While it gave me some コンビニ人間 vibes, I couldn’t relate to the main character in this story. I really liked the writing, though. I can get why it got a prize.
Thanks to 推し、燃ゆ being so short, I still had a bit of time before bed, so I also tried to read a bit of 後宮妃の管理人 3, but it feels kinda boring so far. I feel like the author had a good idea in volume 1, but, since then, things have been going downhill. Well, it’s part of my backlog, so I should eventually read it…
Anyway, I’ll go with
instead.
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My general thing is a lot (A LOT) of children’s books omit kanji which ironically makes things much more difficult for me to read. But I think I’m reaching the point where I can just power through it because I know more words generally.
It’s a really annoying quirk of the Japanese language that all the kid-focused stuff is a massive PITA to read for me because of the way that native speakers learn the language (which obviously works for them much better than the way I personally learned it).
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Yeah kanji is a balancing act. I feel like for me it went something like this:
Oh god, kanji. I can’t read that → Oh god, no kanji, I can’t read that → Kanji neutrality
Or well, close to neutrality. Kids books don’t phase me but if you gave me a whole novel with no kanji I’d be grumpy. 
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If that’s not a glowing book club recommendation, I don’t know what is. 
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Keep us updated on that! It’s on my wishlist 
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I have four manga I’m working on currently:
Just finished よつばと！４ Today. Yotsuba’s newspaper 
ラーメン赤猫 1 I found randomly in Kinokuniya and I love it! About halfway through. The tiger’s my favorite
Finally, barely touched ヲタクに愛は難しい1 and ホリミヤ1, but they’re in the works of being read. I’m probably going to focus on ヲタク because it’s just so cute that I ended up buying the first four and the art book, but the lack of ふりがな makes it harder to read through. Still, I will do it
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Oh crap, I totally could just try and read Wotokoi in Japanese huh? I bet the hardest bit would be the nerd references…
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Have been listening to 君の膵臓をたべたい | L30
I saw the movie quite some time ago and just now realized it’s basically a manic pixie dream girl story and I wonder if the male MC is on the autism spectrum. 
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How’s the artbook? I have all the eng vols but I doubt that will make the jump.
It’s adorable and I love it. I kept seeing it every time I went to Kinokuniya and finally jumped on buying it. It’s a nice keepsake
I read the first chapter and feels like someone mashed ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 (series) | L30 (for the bookstore and the fact that we deal with a book related problem; plus the dynamic between the main character and 亜門, the nice gentleman on the cover) and コーヒーが冷めないうちに | L29 (for the coffee shop and supernatural element; you learn about that supernatural stuff in the first couple pages in both cases, so I don’t think it counts as spoiler).
In unrelated news, コーヒーが冷めないうちに | L29 isn’t marked as read for me anymore. I don’t understand why. Did I just forget to mark it read at the time? I’m pretty sure I did though… I thought I graded it too, but can’t see anything anymore.
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No, I just added both of those after posting. I set the date based on my bookmeter records.
Giving ぼっち・ざ・ろっく! 1 | L28 a try since my physicals came in but progress is slow going… like, 30-min one chapter slow. It might be too far above my level right now… (funnily enough I don’t actually feel like it’s that crazy, probably because I watched the anime, but then when I look at the clock it’s definitely taking me way longer than most other manga). Will poke at it through the week and maybe shelve it for later…
I wonder if New Game! or any of the other Kirara 4komas are as difficult…?
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You may want to take a look at my list since I’ve read a lot of 4-koma Kirara series. Many are easier than Bocchi the Rock.
Since you brought up New Game specifically, I think that one is far easier than Bocchi the Rock. すわっぷ⇔すわっぷ 1 | L22 is also among the easiest Kirara series I’ve read if you don’t mind a body swapping yuri theme.
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This month I’ve been doing sort of a ‘green’ challenge where I only read things from my backlog that are in the green difficulty range here on LN, and just finished the main (1-5 numbered) part of the 天久鷹央の推理カルテ (series) | L35 series last night.
Moving on today to continue with 俺ガイル７ (been listening to the audiobooks for these mostly this month) and 月とライカと吸血姫 6 on the reading side.
Another note on their comics: many of them just have way more text than your average non 4-koma comic. So taking longer against the clock is definitely expected. I haven’t read ぼっち・ざ・ろっく yet to tell you whether that’s the case there… but まちカドまぞく has literally more text per page on average than a few of my LNs hah
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まちカドまぞく is by far the hardest Kirara manga I’ve read. Very dense and also some archaic Japanese thrown in for good measure.
Here are some others that I think are more difficult than the average Kirara 4-koma series:
- うらら迷路帖 - the 占い stuff doesn’t appear that often but when it’s in there it includes very archaic Japanese.
- 紡ぐ乙女と大正の月 - Takes place in the Taishou era. The spoken language is generally still fine, but sometimes it goes into historical and political things for plot reasons that can be pretty hard to understand.
- ぼっちざろっく - Honestly not sure why this one is harder than average, but I definitely felt it.
- ブレンド・S - Generally not that hard, but since all the main characters are otaku they can occasional use incredibly slangy language.
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