I ended up just pushing through and finishing 世界から猫が消えたなら | L27 so I could just be done with it Now I have to figure out which book I want to read digitally next. I like to have both a physical book and a digital one going so I can choose between easy dictionary lookups and freedom from a screen.
I’m a big fan of 逃げるは恥だが役に立つ 1 | L29?? (although I actually enjoyed the drama better than the manga overall) and was excited to see that 海野つなみ has a new manga starting! I stumbled upon it yesterday while scouring the web for volumes 10 and 11 of 逃げ恥 (no luck I bought volumes 1-9 as a set before the last 2 volumes came out) and realized Volume 1 had just been released for sale that day. I feel like a real fan now
I finished the free sample, and it seems intriguing so far. Kind of a similar start to 逃げ恥 in that the main character is jobless and suddenly loses a place to live. It seems like fortune-telling will be important to the story, and I’m curious to see how that unfolds.
So, meanwhile I finished 狼と香辛料 1 and two (far) easier ones. 狼と香辛料 1 needed far too many look-ups per page (about 10-13) to be comfortable, but as I liked the story, I managed to finish it with the help of JPDB. That’s of course a crutch, which I actually hated to use, but without it reading time would probably even be two times its actual value of almost 7 weeks. Nonetheless, I will for sure come back to that series sooner or later.
The other books were: おおかみこどもの雨 with 5.9 look-ups per page, and 泣きたい私は猫をか with just 4.0 look-ups per page.
So I came to think about how this relates to books I read earlier. How to gauge progress? Two years ago I read e.g. 魔女の宅急便 1, then at 5.5 look-ups per page. Where would I come out today with that book? So I decided: well, let’s try with part 2 of the series 魔女の宅急便 2, as it very probably has the same difficulty as part 1 and see how it will work out. And maybe I read part 3 in another two years to see again…
I’m dipping my feet in a bunch of different things right now. I finished (and am rereading) 五等分の花嫁, and still working on SAO 27 (53% done). Otherwise I’m trying out:
おいでませ、こくりさん - not the most interesting, but it’s “fully voiced” and very low reading level
Trinity Trigger - a surprisingly fun JRPG. Language difficulty is just right for me.
There's a few firsts for me:
No translation: I’m reading 本好き、 はなにあらし、 ささやくように恋を唄う*、 こくりさん, and both games completely without translation. Almost everything else I’ve read until now has been “read, double check translation, reread/continue reading”. This is the first time I’m reading brand new things without any reference. I feel confident in about 85-90% of my comprehension here, and the parts I don’t fully get aren’t an impediment to the overall story.
Audiobook: I’m reading 本好き along to the audio book. I think I’m settling in the following flow: read with audio, read without audio (look everything up), reread with audio. It’s a substantially longer process than just reading, but it’s more fun, and I think probly has more gains, since it reinforces 読み方 and 読解 (kanji readings and listening comprehension). Having audio is helpful, since the narrator has split the phrases for you.
Paperback: I’m reading 本好き, ささやくように 7 , and五等分 in paperback. (I’ve only ever read a few pages of 暁のヨナ and ささやくように 1 in physical form before). With 本好き I’m alternating, bc lookups from a paper book are 面倒臭い. I listen with paper book, then read with digital. Comparing physical to digital:
本好き it’s nice having the extra space between lines. Reduced contrast makes it challenging though
ささやくように paper works fine, I don’t have a lot of lookups there.
五等分 nice seeing the colored version in print. Very little whitespace between the inner edge of the page and the panels. This requires opening the book more widely, which I don’t like doing bc it wears the book more quickly
In general the tactile element and lack of screen time with books is nice, but having to worry about things like lighting, keeping them nice, finding a convenient position, etc - along with the off-white background page color - leave me preferring digital
Reading speed: I’m tracking reading speed. This is pretty interesting, and at first it was making me rush a bit. One place where this becomes iffy though is whether I’m tracking digital vs physical edition. With digital there are more pages (and less text per page), meaning my pages per minute count would be higher. I’m not putting too much stock into reading speed though, and I can sort of “feel” how I’m doing. I definitely read way faster than I used to (but still not fast). With 本好き having the audio book is a nice benchmark to compare to.
Also some surprises:
佐伯沙弥香について: I’m finding it really hard. I feel like I’m getting about 60% comprehension here. I think part of the problem is that I don’t feel interested in the characters or setting yet. But also the wiring style is just hard for me. I’ve decided to drop it for now, given everything else I’m reading, plus the upcoming コップクラフト reading club.
本好き: I’m finding 本好き really easy. I have a decent amount of lookups (75% familiar words, and 25% new), but the sentences are really easy to understand. It’s the first LN that I can just read it comfortably. That’s really nice.
SAO キス・アンド・フライ feels easier than expected. When I tried SAO Girls Ops a few months back, it felt too hard - and I think still would. Kiss and Fly has simpler dialogue, less fantasy MMO vocab, and better fonts & contrast.
Getting back I to stories: It’s been 4-5 months since I read the previous volumes of はなにあらし and ささやく. It’s been challenging to remember the story and characters. I need to look up the character names for ささやく, bc they’re not giving 振り仮名 at this point.
I recommend 本好き if you’re look for an easier fantasy LN to check out
I agree. I think there’s something about Sayaka’s thought process that can be difficult to follow, and as you said the writing style can be difficult at times. I wouldn’t say the book is hard, but I think its Natively level is misleadingly low.
Mmm, it definitely took me a while to get going with it. I’m not sure the structure the author chose does it any favours in the “drawing the reader in” stakes…
To put it more harshly:
Book 1 is 200 pages of backstory that adds little beyond what the manga details in a handful of chapters.
Book 2 is another 200 pages that adds even less of value than book 1 did.
Umm, probably? I’m not a huge fan of Sayaka to begin with (even from the manga) and the first two books certainly didn’t improve my opinion of her. But the books are all short and at least the third one is actually new content. So there’s a pretty good chance I’ll read it sometime in the next 6-12 months.
I just finished キノの旅 1 | L29, which is a huge jump in levels for me - the highest I ever finished before was L23!
Sadly I thought that so far the anime was much better than this volume, which is a bit of a let-down after years of anticipation (while waiting to be able to read it in its original language)… but still, pretty happy with this achievement.
I feel you. I watched the anime movies of 魔女の宅急便 and 時をかける少女 before reading the books and in both cases was actually disappointed about the books. But then I thought: well it’s mostly because the directors did a very good job, no wonder they are famous…
I think in this case it might also be subject matter. Kino no Tabi is a collection of short stories, and I think the anime picked probably the best of the first 8 volumes or so. A lot of the stories in this first volume felt rather bloodthirsty (which were the kind of stories that I enjoyed the least), while the anime had more variety there.
And my glacial reading speed together with the fact that I knew some twists from the anime already probably didn’t help either, haha.
I’ll read the next volume at some point though, and I hope it’ll be better!
Sure! What I wanted to say is that maybe if I had read a volume with “best of” stories (and ideally ones where I don’t know the twist yet), I might enjoy that much more than this volume 1, even in book form. That’s my hope, at least
Whoa, never occurred to me to look for manga on Mercari… Will definitely have to give that a try. I can get to Kinokuniya here, but the markup on manga is quite high
I have been reading 穏やか貴族の休暇のすすめ。2 | L31 for the past couple of days. I’m still not feeling much in the mood for reading, so, for instance, I stopped reading after a mere 45 min yesterday (compared to the 5h reading sessions I used to do) but that still amounted to 50 pages, so I’ll eventually get through it.
The book started well, with a few BL-adjacent scenes, as I was hoping. However, the next plot part has been kinda annoying.
Basically, some really hot bandit boss is targeting リゼル (the main character) because リゼル looked too aloof when fighting, which picked the sadistic instincts of said bandit boss (he wants to see リゼル’s pretty face get distorded with fear or something). リゼル mercilessly mowing down the bandits (so, his underlings) running away in defeat? Nah, who cares. I mean… okay, fine, I guess the bandit boss doesn’t care about them indeed, but it felt really out of character for リゼル to just consider them as expendable NPCs. リゼル could have just have well sniped them in the shoulder or the knee rather than in the head. That would have stopped them from being bandits just as well. Sure, they might have died from blood loss or, later on, from hunger, but leaving them a chance would have felt much more in character for リゼル. Or maybe my expectations were too high, I don’t know.
What really annoyed me was that, in the end, the problem is solved by リゼル basically seducing the bandit boss (who is hot, so it was obviously aiming for that direction) so that he would not target リゼル anymore. And… that’s it. The bandit boss is free to go and keep doing whatever. リゼル does mention that it’s not his job to dismantle the bandit group anyway, it’s the job of the guards/knights (depending on where the crimes are taking place). But… what?
The main point of the story so far is that リゼル does whatever and is just amazing enough to get away with it. He just played violin for a traveling theater group, which is also not part of his job?? He just did it for kicks and giggles. Dismantling a bandit group sounds like a much more worthy thing to do, though?
Anyway, rant over. I still enjoy the style overall, although that has been a bit frustrating.
Finished 歌の降る惑星 ほし ―センチメンタル・センシティヴ・シリーズ | L30 - it was bad, but not even the sort of bad I can manage a rant about. It was just … pointless feeling, and uninteresting.
Decided to read something in English for the first time in a long while - being able to just read without thinking is so refreshing.
I have started reading the japanese graded readers. The idea is nice it has levels for readers with no knowledge of the Japanese language to I think level N2. But I’m still not sure if I will buy more books of this series as is has a slightly childlike appearance. Does someone also read the series and can tell if the content gets a little more grown up like?
Now I have to figure out which book I want to read digitally next. I like to have both a physical book and a digital one going so I can choose between easy dictionary lookups and freedom from a screen.
I bought volumes 1-9 as a set before the last 2 volumes came out) and realized Volume 1 had just been released for sale that day. I feel like a real fan now 
