I finally finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.4 | L30! This one took me 5 days (21-22 hrs), bc I decided to be social over the weekend, and also went to this awesome 鬼滅の刃 stage reading. The writing and story overall is steadily improving, but the last chapter was an approx 57 pg battle that took me almost 5 hours to finish
I’m feeling like I might need a short break from the series (feeling kinda stressed by other stuff). Especially disappointed that there’s still no damn romance, and it seems that will largely be the case going forward. So I’ll have just to adjust my expectations.
I think for battles in the next book, I may check the translation while reading (instead of after I finish the chapter), since I often find myself not 100% sure what’s going on, and I think I’m not as fully enjoying them as a result.
Well, I went ahead and started it… And discovered I’m doing pretty poorly on comprehending the battle stuff rn. So I’m gonna not worry about reading speed this time around and just focus on comprehension instead. I think I’ll get a lot more out of that rn.
I finished さいとう市立さいとう高校野球部 下 | L24, and now as per my poll I’ll be reading ガールズ・ブルー (not yet on Natively). I think I won’t try to go full speed on that one and instead split my time between it and 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部 代表決定戦編 2 | L28 since next4years is releasing in September and October! (I’m about 1/3 of the way thru 代表決定戦編② and still have 春高編①② to go before I can read next4years, which I’m very excited for. Especially since it’s two 単行本 instead of one like the first three novels? Just how long is it?)
Since my copy of the book club book is still making its way to me, I indulged on bookwalker and picked up a slightly random selection of manga. I’ve gone for Kiyo in Kyoto, Oshi no Ko, Haruhi Suzumiya and Biblia. It’s been a while since I’ve read any manga and it’s been fun experimenting a bit!
I finally finished the book. Not much to add, there was no miracle to push me to keep reading the series. I did appreciate to see the stats of the character increasing, thanks to all the XP they got from the previous volume (I’m a simple person; give me stonks line goes up and I’m happy) but having a flashback per character to get some extra pointless info about their past wasn’t my thing.
Well, I also had the other problems I mentioned, but they are omnipresent in this series, regardless of the plot.
I had a quick look at the next volume just in case and checked some reviews and it seems to be mostly focused on romance comedy instead of dungeon crawling, so, nope, I’m indeed done with the series.
Finished 怪談レストラン 3 殺人レストラン | L22 and after vol 2 I am glad there was no animal cruelty in this one.
Then I read vol 1 of oshi no ko and a bit of a smut josei manga because they are currently free on amazon.
(Grading oshi no ko is tricky. It’s at level 30, but it’s way, way easier than any level 30 book. I would even say it’s easier than any level 27 book. I really struggle grading manga because while the language might be higher level, the fact that you have illustrations immediately takes a few levels off… )
I recently finished ふしぎな図書館 by Haruki Murakami which was technically the first book I read in Japanese. It’s a short story for children. I didn’t know Murakami has also written for children.
Today I started 魔女の宅急便, and just 3 pages took an hour. I expected better from myself but nevertheless am very happy I can finally read Japanese books.
That’s the spirit! A lot of books frontload all the unusual vocab so I’m betting you’ll be much faster by the end of the book (and also just from reading practice!)
Today I read along with two of the Wanikani Book Clubs, finishing chapter 5 of ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん 1 | L14 in the absolute beginner’s book club and reading chapter 2 of スーパーの裏でヤニ吸うふたり(1) | L24 in the Beginner’s Book Club.
Tomorrow the plan is to get to the manga I’m reading in my personal time 【マンガ】本好きの下剋上~司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません~第一部 「本がないなら作ればいい! 」 1 | L26 . My regular tabletop game got cancelled this week, so I might try and push to get the last 40 or so pages done. Despite being level 26 and smoking behind the supermarket, I’m actually finding smoking behind the supermarket much harder. I guess my pre-actually learning passive absorption of words from anime has equipped me a lot more for isekai vocab than for smoking and salaryman vocab.
I am quite enjoying 世界からボクが消えたなら (キャベツの物語). I probably wouldn’t recommend reading it directly after 世界から猫が消えたなら | L27 as the underlying plot is - of course - the same and it might be a tad boring so close together. (I read the original about 2 years ago.)
There is a bit of banter between the cat and the demon and overall it has a much more light-hearted feel so far.
Last week I gave myself the goal of reading 2 hours of manga a day, but I have decided to decrease the time to 1 hour a day because I don’t think I have the time to force myself to spend 2 hours every single day
Also I have started reading くまクマ熊ベアー (series) | L22, which is apparently very popular in this webpage, with some people from my discord server. It’s very easy, but it could motivate me to continue reading some of the other light novels I have started .
Well I had been planning on spending an equal time on Girls Blue and 2.43 or else prioritizing Girls Blue, but instead I’ve ended up prioritizing 2.43. I’ve reached the titular 代表決定戦 (which is like half of part 2), and even though I know how the match goes, I still don’t wanna put it down!! Not even just because of the character stuff that either didn’t make it into the anime or else got modified, but because the match is exciting
The other day, I predicted I’d finish it in a week and a half, but I think it’ll be a little sooner than that
It’s not something groundbreaking but I enjoyed it. I understand the style of writing might not be for everyone though.
I do hope the issues I had with the first volume become less of a problem in the following ones. From my experience, when things come from a webnovel, at some point there’s a jump in quality of writing.
So far the biggest issue is when they drop plot bombs in just one-liner, and seem to leave it at that? We will see eventually…
I’ve put a vote to help me decide what to read next in the other thread, as I’m on the fence:
For now I’ll probably do a day or two of “resting” by reading manga instead.
I just finished this week’s portion of コップクラフト | L35 for the LN Bookclub and it’s getting spicy.
And I finally decided to make a physical TBR for the rest of the year. I am not a particularly strong mood reader, so I always struggle picking up something new and then I end up not reading for days. But with a TBR decided beforehand, I just take the next thing and start.
There are 20 books, which is doable - in theory - but whatever happens, I really want to start the Xmas stories one in December. I had been meaning to read it last year, but I forgot.
Ooh, please let me know when you start reading きらきらひかる (in case you don’t mind company) as I wanted to read this for so long! (It’s nominated in one of the WK book clubs since ages ago but I guess I should just read it and not wait another eternity…)
That’s like end of September, right? Sounds perfect to me! (Not gonna promise anything though, as I am currently pretty swamped in book clubs, and today a first glimpse of maybe a new client appeared on the horizon )
So please don’t wait for me or anything - I‘d like to join you if possible, but if that doesn’t work out, then be it so.
I finished たくまし令嬢はへこたれない! ~妹に聖女の座を奪われたけど、騎士団でメイドとして働いています | L30?? yesterday.
I got it for free through a promotion on booklive (also available at other places) and… that’s about how much it is worth.
If I had to explain it in a few word, I’d say it reads like the reverse harem route of an otoge.
There’s a billion different hot guys and the main character has one (1) event with half of them (the book length being the limit) during which she has exactly the perfect personality to impress them (with no consistency with other events).
Based on reviews, it just keeps going in the next volumes, with no real plot to speak of.
That’s too bad, because I liked the premise (not a spoiler, that’s literally the first couple of page; main character is extremely mentally strong; despite getting her 婚約者 stolen and getting disowned by her family, she doesn’t care and just moves on… ALSO, she has crazy strong healing magic). I thought the healing would be more relevant, instead of being just flavor text, considering she is working for the 騎士団. You know who would need crazy healing? People who fight. And they know about it. But nah, better to have her clean the floor.
Onwards to 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.6 とるにたらない栄光に向かって | L30!! The writing in book 5 suddenly got significantly better than the previous volumes. So I’m excited to see where book 6 goes!
I’m still going to stick with the more “intensive reading” approach for this, since my comprehension still feels a bit hit or miss. I can’t say for sure, but I think my reading speed improved slightly (though it took me more days, since I had less available reading time, due to un-fun personal stuff)
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