read the newest chapter in 最強勇者パーティーは愛が知りたい
it doesn’t have volumes yet so no natively entry lol (it’s free btw 
)
this chapter was so simple and yet so good I honestly want to see it animated with all of my heart lmao
edit: to summarize this experience, your entire perception of the premise of this manga broken in an extremely nonchalant way and turned into something so much more wholesome 
Not much time to read, but even when I do, instead of catching up with the book clubs, I am reading a manga I “randomly” started (セクシー田中さん). I had seen that series pop up in my recommendations before, but between the title and the cover, I just expected some 男性向け garbage, if I am being honest.
However, yesterday, I saw that the first two volumes were free to read. The announcement also made me notice that it’s published in Flower Comics alpha (so, 女性向け) and that completely flipped my perception of the cover.
Also, here’s the announcement
For a short while, it seemed to go the GL direction (there’s even a 壁ドン happening between those two and 倉橋 is way too happy about it) but most likely not.
Overall, I am just happy to read about the titular 田中 who is both 40 AND indeed quite セクシー.
I am slightly annoyed by details telling me “hey, you are in the target audience, we know what you like (and what you are like)”. Shut up. But, at the same time, more please.
Also, volume 2 ends on a massive cliffhanger. Then you have to pay. They obviously did it on purpose.
(I bought the whole series).
In terms of plot (?), it’s a lot of romantic shenanigans and the usual misunderstandings but it’s really fun anyway.
I’m still reading 少女地獄 | L40??, but I need to look up a lot of words and I’m reading the paperback copy, so it is really inconvenient for bedtime wind-down reading. 
So, I picked up ハンチバック | L30?? as a new bedtime read since it’s currently on sale with 25% points back (and I already had 700 points エヘヘ 
). One day I want to read all of the 芥川賞 books so this shall be one more towards that challenge! 
bookclub? 
(just joking. please don’t. 
)
I would be extremely prepared to start that, don’t tempt me! 
edit: started by our lovely @nikoru
I started reading 空芯手帳 | L31 and really like it so far. It’s about a woman who fakes being pregnant to get out of stuff at work they assign to her just because she is a woman. (Cleaning, making coffee, …)
This scene cracked me up:
私の帰る時間などよりも、部長や課長が気にしたのはコーヒーの対応だった。誰が来客時に人数分のコーヒーを淹れ、片付けるのか。ミルクが切れたら社内のどこに頼めばいいのか。ワードでマニュアルを作っておいてほしいという。そして私がいない間に男性社員の間で話し合いが行われ、一昨年新卒で入社した男の子が担当することになった。
「意外と簡単っすね」
淹れ方を教えてほしいと頼まれたので給湯室でやってみせると、彼は感心したように言った。インスタントだからね、と私は答えた。
I wonder how this story will turn out in the end! Also, I am very slow in reading it because I want to understand all the nuances and am not as content with ambiguity as I am usually
I also started to read PLUTO 1 | L33 – It’s very difficult for me to get into a manga nowadays, but I really enjoy it. Although I went in blind and got a whiplash when I saw german words and that it’s set in Düsseldorf (at least in the beginning) 
And then I realized there will be an Anime coming out soon (actually, it got already released I think), so what a convenient timing. I read the first volume on my e-ink reader, but I like the manga so much that I would love it in physical form. But I haven’t decided where and which edition to get 
I finished a bunch of other stuff and am very happy about how my comprehension and reading speed is coming along. I am also warming up to kid’s books again, since I started 怪盗レッド 1 2代目怪盗、デビューする☆の巻 | L24 and enjoy it as a light read inbetween.
Speaking of kids book, after randomly picking up an used volume 6 of 三姉妹探偵団 | L25?? I decided to start reading the first volume digitally before jumping into 6. And despite the appearance, I don’t think this book is targeted towards kids as there is a lot of (light spoiler) problematic age-gap relationships, cheating, murder, (sexual) harassment and talk about sex and prostitution. But maybe I am the only one who misinterpreted the cover as being for kids
Aww 
Thanks for the credit!
If anybody is interested, I can open that challenge here as well 
(also for Naoki Prize and Honya Taishou, the three major book prizes)
That would be cool! I read a lot of books from all those prizes so it’d be fun to have a place to share reviews/what I’ve read and see what others get up to.
I have read quite a few books aimed at 小学生 and Japanese are def. less squeamish about including certain topics in their kid lit.
That being said, the point is moot here, since that series indeed isn’t aimed at kids
Edit: that being said, I just saw that series in a recommendation list at the elementary school level… so I think both apply (here specifically, I mean).
And I am now caught up with publication 
And the last volume ends on a cliffhanger… but it came out two weeks ago and it takes ~10 months for a new volume
Well, anyway, I loved it a lot. There’s “drama” but it’s not angst inducing drama/everyone is secretly hating each other. It’s (mostly) related to 田中 being a very very VERY late bloomer and not knowing whatever she is doing. I don’t really want to say more because I feel like giving even a bit of spoiler would ruin the plot. The story actually went in completely different ways than I expected at least twice (I mean… it’s still romance, just not progressing how I thought; it didn’t suddenly turn into a giant mech fighting shonen manga, THAT would be unexpected)
Yeah, was looking at the reviews and there as some 小学生 and 中学生 readers. 
Well I just finished the book and I must say this review sums it up perfectly
So I finished
and with this, I end the 11 volume journey with this series.
I really enjoyed it and might pick up soon-ish the next series of this author, also on Tsubasa Bunko. While I have an ever growing pile of TBR, I might give that some priority.
For funny stats, I started the series in December 2021, and the first few books took me 9hours at very bite sized sessions, while the last ones were a bit over half the time, while being able to do it in longer sessions. (One of them I even finished it within 24h!)
For Example:
Vol. 10 (the one that was done in 24h):
vs
Vol 1. (Disaster that I couldn’t get more than 3-4 pages sometimes)
I wonder, would more people like a pgs/hr scale? I’d imagine most people think in terms of hours, rather than minutes when it comes to reading, hmm.
Yes, but I think minutes is nice too.
I know there’s a trend of avoiding toggles for everything, but there should be space for another box above the graph without increasing the width of it (at least on desktop)
Otherwise tapping/clicking on the box, could change between pgs/min, pgs/hr
I carried over The Akutagawa Prize Reading Challenge (took me a bit as I wanted to clean up the entries somewhat - I learned a thing or two since I started this over at WK 
) but now it’s live - everybody please feel free to participate and tick off all the Akutagawa Prize winners that you’ve read so far
I will add the other two prizes in due time.
Thank you so much! 
