It was insane at work today, you’d think it was a holiday instead of merely the end of Daylight Savings Time (Sunday’s usually less busy than Saturday, but holidays more than cancel out morning churchgoers not coming for doughnuts). My shift’s 7-12, but I was already running on fumes before 9. I am very surprised I managed to meet my goal of 1 full vol of manga + some novel reading today. (Granted, I doubt I’ll be doing much novel-reading, but.)
I made that goal since, especially after acquiring ダイヤのＡ act I, I have a crapton of unread manga that I haven’t exactly been reading since becoming able to pretty comfortably read novels this year. I’ve been focusing on ダイヤのＡ, and I just finished vol 8, so I’m almost 20% through. Eijun’s such a dumbass, I love him.
Novel-wise, since finishing 先輩、恋していいですか | L29 a few days ago, I’ve been going back and forth between focusing on 2.43 and Doubles. 先輩、恋していいですか was much less of a sports novel than I was hoping, but it was still good. It was mainly BL with a bit of sports on the side, but I want one the other way around. I mean, I do like the sports series that make you go “well that was kinda fruity” without officially being so, but it is nice for it to be canon sometimes, too. Anyway I’m nearing the end of the first half of the HaruKou Arc in 2.43 and it’s. amazing. I can’t even articulate how much I love this series.
I’m itching to start one of the two not-really-BL food-related novels I got recently (or maybe this m/f one), but since I’m so close to the end of this vol of 2.43, I’m waiting until I finish that. Which, since I’ll immediately be starting the next vol anyway then no.-of-ongoing-volumes-wise it doesn’t exactly matter, but. It’s the principle of the thing, I guess.
Yeah, so that was a lie. I picked up 2.43 and got sucked into it and finished the volume, and also it is now 3 a.m. I should have expected this. Augh, and of course the last subchapter had to be an emotional one.
It was weird though that I knew how read 嗄れていた not because I remembered the reading of the kanji but because I knew from context how it should be read. Hoarse is dry is か.
I’m currently reading 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ 2 ピッタリもらえる懸賞ハガキ・道の種他 | L23 (mostly to see if it’s easier now, one year after I finished the first one), and I don’t even care how this product will mess with the one who uses it, I want it:
Useless fact from my book on the history of furigana: famous 1920s and 30s novelist 山本有三 was not a fan of furigana and there’s a quote of his comparing them to ugly black bugs crawling over the page. I wonder if that product idea derived from it?
Here’s the quote (complete with historical kana and kanji usage, and no furigana, of course):
Finally I finished Another エピソードS and I found it easier than the main story and way better than I thought, e.g. the book features a weird 幽霊 as first person narrator. The “problem” I had with the main story was probably that I already knew its solution as I had seen the series and therefore wasn’t that surprised and enthusiastic about its end any more.
But what now? I wanted to read コップクラフト but it will come late, probably another 2-3 weeks, as the delivery is still waiting for some other books to arrive at the store. Actually I am wavering between reading something easier than コップクラフト to not exhaust myself in advance or reading something more difficult to feel relief after it…
I finished 嫌いなら呼ぶなよ | L35 and I’m sorry to say it @omk3 and @cat, but I loved it?! I was laughing the entire way through every story since they were all so ridiculous. I had so much fun with all the sarcastic humor and all the slang that kept popping up, too. If you are chronically online (it’s me hahaha ぴえん) and use Japanese SNS/know the latest Japanese memes and slang (or those from the last few pandemic years) this might also tickle your funny bone the same way lol. The only negative thing I have to say is that I wish I read this right when it came out instead of letting it sit on my TBR so long, since it felt slightly out of date by now. I don’t think the edgy humor or pop culture references will age very well, so if anyone out there is even mildly interested, check this out sooner rather than later. Solid 4/5 stars for me just based on how much fun I had with these stories.
Now I am onto 貝に続く場所にて | L41 which I’ve been meaning to read since it won the 芥川賞 a few years back. The author lives in Germany and the world of the story is set in Göttingen, which is what initially attracted me to it, as I haven’t read any Japanese fiction set in Germany before. This is now the third “pandemic fiction” book in a row I’m reading after ハンチバック and 嫌いなら呼ぶなよ — I guess I shouldn’t have let so many books published in the last years build up on my TBR! Oops!
If you’re interested in Japanese authors living in and writing about Germany, you might want to check out 多和田 葉子. I‘ve started her book 雲をつかむ話 where she writes about Hamburg (where she used to live initially; now she lives in Berlin iirc) and I liked it (but too little time to read it, as always…).
If your interest specifically lies in Göttingen, then I’m afraid I can’t be of any help (not even if we were talking about German authors )
I finished 白昼夢の森の少女 | L30?? yesterday. The final count is 1 story that I loved, 3 stories I liked, 1 story that was indeterminate (I enjoyed it, but the reveal/plot twist at the very end was garbage), and 6 meh stories.
For anyone who enjoys the writing style of the author (I do!), that’s definitely good enough. For those who haven’t read anything by 恒川 光太郎, I’d recommend to go with one of his more well-known books first, to get a feel for it.
When I finished the book, it was like 10pm, so a bit early for bed, but late enough that I didn’t want to read medium 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠 | L33 or 痴人の愛 | L43… (I am going to catch up with the book club of the first one soon™ though). After a bit of scrolling (and I mean literally ~2 min) I came across the info that ルリドラゴン 1 | L19 was on hiatus/cancelled (that news was from last year; I am very up to date), so I ended up buying the ebook and reading it It was nice but it indeed ends on a cliffhanger-ish scene, so it’s a bit frustrating, I guess.
I loved this as a teen.
hahaha 
