i guess i’m a 5x5 bingo purist, gotta have the free space in the middle, so i used all of our voted prompts plus some extras from the prompt suggestions at the top ^–^ any excuse to read a little extra!
i also deeply considered doing it shiritori style but i figured that would be too hard to plan 
i hope someone decides to do it, though! i wanna see your choices!
I made my bingo card late at night and I think I was jet lagged at the time, so it’s a bit rough and ready. 
I think I’m going to do this with the modifier that I only count books from my backlog! (Which I will consider to be anything I bought or obtained before 2024.) It should be technically possible, I think … 
Here’s a list of the squares (read left to right, top to bottom), so that I can make plans and later keep track!
Won’t know til I do it!
夜の名前を呼んで by 三星たま
I’m pretty excited about this one, because it was the first book in Japanese I ever bought! I found it used online, basically just sold as “unknown Japanese light novel” and went in blind based just on the cover and the fact that it was written in Japanese. (I naively thought at the time that I might be able to learn to read Japanese the same way I learned to read German - just read a paragraph a day until you can read fluently! I don’t think I ever made it through the first sentence of this book?)
So anyway, it would be pretty cool if I could read it by the end of next year!
If I’m not up to the challenge maybe I will count finishing 霧のむこうのふしぎな町 or 魔女犬ボンボン ナコと運命のこいぬ | L23, my two oldest DNFs.
Or this book: 5分後に意外な結末 ex エメラルドに輝く風景 | L24??, which is one of the very first books I ordered from Amazon jp.
ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 1 | L22
Or ポエトリー・ドッグス | L25??
Or 絶叫学級 禁断の遊び 編 | L25
Maybe ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 | L23?
I was NOT expecting to fulfill this one with a book about 16 year olds, but here we are …
If I don’t want to read on my computer, cheat and re-read 花野井くんと恋の病 | L21 (it’s cheating because I bought the physical copy, but I originally read an e-version that I got for free!)
Otherwise, anything from my Bookwalker library …
Lots of options as it only has to be level 26 or higher, apparently …
気になってる人が男じゃなかった, which won
次にくるマンガ大賞２０２３ Webマンガ部門第１位受賞. Not sure if this is a particularly prestigious award, but I’m counting it!
Finally finished ブナの森のアリア!
Nine additional categories for a 25 square board! Just for fun/“stretch goals”.
Recommended to me by an employee at the bookstore where I went looking for some classic manga! They didn’t have any of the specific volumes I wanted, so this book was his recommendation based on the series that I asked about.
Read a book whose title starts with the last kana of the previous book I read!
Probably カードキャプターさくら 1 | L22
Maybe この本を盗む者は 1 | L25?? or 春夏秋冬代行者 春の舞 1 | L23 or 竹取物語/虫めづる姫君 10歳までに読みたい日本名作 | L23
https://learnnatively.com/book/3be62e9af6/
For my 25 square board I think I will use this one for “at least one character speaks a dialect”, and read something else for “workplace setting”!
I always feel bad about stuff I requested for the site but never got around to reading lmao, at least with this, one of them will finally get read.
Of course! Please use it however you’d like. It’s not a link, it’s just in image form so download away ^^
For those who don’t have the “Something I got for free” decided, there’s a lot of interesting books right now for free on Amazon to add to your library permanently:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/kindle-dbs/s?rh=n%3A2250738051%2Cp_36%3A0-0
You need to copy/paste the link as discourse destroys the URL by removing the storefront variable.
Figured I might as well formally join the challenge, after informally committing to it on discord weeks ago 
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(Link)
I think I can finish the whole bingo with just three books (well, besides the finish a series one, but that shouldn’t be too difficult with the manga I have in mind). Two of them are manga, and one is a nonfiction novel that would be my first novel in Japanese if I manage to finish it.
I made myself also a 25 square board for fun! The squares that are yellow are things that I added, just other popular prompts from the polls 
Also very nice that it put bad cover and prettiest book in the same row 
Read the next book in a series you have started
ふしぎ古書店5 青い鳥が逃げだした! | L23
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ゆうれい居酒屋 | L28??
also has an audiobook on audible!
???
I’m dying - I want to start playing so bad! (Even though I know that I really shouldn’t commit to anything in December besides work and finishing Christmas presents.)
If a book doesn’t yet exist on Natively and you submit it.
Ex, if I wanted to track reading 花に埋もれる* I’d need to request it.
* I’m not reading this book fwiw, it’s just an example
Got it thanks
Just a few more weeks! 
“published the year you started learning japanese” why does this make me emotional 
i love this idea so much, it’s not on my bingo card but i wanna do it anyway
edit: the exact day that i began learning japanese, My Hero Academia was first published in Jump. i think that’s a sign!
Challenge Goal: Blackout Bingo
| のんのんびより V1 | Tensura V2 | Digimon V-Tamer 01 V1 | Tensura V1 |
| Trinity Blood P1V1 | Adabana (VN) | 魔女の宅急便 1 | Digimon V-Tamer 01 |
| Bookworm V2 | Bookworm V3 | Digimon V-Tamer 01 V2 | 日本の歴史 全１５巻 無料ダイジェスト (MN) |
| Digimon V-Tamer 01 V3 | 90 Wiki or NHK articles (e.g. one per day for 3 months) | Tensura V3 | Konbini Ningen |
Qualifier: Read the next book in a series you have started
| 1 | 2 | 10 | |||||||
| 11 | 20 | ||||||||
| 21 | 30 | ||||||||
| 31 | 40 | ||||||||
| 41 | 50 | ||||||||
| 51 | 60 | ||||||||
| 61 | 70 | ||||||||
| 71 | 80 | ||||||||
| 81 | 90 |
Just curious for peoples opinions.
Regarding my thoughts for the second poll, since I seen to be in the minority: it’s my understanding that the original writer is not usually involved/heavily involved in the adaptation, so you’re not really reading their work, as it were.
(Granted, you could make a strong case that that’s the same situation as reading one of their works translated, and I did vote that for me personally reading a translated work disqualified that author from having never been read before.)
Exactly, and that’s why I also voted that it’s fine.
I read Terry Pratchett in both French and English and it was a different experience. I guess that’s because the translator was really good and came up with similar puns that convey the same mood while sounding natural in French. So it felt different in terms of writing style, and that’s between two languages that are very similar.
If it’s between Japanese and say English, you may as well have never read that author before.
