This week I read 古見さん vol. 21, カラーレス vol. 2, and おとなりに銀河 vol. 2, as well as watched ep. 6-22 of 四月は君の嘘 and all of アオハライド (about 11 hours).

Back when I originally watched it, for some reason I put 四月は君の嘘 on hold about halfway through, so it was good to finally finish it. I have to say the ending was not nearly as emotionally destructive as I had been led to expect. I wonder if it would have hit harder if I had been able to go in blind, but as it was I felt like it resolved exactly as I would have expected just by watching the anime with no expectations. In any case, I enjoyed it a lot.

My sister started watching アオハライド at my recommendation so I decided to rewatch it as well. I honestly didn’t remember anything about it at all besides that I had liked it. Not a lot to say here from a language perspective, but I enjoyed this rewatch as well. Apparently there was supposed to be a second season but it never came to fruition. I might read a bit of the manga at some point since the ending wasn’t really very satisfying.

古見さん is as good as ever. I read this volume really quickly for some reason. The rivalry with 零 is really cute and I like how the two main girls are still really close despite being rivals. I remember seeing pages from this volume on twitter not too long ago so hopefully they keep up this pace and get more volumes out soon.

I keep meaning to go back to カラーレス but getting distracted by other things. The art is really good and the setting is interesting, so I enjoyed this volume. While thinking about how I would go about translating 色力学 (I was thinking “chromatics”) I idly looked it up and found that 量子色力学 (quantum chromodynamics) is actually a real field of study? That was kinda fun. The stuff in the manga is obviously way more literal but it’s neat that it was kind of based on a real thing.

Finally, おとなりに銀河 spent basically the whole volume being cute fluffy romance and barely mentioning the fact that しおり is an alien or w/e, but I’m ok with it.

This week was incredibly rough. I was really busy with work for most of the week, which was made worse by the fact that I also spent about five hours driving when I really couldn’t spare the time. I badly need to come up with a way to read on the road (maybe I should start collecting audiobooks).

At the beginning of the week I did manage to put some time into Nier: Replicant, which I also played a bit of a few weeks ago and forgot to mention here. It’s a fun game and mostly pretty easy to understand. There were a few sections that were supposed to be in a “dream world” that was made entirely of words (where the screen fades to black and you just read for a while). I think I have about 30 hours at this point, but most of that was not from this week.

My new ereader came in on Tuesday and I broke it in with ホリミヤ vol. 1, which I read in an afternoon. Since I watched the anime already a good amount of it was review, but there were also some scenes that didn’t get adapted. Cmoa had a big points-back promotion going on so I went ahead and grabbed the rest of the series.

The rest of the week was mostly spent on the road, working, and helping friends move. I stole a few moments for わたしの幸せな結婚 here and there when I could manage it, and just finished chapter four a few minutes ago (just one more to go). This last chapter was pretty exciting and it’s gearing up to be a satisfying ending. By some kind of coincidence the only words I’ve had to look up have had furigana on them; learned a few cool ones that way.

Finally, I spent this afternoon watching ep. 50-60 of 進撃の巨人, which finishes off my rewatch of the first three seasons. Not a lot to really report on but I did have a moment where I forgot I was listening to Japanese and that’s always fun.

This week my beloved ereader suddenly bit the dust, which really threw a wrench into my routine. I was able to read a tiny bit of わたしの幸せな結婚, but it was so little that I really don’t have anything to say on that front. I’ll have a new one in the next few days; very much looking forward to getting back to it.

I did manage to get some manga reading done on an epub reader on my phone (here’s hoping I never have to do that again). I read あせとせっけん vol. 1, which was actually a real surprise. I grabbed the first few volumes (free) a while ago but never got around to reading it because the premise is so weird…the two main characters are a girl who sweats a lot and a guy who makes soap for a living; she really likes his soap and he uh…likes the way she smells and wants to use her as inspiration for his work? I never would have actually read it based on that description, but I heard from a friend of mine that it actually turns into a really cute romance so I decided to give it a shot and ended up liking it quite a bit. I’ll probably read the next two volumes before deciding whether to actually continue the series (the final volume apparently released just this week).

I watched 進撃の巨人 ep. 28-49 (about nine hours). Not a whole lot to say here. There were a few expository moments where I was fully expecting to just sort of zone out but accidentally found myself understanding what was going on, which is always nice. Also watched a few episodes of ホリミヤ but I’m only giving it honorable mention — since I’m watching it with my sister we’re using english subs, but the combination of tiny Hulu subs + my terrible eyesight actually meant that I was able to totally ignore them much of the time. Not something I’ll be getting in the habit of though.

This morning I read a little of 異世界食堂, which is the last physical book on my current backlog. It was totally impenetrable when I tried to read it a year or two ago, and aside from a few new words it’s effortless now. Progress feels good.

This week I kept on reading わたしの幸せな結婚, reaching about 70% and finishing the third of five chapters. I’m still enjoying it quite a lot. The story is developing in nice ways and the writing style is still really enjoyable. I’ve come across a decent number of katakana words at this point but it still seems like the tendency is to stick with native words wherever possible — I’m also noticing that it uses patterns like このような rather than こんな. Just interesting to see how the style helps to evoke the old-fashioned setting.

I put ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 on hold since my sister started watching 進撃の巨人 and I’ve been planning to rewatch it for some time now. I watched 27 episodes (about 10 hours), almost finishing up the second season. There were a definitely some points where I got lost in a tangle of sino words but fortunately I have a good amount of the manga piled up so I was able to cross-reference some stuff that gave me trouble. I honestly forgot just how much I enjoyed this show when watching it originally and it’s really fun to revisit it.

I wasn’t planning to read any manga this week but I noticed this morning that とつくにの少女 had put out a new volume without me noticing (and finished the series too!) so I grabbed that and quickly read through it. The previous volume left me kind of confused and unsatisfied, but this one cleared up some unanswered questions and also brought the story to a very sweet conclusion.

This week I spent basically all of my free time reading わたしの幸せな結婚. I honestly picked this one up just based on the cover art and the fact that it was a best-seller that I had never heard of. I’m about 40% of the way through now and I can easily see why it was so popular. I’ve heard it described as “Meiji-era Cinderella” and that’s not a bad description but it’s definitely an oversimplification. The two main characters are really great; he doesn’t believe in love (having spent his adult life being pursued for his wealth and status) and she doesn’t believe herself worthy of love (having spent her entire life being treated as a slave). Both of them are wrong, of course, and the development has been really sweet. It reminds me a bit of ねねね in some ways, which was a nice surprise.

I also watched 19 episodes of ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 part 4. As always, not a lot to say here.

This week I finished 雷の季節の終わりに, one day ahead of schedule. Overall impression of the book is that it’s good but not great; my enjoyment of 夜市 and 秋の牢獄 was very consistent whereas this one had highs (where I would get swept along and read over my daily quota) and lows (where I had trouble finding motivation to put in my time). Fortunately it ended on a high. Will be writing up a full review on that a little later.

I also read ゆるキャン vol. 4, which also means I’m caught up with season 1 of the anime. Not really a lot to say here I guess. I always enjoy this series but it’s rarely a source of new words etc.

Watched episodes 26-48 of ジョジョの奇妙な冒険, finishing up part 3. Never heard so many instances of わい in my entire life.

Actually got quite a lot of reading done this week. I think I’ve finally gotten back into the swing of balancing my Japanese input with my work schedule after not having to worry about it for a while now.

First thing I did was finish シャドーハウス vol. 2 (didn’t actually finish it last week after all). I really enjoyed it but darn it’s not anything like I originally expected. It’s starting to remind me of what I’ve heard about 約束のネバーランド, which is unexpected. I don’t think I’d be able to continue if anything bad happened to the main characters.

I watched 20 episodes of ジョジョの奇妙な冒険, 5-25. I’ve actually reached a point where my memory is a lot hazier and the last few episodes have been almost totally unfamiliar, so I’m gratified that I can still keep up with what’s going on (especially considering that most of this was done on my second monitor while I was working and I couldn’t give it my full attention). For some reason I always assumed this series would be really hard to follow and it’s nice that that’s not the case.

I also watched about six hours of a vtuber called 微睡みうと streaming 大逆転裁判. I’d like to play this game myself so I think I’m going to hold off on watching anymore until I catch up. It’s a cool way to get voiceover for a game that doesn’t have it, though it was pretty funny when she choked on the pronunciation of 総天然色. The game is set a good hundred years ago so there are some outdated terms I’m sure. One that tripped me up for ages was 写真（ほとがらひい）which I couldn’t find any definition for…until it was pointed out to me that it was just the word “photography” rendered awkwardly, and in hiragana no less!

I stayed mostly on track with 雷の季節の終わりに, putting me maybe one chapter from the end. If I read ten pages per day for the upcoming week I’ll still finish by the end of the month, so that’s my new target. The threads that were being gathered last week have come all the way together at this point, and it’s left me wondering if there’s anything else (which I didn’t ascribe much importance to at first) that might be tied in as well. One standout kanji moment was seeing 幌 for the first time outside of the word 札幌! Fortunately that makes the reading really easy to remember. I also came across 微睡み shortly after learning it from the mouse vtuber’s name, which is always fun.

At the end of the week I picked up 東京都立呪術高等専門学校, aka 呪術廻戦 0. It’s basically a oneshot that served as the “pilot episode” for the main series, and was re-published as a prequel at some point. Quite enjoyed it; it works quite well as either a standalone work or for fans of the main series. Finishing this volume brings me to the 50% point of my yearly manga goal, two months early.

Lastly, I took a gamble on the US release of Nier: Replicant including Japanese text (like Automata) and it paid off! I got it on release day aka yesterday and have only played about four hours so far but I’m planning to keep at it. So far it’s pretty standard fantasy stuff, nothing too crazy. A little archaic grammar here and there but nothing I can’t handle. One fun thing to note: seeing 敬う here literally an hour after I also saw it in 呪術廻戦 0. I’ve apparently looked it up before but these kinds of coincidences usually help things stick really well.