Just like last week, most of my immersion came from Persona Q2. I’m really close to finishing it — I have a handful of side quests to wrap up, one more floor of the last dungeon, and then the final boss + epilogue. Since I haven’t had time to stream this week I’ve been knocking out side quests whenever I have some downtime at work. My intention is to complete the full game and then make a review video before the official English launch on June 4th, and it seems like I’m on track to make that happen. Similar to what Liquid said above, it’s interesting to notice when a writer has a penchant for certain words. I’ve come across めでたしめでたし and 名残惜しい a couple of times throughout this game, which incidentally works as a kind of SRS in and of itself.

Instead of picking up the next volume of Flying Witch, I decided to try and polish off some of the other manga I’ve accumulated (some of which I’ve previously put on hold due to their difficulty). I read half of 甘々と稲妻 vol. 4, which is only getting easier and easier. At this point most of the new words I’m coming across are pretty obvious in context; the most difficult part is that the dialogue text will occasionally switch to handwriting for dialogue that’s going on “in the background” or is otherwise non-critical.

I also started ３月のライオン vol. 1, which I really enjoyed as an anime but have always been intimidated by — being as the whole series revolves around Shogi matches, I’m expecting some serious jargon. So far though, that seems to be the least of my problems. The presentation is so eclectic, jumping between long stretches of silence when Rei is alone, and total chaos when the Kawamotos are in the picture. There’s also some interesting kanji “wordplay” on the very first page; 「家も無い・家族も無い・友達も居無い」. Between the two different readings of 家 and the non-standard (?) spelling of 居無い, it feels the author likes to have fun with the way words tie together on the page.