This week I started 秋の牢獄, by 恒川光太郎, the author of 夜市. Back when I was reading that book with the wanikani book club, I actually started on an epub, so when I decided to do the right thing and buy a proper copy I threw in two more books almost as penance. I’m very glad I did; have been enjoying this one a lot. Just like 夜市 it contains a handful of short stories, of which I’ve now finished the first two. 139 pages in six days gives me a daily average of 23 pages, which I’m pretty sure is my fastest so far.

For manga, I read カラーレス vol. 1 and 世話焼き狐の仙狐さん vol. 1, both of which I got for free. カラーレス is a pretty interesting scifi story about a world where some kind of apocalyptic solar flare has all but erased color from the world and caused all kinds of mutations among the human population. The writing and characters are good and I think the concept has potential, even if it’s a bit of a stretch; probably going to pick up at least one more volume to see if I stick with it.

世話焼き狐の仙狐さん is just fluffy 癒やし系 but it’s pretty funny and cute. 仙狐さん herself talks like a typical fox, with わらわ and じゃ and all those good things. One funny coincidence was the fact that she uses でない as a way to give negative orders, which seems totally natural for her, even though when I saw it for the first time (also this week, in 秋の牢獄) I didn’t know why it was being used. The perks of interleaving a variety of types of media!