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 The game is set a good hundred years ago so there are some outdated terms I’m sure.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.