I was in the middle of reading 「熱源」, which won the most recent Naoki Prize, when the coronavirus began spreading, and suddenly reading a book in which the main character watches his community die o…
May 26, 2020 • Subscribe
More like this


Japanese Comfort Reads
There are comforting reads and there are comfort reads. All readers have days when they want to crawl into something familiar. But especially since the early days of…
Melancholy comfort in Majula
It’s been nearly a year since my last post on this blog, and I’ve decided to end that period by penning something that’s not related to anime or…


Finding Comfort in Bad Anime
What a way to spend the quarantine


Finding Comfort in Bad Anime
What a way to spend the quarantine


Rogue’s Gallery: Comfort in Roguelikes
I have a tenuous relationship with rougelikes (and -lites). I’ve dipped into the Mystery Dungeon games with the surprisingly fun Pokemon spin-offs, and I liked, but didn’t love …


Reading list: independent Japanese animation
This is a work in progress (and probably always will be), but here’s a list of resources on indie animation in Japan. I will use a generous definition…


Finding Comfort and Longing in Harvestella
Not long ago there was one particular video game that gave me a lasting impression. That title was Harvestella, and it was surprisingly its demo that gave me…


2021 Reading List (Japanese Literature & More…)
After my challenge to read 20 books of Japanese literature in 2020 – and absolutely smashing it – I took a short break over the winter holidays to…


Reading Japanese Food Labels: Kanji Cheatsheet
A cheat sheet of all you need to know when reading Japanese food labels for efficient and safe grocery shopping in Japan.


5 More Tips for Reading Manga in Japanese (Part 8)
I'm happy to answer any clarifying questions in the comments! ⇩ Timestamps, Helpful Links, and Notes: 🚩Goal Reminder: To Learn to Read Manga in Japanese Fluently 0:00 Intro 0:45 Two Focus Areas: …


“Japan Comfort” in a doggy Doge world
The history of modern life is the Internet, the history of the Internet is memes, the history of memes is Japan -- and a certain Shiba Inu symbolizes…


Blerdy’s Comfort Manga
Hey Hey Blerdy Tribe! Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Between work, responsibilities, and bills… life can be pretty stressful and it’s kind of hard to fit in time…


Read Japanese Books with the Listening-Reading Method
Want to read Japanese books and novels? We outline a method to help get you started - and build your Japanese listening skills along the way.


Boost Your Japanese Reading Level with These Sources
We’re all familiar with the language plateaus, the point where you feel like you’re not learning anything new. Which is probably great in the more advanced stages but…
How to Japanese Podcast – S02E09 – Morgan Giles – Reading Japanese, Translation, MEXT Scholarship
Morgan Giles is a Japanese translator based in London. She’s translated a number of different writers, including Kanehara Hitomi, Furukawa Hideo, and the National Book Award-winning Tokyo Ueno…


Comfort Games Are Important
Comfort games are a very common part of gaming. Everyone has one. But what does it mean to be a comfort game? Can we define the genre? And…


Blerdy’s Comfort Anime Series
We all have those moments when we need a bit of a pick me up. Whether it’s work or school that’s got you overwhelmed or maybe you just…


10 Japanese Literature Books For Your Autumn Reading List
If you're looking to add some spice to your autumn reading and wish you could travel to Japan this fall, let the pages of a book take you…


Advanced Japanese Reading Practice with Side-by-Side Readers
Want Japanese reading practice with newspapers or essays? Here's how to level up your Japanese game with side-by-side readers.


My Top 10 Comfort Anime
We all have shows we can put on and just have it running in the background while we do chores, do homework, or even just have noise playing.…
HAIKYU!!, School Babysitters, Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time, Witch Hunter Robin


What’s your comfort food anime?
What makes it comforting for you? Is there one you’d still recommend outside of your personal connections? Another one that you’d never recommend to others?


This Week in Anime - Reading Rainbow
Chris and Coop flip through the pages of western literary anime adaptations.
I'm reading the In/Spectre manga
I don't know if Iwanaga's hair was this fluffy before there was a manga adaptation.
#20 - "2 Borderline 4 Comfort" - Interview with "2 Kawaii 4 Comfort" Creator, Luke Palmer
WE'RE BACK! After a few weeks of being on break, we're back with an awesome interview with filmmaker and weeb supreme, Luke Palmer! Luke is the co-creator and director…
Five Manga I Enjoyed Reading in 2019
This is a new list for this year. The reason why is because I finally purchased a subscription to the SJ+ App and can I just say that…


What's "Plain Japanese" in Japanese? #learnjapanese
Learn Japanese with Me - https://bit.ly/4drmyU2


Parentheses in Japanese
() - what parentheses mean in Japanese: a thought, an emote, furigana, age, gender, weekday, optional text, among other uses.


New App Promises Greater Convenience in Reading Kuzushiji
Kuzushiji, the “crushed letters” found in historical Japanese documents, has long been the bane of scholars. An app may change all that.


How Japanese Kids Learn Japanese in School
Learn Japanese with Yuta: https://bit.ly/3jlXLJU Support me on Patreon: https://goo.gl/aiWNd5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThatYuta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatyuta/ Facebook: https://bit.ly/381qpHS Blog: http://www.yutaaoki.com/blog/
Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle – 05 – The Comfort(er) of a Friend
This week made it suddenly occur to me that there are no women among the Demon Castle court and staff (at least not in humanoid form), but that changes…
Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle – 01 (First Impressions) – Comfort At All Costs
In an effort to claim the Human kingdom of Goodereste as his dominion, the Twilight Demon Lord takes Princess Syalis hostage. But rather than despair in her unadorned…
Books: Reading Murakami
By Jonathan Clements. Almost everything that is written about fiction is either reception (what the reader thought of the book) or production (an occasional making-of about the author…


A Reading Hiatus
Well, dear readers, putting my thoughts together on anime has been rather difficult of late. Truth be told, even the desire to watch anime has been wanting of…
Quarantine Reading Material
I received a call on the 5th of June 2020 (the day I’m writing this opening sentence) and I’m finally going to be able to leave this quarantine…
Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign, Promise, The Promised Neverland, Assassination Classroom


Aggressivily Reading Anime
What exactly is and aggressive reading of anime? That's what I try to explain in this post. Not sure I succeed.


Reading Tech Gian
The cover. Hi twitties. Maybe you’re wondering what the hell is Tech Gian? To cut the long story short: it’s a magazine about… technology? No. It’s about eroge.…


Making Reservations in Japanese
Failsafe ways to book accommodations, tickets and dinners out in Japan.


Romance in Japanese Fiction
It’s February and (for some of us) love is in the air. Traditionally, RJL has celebrated with some pretty unromantic topics like sexlessness and misogyny in Japanese fiction.…


Christmas in Japanese Literature
Christmas originated as a Christian holiday, but it’s still celebrated in Japan—a country where somewhere between one and two percent of the country is Christian. So maybe it…


Right-Wing Party’s Comfort Women Exhibit Sparks Outrage
A grotesque "art exhibit" by a staunchly anti-Korean right-wing Japanese party has led to a harsh backlash in the country.


Otaku Elf Episode 2: Our Comfort Food War
The second episode of Otaku Elf is all about food and figures. Elda also gets to meet Koito’s friend, although she is shy about it at first.


Moana 2: Disney Comfort Food at its Finest
2024 seems to be the year of Disney only putting out sequels. First, we got a tearjerker sequel to Inside Out, and now we get a sequel to…


Reading Log: May 2022
Another month goes by, my backlog only grows and it feels like little progress is being made. But let’s find out if that’s true or not! Bold =…
Episode 527, "Reading Rainbone"
On this week's episode of The One Piece Podcast we have our Manga Recap of One Piece Chapter 910, "Onward to Wano" with Stephen Paul (translator for One…


Is Leaper worth reading?
What is it like to be born on 29th February? Well, we find out in Irodori Aqua's latest Doujinshi! So, is Leaper worth reading?


Evangelion Manga Reading Vlog!
TODAY WE GET IN THE ROBOT Hey guys! With the theatrical release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0, I couldn’t think of a better time to bust out Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s Evangelion…
Reading Log: November 2020
It’s almost Christmas! This hell of a year is finally winding down, hopefully leading to better things next time around. I don’t think I read quite as much…


Reading Log: March 2024
March has been a pretty busy month, between my birthday and a weekend trip away as well as work starting to get busier there hasn’t been as much…
Reading Log: July 2020
July was another continuation of the war of light novels and actually I finally cleared off the backlog of 2019!* Now let’s see what all I read this…