Blog

I started it, and it’s so so good!! I love the beginning, it’s perfect: set up the time and place, give insights into some characteristics of the period while building interesting characters we care about and slowly hinting at what could happen in a delightful way. I also love the structure, I only read the first two chapters of the first part, but it looks like each chapter will introduce new characters while also giving a good portraying of the period (daily life of people under Japanese Occupation). It’s really well done so far.

It’s also a relief to see that it’s not difficult to read at all. Not the easiest novel, but much easier than I was expecting.

It’s a shame that both Snezhnaya and Reverse 1999 anniversary patch released the same week. These are the only two live-service games I’m playing, so it’s unfortunate the patches come at the same time, it’s a ton of content all at once…

August will probably be a dry month in terms of reading, because I will spend much more time playing games in the next weeks. It also doesn’t help that I am stuck with a book I don’t enjoy and never feel like picking up. I did start a new Korean book that’s very good though, so at least I have something to carry my readings this month.

I continued the AQ a bit, still very good!
It actually allows us to unlock the main region quite soon, so I was able to start farming for Odette much sooner than expected.

I started the main story, only did the first three episodes but 1- I love the beginning and 2- it’s quite easy to follow so far, which is really not always the case with R1999 stories (I mean, follow with Chinese text).

I don’t like all Reverse stories, but this one will most certainly be one of my favourites, because I love Merel. I can’t wait to know what happened and understand who Rhiannon is exactly.

I need to keep a guarantee for Charon P5 (his banner is coming soon), but otherwise, I’m throwing all my wishes to Rhiannon. I was very lucky and got her P4 already. I really really want her P5 though… I even have a guarantee now, so if things go extremely well on Charon’s banner, maybe there’s a chance…

I’ve decided that I won’t use co-op to build Odette, so I won’t even be able to start building her now, because I haven’t unlocked the domains, I don’t know where her boos is and I haven’t seen trace of her flowers. I kind of find it more fun this way, even though it means I need to wait to play Mizuki stellar swirl.

I bought my new Korean novel, couldn’t resist trying 1939년 명성아파트 by 무경. I still haven’t added it to the DB (too busy playing Genshin!), but I’ll do it tomorrow. I flipped through the first pages, there’s a floor plan and a list of characters saying who lives in which apartment. It will help!

I still haven’t decided which book I’ll read next in Japanese, but I’m leaning more and more toward another Futari Okajima novel.

Odette came home in the first ten-pull! Lucky!!
No Alyosha, but the free copy is enough for me. It’s probably going to take me the whole version to properly build her, given how slow I’ll probably be in progressing the AQ and exploration, but it’s fine.

Her animations are really sublime, she has to be one the prettiest characters in the game.

The beginning of the AQ is so so good! The story is great (though starting slow), and there were so many things to do! Sharp contrast with the end of Nod-Krai. I loved it! So many new mechanics too in the new region,

The story was very easy so far, it’s probably going to be more difficult as we progress (and even more if the last chapters are only people discussing lore), but for now it really feels good to be able to play in Chinese without problem. Even tutorials were okay.

I did Xiao’s trial and got his echo!!!

The trial was so so fun, especially the first part. I think it was very well done, the flavour, the fact that we had to use his skill and jump ability, the constant drain and the healing mechanic when killing opponents was really cool. Combat part was so easy though, it’s by far the easiest I’ve done. They also made it easy with the ER thankfully.

I’m really happy I have his echo… but I’m also not super mega fan of how it looks when seeing him from the back, which is like always. Seen from the side it looks great, and I like the effects and the colours, but I really don’t understand how they designed the echos in the first place, it would be better if they were more subtle…

Oh well, still super happy!

I finished chapter 4, I really didn’t like this one. It has the same flaws as the other (tackling big topics without really committing to them), but the plot of this one was really twisted to the point it really didn’t make any sense. To achieve a goal, a character would choose a solution that doesn’t feel like the better one anyway, and to make this solution happen, would plot something of an insanely large scale that had like one in a million chance to unfold as planned.
And characters are like super heroes, extremely skilled, and they easily gain access to things they should not, things and characters happen when convenient to make the plot progress.
Both these aspects are things I really dislike in fiction, I like realistic plots and characters. As for the setting, again it would be interesting if was more developed, if we spent more time in each country instead of going from to another with each different chapter.

There’s only one chapter left, but it’s still one third of the book… I feel utterly unmotivated, but I don’t want to DNF…

I finally finished studying 幻友绮旅! All new words are in the flashcards. It’s one of the rare events I love enough to study entirely. I did cry at the end again while re-listening to it again.

I didn’t like the Fontinalia festival enough to go through it again, so next study material will probably be the AQ! I’m hoping it’s not going to be too long, but I’ll probably only study passages I like, not the whole thing.

Odette’s demo was sublime… I can’t forgive them for her heels though… especially since she had ballet shoes in her demo, and it looked so perfect.
I love her design but the heels just look so out of place…

I officially haven’t completed my “before Snezhnaya” reading challenge, but 80% is not bad! I’m actually proud of myself, given that the challenge was unrealistic to begin with.

I’ve been hitting my quota of 10 new flashcards per day for 3 days in a row now!

I’m thinking about my next Japanese and Korean books.

For Korean, I’m very tempted to just read another Jeon Gunwoo… But it’s probably better to read something else to change things up. I went through my wish list, and I found a novel I had added there a while ago: 1939년 명성아파트 by 무경. I’m very hesitant because Korean is my weakest reading language, and I’m afraid tackling a historical novel will be too challenging. But at the same time, I’m eager to read fiction set during the Japanese Occupation. I tried 경성 탐정 이상 by 김재희 and loved the one or two short stories I managed to read, but I was struggling too much to make it a pleasant reading experience.
But 1939년 명성아파트‘s plot seems to be more contained, from what I read, it looks like a closed-circle mystery (a murder taking place in an apartment), so I’m hoping it’ll be easier to read.

Or maybe I just choose a book by an author I know… I haven’t read Do Jin-ki for a long time, but I loved his Go Jin series.

As for Japanese, I don’t know. I looked at some of the recent works that won prizes or had good placements in rankings, and I don’t feel like reading any of them. So I’ve been thinking about either:

• read a book by Otsuichi
• Go back to the 70s and 80s with Futari Okajima, Shin Nakamachi, or Kyotaro Nishimura.

I’m about halfway through the chapter, the plot is engaging and the structure interesting, but it looks like the story will again be too ambitious for the length of the chapter. I always feel like the topics of each chapter should require more time and development. It feels like the book is making short exposés on various socio-political aspects of the country without really managing to make me care for what’s happening.