A JLPT N1 Certificate

yay

I've been kinda on a downward trend of read session length, probably due to my read speed slightly increasing. Whenever I get to the good part of a story where I want to binge read the rest, I usually finish it before cracking 6 hours. But Manosaba proves that with the right game I can still do it.

The longest reading session was July 30th, reading Manosaba for 8 hours.

I didn't read a ton of VNs this year. The longest VN is a tie between Manosaba and Katahane, both around 460,000 Characters.

According to bookmeter I read a total of 6,969 pages!

I also wanted to look at some fun stats from the past year. I ended up reading a ton of light novels, which prompted me to make a bookmeter account just to keep track of them all.

All the girls are gremlins in their own unique way and it's impossible not to root for them. Momoko is the best.

I didn't read a lot of manga this year, I've just been keeping up with a couple serializations. But one sleepless night I remembered watching the anime adaption of this and decided to read the manga. Holy cow it's good! The pacing, the composition, the facial expressions.

ぶる季節の乙女どもよ。(O Maidens in Your Savage Season)

There are routes for the women! You can date them!! I'm still chipping away at it but Oyayubihime has earned it's spot as one of my favorite otome games.

The opening act goes so hard! You recruit various characters from the Hans Christian Andersen Cinematic Universe to join your band of misfits! And each character gets to go on their own fairy tale adventure! There are lizards with giant scissors for some reason!

I've been trying to chase the high I got from reading Code Realize for years. I keep trying new otome games but I find myself dropping them for various reasons. But Oyayubihime has all the elements of a cheesy adventure novel that I've been craving.

絶対迷宮 秘密のおやゆび姫 (Oyayubihime)

I love the soundtrack that's written in some incomprehensible language just because they could. "What's you're favorite song? AccUhEarts-発- is a banger but I think I'm slightly more partial towards Guil-me N'o sinruits-火-"

It's Danganronpa, but without everything awful from Danganronpa. The characters are allowed to be good?? I don't have to suffer through crass humor for dozens of hours??? Manosaba has so many fun twists on the killing game formula I wish I could mention them without spoiling anything.

魔法少女ノ魔女裁判 (Magical Girl Witch Trial aka Manosaba)

I think the structure of having Hoshimi help the other characters solve their problems first worked really well, and the final volume that does focus on Hoshimi was heartwrenching in comparison. This series just means a lot to me and I'll be thinking about it for many years to come.

I think I found this series by randomly scrolling through some other person's bookmeter page? I'd never heard of it but it quickly became one of my favorite light novels. I just found Hoshimi be a breath of fresh air compared to other attempts at writing gender non conforming characters.

星美くんのプロデュース (Hoshimi's Produce)

But each volume kept telling interesting stories, and eventually it turned into a comfy series I could always safely return to when I wasn't sure what to read next. I think my favorite is still volume 3, but I've been appreciating the focus on Shimako and Noriko in volumes 9 and 10.

Somehow I read 11 volumes of it this year, currently reading volume 15. It's a little bit overwhelming at the beginning, trying to keep track of the large cast of characters and all the sister pairings.

マリア様がみてる (Maria Watches Over Us)

Thread: My favorite things I read in 2025 (Japanese)