I used to put these with the weekly blog. I think it will be better off as a separate thing from now on.
Before I start my Summer goals I’d like to go over what I accomplished this Spring.
SHOGI 将棋
Thanks to 3月のライオン, I became interested in playing Shogi. I started doing tsume puzzles back in 2017 with a paper mat and a wooden pieces that I got from Yellow Mountain Imports on Amazon.
I picked it up every now and then while playing against a computer. But I decided to get better at the game and made some goals.
Finish Tsume Puzzle Book up to 3-moves.
Started with a somewhat simple yet challenging goal: Tsume Puzzles. There are probably many tsume shogi puzzle books out there, but I used this one:
The 1-step puzzles were relatively easy. At first it was hard to get through the 3-step puzzles but, I noticed my pace got faster mid-way through.
Finish Reading Shogi for Beginners
Bought this a couple of years ago when I was lucky to buy it new at a cheaper price. I don’t have a clue why it costs $57 right now (高すぎ). It was $15 + shipping to get it off of Amazon back then. Had some gift card money so I only paid about $7 （ラッキー★）.
Nonetheless, the book maybe old, but it was worth the buy. After two years, I finally put it to good use. It has all you need to get started: Rules, Strategies, Tsume Puzzles, and more. Was not expecting to do 7-step shogi puzzles in this book, though. They were hard but I got through them.
This book helped with my endgame goal for Shogi and that was…
Beat Lv. 5 in Kanazawa Shogi Level 300
“But Isiah, why don’t you play against an actual person”. I hear you loud and clear. However, I’m more of a solo player. Plus, going up against someone on 81 dojo was quite intimidating before getting a better grasp of this game.
So that’s when Kanazawa Shogi came in handy. Bought this back in 2017 with that Tsume Shogi Book. Decided to beat it two times on each level before getting to my goal: Level 5.
PROGRAMMING プログラミング
Finish Web Development Courses on Zenva
Bought these courses on Humble Bundle. Might as well get into them now. They were pretty short but they had some use. Especially how to comment faster on html.
Just highlight the text and push “ctrl + /”. Came in handy for my other goal.
Finish 2D Game Course on GameDev.TV
Another course I bought on Humble Bundle. I’ve been wanting to make games and use my Japanese a little bit in them. I’ve done it with a couple of the games I made in this course.
Also made a space invader kind of game. Here’s a demo that you can play.
https://sharemygame.com/@haixis/lasers-demo
Finish Responsive Web Design Course on freeCodeCamp.org
I did this along with the GameDev Course. Took about a month but I wish I would’ve started sooner. Kind of procrastinated and didn’t start doing this until late May.
I’m a bit confused on why it doesn’t have my final touch ups when I go to projects though. Luckily, I was able to get it to show up on my CodePen.
It was a useful course. I even got a badge on LinkedIn because of this course.
JAPANESE 日本語
Finish Reading Learn to Read in Japanese
After doing poorly on the reading section on the JLPT N3 practice test, I decided to work on my reading… by learning how to read more kanji.
It was a long book but very worth the time. It has romaji and literal translations on the ride side of the Japanese text, so it’s good for picking up grammar as well.
This huge book came in handy. It went over 608 kanji. This book has helped me to read faster and recognize more kanji than before I started reading it. I even got a physical copy of the second volume for my birthday.
And it is bigger than the first one: 600 kanji. So with these two books, I could possibly take on the N2 next year.
Clear Tokyo School Life
Wanted to play a game in Japanese and this was the perfect one at the time.
Planned on finishing just one route. Ended up finishing the whole game （笑）. You can put Japanese on the main screen to help practice your skills. You can change it to English though. There’s a sub window, too. You can change the text to English, Japanese, romaji, or hiragana.
There were 3 routes you could choose from depending on your choices. Technically there are 4 but… will get into that later. I’ll talk briefly about each route from the best to the worst in my opinion.
Aoi Route
This is the best route. She may be small but man she can kick ass. Aoi is the designated mother of the house. On top of that, she knows karate. During her route, you go on a school trip to Osaka and message her grandpa who is a former yakuza. Out of all the girls you get to hang out with Aoi the most during her route. I also enjoyed learning more about her and her ties to the yakuza.
Sakura Route
Sakura’s route is good and I did enjoy going to Akihabara. She may seem a bit close minded but she is die-hard otaku. So what’s the problem? I wish that I could get more time with her during her route. In her route the school trip is in Kyoto. Would have loved to hear talk more about the history and culture behind the shrines and castles. Due to some circumstances, that doesn’t happen much. Heck and the ending threw me for a loop… in a good way.
Karen Route
Karen may have less going on in the drama department but I didn’t like Karen that much compare to the other girls. You don’t get to hang out with her in Okinawa so that already blows. Due to her job as an idol, I guess it couldn’t be helped. Plus, I don’t like tsundere characters and her obsession with cute and the mayo… oh God the mayo. Nonetheless, I do like that she finally chose what she wanted to do at the end of her route instead of just sticking to one image.
No Maidens Route
Lastly, what I like to call the “No Maidens Route”. I had to start the game and hit the skip scene button to get to this one. This game depends on your answers to the girls. If you give them an answer they don’t really care for their affection points won’t go up.
Read 2 Web Novels
I only read the first chapter, but they were relatively long (especially the ones on Kakuyomu)
【朗報】俺の許嫁になった地味子、家では可愛いしかない。1章
Reading the manga but it comes out monthly so I started reading the web novel. With just the first chapter, I’m already quite ahead of the manga. Kinda wonder if this is how manga readers feel when they already know what will happen and are looking forward to what scenes are going to be animated.
継母の連れ子が元カノだった
Reading another series by the writer called I’ll Solve Your Mystery. It is getting an anime this summer, so I might read more as it is airing.
Read 4 Manga Volumes
１。名探偵コナン３巻
Great manga as usual. The Detective Boys and the shoes show up in this volume. I plan on reading more and commenting on every chapter on MAL.
２。愚かな天使は悪魔と踊る１巻
This manga took me for a loop right from the start.
The first chapter was long but it didn’t feel like it.
It went from comedy -> fateful encounter -> shonen battle -> S&M.
Here’s a bit of info from one of my posts.
The story starts off about a devil coming to the human world. For the sake of his world being in peril by the angels and loss of morale in his comrades, he is ordered to find someone with a lot of charisma. Luckily as soon as he enters high school, he finds that charismatic person. Unfortunately… turns out she is is mortal (immortal?) enemy, an angel.
While I was reading the first chapter, I was wondering why people were comparing it to one of my favorite manga, Kaguya-sama, but after finishing the first volume I can kinda see why.
Considering how good the premise and art is, I’m sure it will get picked up for translation soon. Heck it might even get an anime adaptation one day. In the meantime, I think I’ll keep reading it on BOOK★WALKER.
３+４。ココを異世界とする！
This manga was okay. A happy-go-lucky girl making a club focusing on Isekai. She ends dragging a few other students in as they all try to come to terms with their own struggles. The manga sort of ends on a dull note though. They were on the brink of being disbanded because they didn’t that many members but if you take a look at the first chapter, it seems they are going to be okay. I still wanted to know how they won over the class rep though.
I do like the Persona 5 like text every now and then.
Finish Digimon on Animelon
🎶ゴキゲンな躇になって きらめく風に乗って 今すぐ キミに会いに行こう🎶
Feels great to go back to one of my first anime. Digimon Adventure 01 still holds up to this day. I wish that Animelon had Adventure 02 though T_T.
Read an Article/day
I missed a couple of days but I just read two the next day.
Since it was Father’s Day yesterday, I thought it’d be nice to read this as the last article.
It was a survey of best dads in anime. They show a top 20 (don’t know why Gendo Ikari is there) but I’m surprised that Minato is so high on the top 10. Glad to see Kogoro and Yusaku on the list though.
Japanese Practice・日本語の練習 