勉強勉強！: My December Fun Study Materials

On JALUP's site there is a series where you share what materials you've been using during the current month. I thought it's an interesting idea and thought I'd answer the questions here.

1.What are you watching?

I've been re-watching 彩雲国物語(Saiunkoku Monogatari). It's one of my favorite shows and I know the the jist of what's going on without subtitles. The voice acting is fun to listen to, and the plot of a girl trying to follow her dream in a male-world is a bonus too.

I also began watching (and finished) 薄桜鬼 (Hakuouki). It's a series based on the historical events of the Shinsengumi with an added twist. The thing that I really like about this series is that it branches off to other forms of media.

2.What are you listening to?

I've started to listen to Drama CDs. Each time I listen to them I pick something else up. What I love about these CDs compared to listening to a rip of a show is that it was made for listening. So no second of the listening time is wasted since there are no visuals. There are 乙女 (otome) CDs like 主観添い寝 (shukan soine). This is probably my favorite series to listen to because it is soothing enough to fall asleep to. It also has my favorite voice actors: Midorikawa Hikaru, Kousuke Toriumi, Morikawa Toshiyuki, Kuroda Takaya, and Morita Masakazu. They also have an app in the apple store where you can listen to clips from the CDs. (Soine Kareshi or sleepy boyfriend) Each CD has a different story and a "free talk" where the voice actor just talks. The free talk section is advanced for me since it's very natural pace of speech.

The other type of Drama CDs are based on anime series or games. One that I have is from Hakuouki. They came in a book I ordered. The dialog is hard for me to follow, but the positive thing is the book has the script. This series is very good listening practice for me, because every character has a different way of speaking. Some of them I can't understand at all, while others I can kinda follow. It also has numerous humorous scenes. These CDs also have a free talk section, but with the whole cast together. This is great to listen to because it's very natural. As in everyone is talking over each other.

3.What are you playing?

Recently I have fallen into the world of 乙女ゲーム(otome games or visual novels). There are many for the iPhone which I will talk about in another post, but I've been playing Hakuouki. The game is in English but the voice overs are in Japanese. I really like it because I get to see how a line is translated. (And it's translated very differently in my opinion!)

4.What are you reading?

I finished my first manga! （やった！）This one was a nice way to ease into reading manga because there isn't much dialogue, and I knew what was going on since I had already seen the movie. I am currently in the process of transcoding it and adding the vocab into Anki.

I am half-way through 彩雲国 (Saiunkoku) vol. 1. I read it first in English and then in Japanese. But I read the English version so long ago that I don't remember it. This volume ties closely to the anime plot so I know what's going on. Sometimes I even get the jokes!♪

Even though I am reading Saiunkoku right now I really want to start reading Hakuouki. Though I am not sure if it's a good idea to read two series at once or bounce around. Should I go back to reading DBZ then?