Reading Report: 16 August 2026
モンスターハンター
Took a break from Soul Sacrifice and played some Monster Hunter again. This week I got into high rank (village) in P2G. I forgot how jank the Shen Gaoren fight is, but I managed to do it in one attempt with a light bowgun. High rank is so cool, mostly because you unlock so many new maps. It feels like the real game has finally opened up. I love the Hypnoc, and I love the old swamp and great forest.
砂漠
I was mostly reading on-quota for the week, but I had one productive evening which pushed me out of the autumn section and into winter.
Autumn ended up being totally about the sceptic Asou and the "psychic" Washio, and Kitamura and Nishijima's efforts to give Washio the best chance at "beating" Asou. Towards the end of the section, Toudou calls up Kitamura and says that Asou and Washio just walked into the restaurant she works at, and they're acting chummy like old friends. As it turns out, the sceptic and psychic routine is all an act, and Washio plans to flunk on stage to give Asou more credibility. This drops Nishijima and Kitamura's moods and they start skipping class to just stare at the clouds. There's a bit more exploration of Toudou's general experience with men, and a bit of a hint that Nishijima might be starting to develop feelings for her, but generally everything funnels towards the day of the psychic demonstration and a feeling of hopelessness by the main cast for being betrayed by the older men involved. On the day of the show, things go as expected and Washio strikes out on stage but then Kanji, a university student involved in the festival who likes Toudou, comes on stage and puts them on the spot with a (doctored) photograph of Toudou, Asou, and Washio all at Toudou's restaurant. The two men get flustered over it, and during their moment of weakness Minami makes a magic marker on the stage float in the air for a short time, further cementing Asou's loss.
Winter starts with Kitamura being accosted by Presidentman. It honestly sounds like a traumatic experience, and I'm surprised it didn't totally take the magic out of the character for the rest of the gang. His encounter with Presidentman turns out to just be the vessel for the real storyline, because after speaking to the police about it, Kitamura was brought back into the police department to identify a suspect. It isn't Presidentman, but it does appear to be one of the hustlers from the end of spring. Possessed with a desire to catch them once and for all, Kitamura tails the hustler back to his apartment. He tells the gang about his exploit, and they all decide to stake out the place to see if they can find the exact apartment number he lives at, but as it gets more real, Kitamura gets cold feet. Unfortunately Nishijima and Torii have no fear and keep pushing things, and the gang eventually find out not only where the guys live, but also confirm that they're probably living together.
It feels like the gang are getting too deep into it, and I hope they can resolve the issue cleanly. I hope to finish the book by next report.