JReader redesign

I'm an engineer trying my ways at building this app. I take lots of inspiration from here at Dribbble and designers in the team where I work.

The challenge I find here is trying to create a simplistic and coherent design under the constraints where the text in Japanese is very short, and I want to use what's called Furigana to ease the reading for learners. Also, as the app is a news/article reader the titles, content and pictures are provided by volunteer authors so that's also outside my control.

Looking at many other news apps I've tried to create a rounder more friendly card-based design rather than the strictly content-focused approach seen in apps such as New York Times or Guardian.

Still a very rough work and I'm in no way satisfied yet, any tips and pointers greatly appreciated!