Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics

This book is not for people who know nothing about Japanese language. It's not for people who want to just pick up an introductory book to start learning Japanese language, neither. If you're currently studying Japanese and in between beginner and intermediate levels, this book is a treasure for you to benefit your proficiency in Japanese. As the name of the book suggested, the author used different manga pictures to depict some common japanese phrases (e.g. ano-, su-mi-ma-sen, shi-tsu-rei, baka, etc.) in different meanings with different contexts. The author also indicated the politeness level (i.e. Lv 1,2,3,4) for each usage to help the readers use the phrases properly in various siturations. Overall this book is definitely a great helper.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 19-June-2007)

This is a great book to get if you have already learned 6 months of Japanese or so (at least). It is a series of chapters illustrating a few interesting words or topics of Japanese language, all illustrated with bits of real, commercially available manga. But be warned, they use a "magnifying glass" approach which I loved: they focus on ONE word for several pages. For example, the chapter on "hon", one of the counters, goes on and on for four pages of comic book panels. I will never forget what that word means and how to use it and I was fascinated with the examples from the comics. But then again, it is just ONE word.
It is a book for people that are not in a hurry and are having fun with Japanese, as opposed to people that need to learn Japanese quickly for a particular objective.

This is a great supplement for those studying Japanese language and culture. Don't expect to pick this up as a first Japanese book, however! In the introduction, the author admits that "Basic Japanese Through Comics" may be a little misleading. It is basic Japanese, but the book assumes that you have studied a year or more in a classroom environment.

With that aside, this is the best resource I have seen for transforming "classroom" Japanese into "natural" Japanese. The book uses popular Japanese manga to smooth out some common errors for Japanese learners. For example, there are two chapters discussing the many uses of "Hai" and one chapter on how to naturally say "anno..."

The manga used is very fun and gives a good cultural insight into daily Japan. No giant robots or magical girls, it is mainly office humor in the same line as "Dilbert." The office humor demonstrates varying levels of polite language, and Mangajin is kind enough to offer a "politeness scale" to show how polite anyone is being in a given setting. This is very useful, as politeness levels is where many English speakers find themselves in trouble in Japan!

Two barriers separate the English world from the Japanese world. The first is language. Yet differences of culture really present the greater barrier.

This book uses authentic Japanese comics for adults to explain the cultural significance of the many words which are routinely mistranslated in all beginning Japanese text books.

Mangajin's guide to Japanese does not replace, but rather supplements the traditional Japanese spoken course in an invaluable way. This book is a must for all students of Japanese.

A truely fun book with lasting importance.