Japanese in Mangaland: Basic Japanese Course Using Manga

I am returning to Japan for a visit and needed a review of conversational Japanese. This book worked well for that purpose.

I am absolutely astonished by the quality of this book. When I looked at the cover, I expected this to be a gimmicky book with only a cursory glance at grammar and even worse, entirely in romaji (Roman letters). Fortunately this book does not treat the reader like a moron and expects you to work, and giving you everything you need to achieve your early Japanese language goal. I believe that so far there are only 3 books in the series and they go up to an intermediate level where you will have a solid background in the language, almost enough for the second level on the JLPT.

I expected this book to have more manga in it, but only small panels are taken from manga and used as an introduction for the chapter. Some useful material for manga-specific subjects (onomatopoeias, etc) are mentioned, but the focus is on the language as a whole.

I think the most impressive part of this series is its focus on _common_ vocabulary and colloquialisms. I studied years ago with the Genki textbook series and its vocabulary was poor, giving you words that you just would not use in everyday life.

I recommend this series but I also suggest any Japanese student to purchase another book or use another study system in order to learn the writing system.

I was hoping for more manga. A bit heavy on the text. The book is very well done, perfect for an adult. But too heavy for early teen.

Hi,

I don't usually write reviews too often unless I feel the need to let someone know whether or not they're about to make a purchasing mistake.

This review is mostly going to be tailored to people (like myself) who are obsessed with anime and dream that, one day, they too will be able to watch an anime without subtitles and understand everything, among other things.

With that in mind, this book is by far THE best beginners' Japanese course I have ever found. I have purchased many of the popular titles you may have already heard of... (ex: Japanese for Busy People) and I was so frustrated at myself for never sticking past the first chapter... blaming myself for my lack of discipline. Now it is no longer a mystery to me--it wasn't my fault! These books are extremely dull and boring to anime fans. "Where is the train station? Thank you, Tanaka-san, for the rice. Would you like to sit down? Okay. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much! What time does your train leave? etc etc..." Not only that, but you never learn anything interesting / in style, and you are pretty much reduced to learning "Watashi and Anata" as the only way to address I and you, respectively. Jeez, what were they thinking? Doing that completely takes the fun out of Japanese learning and gives me the mistaken impression my hopes of Japanese as a cool language were simply pipe-dreams.

This book takes care of all that. You will learn how to say "You bastard!!!" like you hear so often in Anime. You will see examples of beautiful anime girls asking if they can bathe with guys they like. You will so cute cartoons express themselves in silly ways. But that's not all! It is a beginner's book too, so you will learn how to say days of the week, calendar days, seasons, how to count and the different systems, etc... all the critical stuff. Even a few swear words! You will learn how to read and write Hiragana and Katakana right off the bat (you do not need to purchase anything else for this either, as it is all succinctly explained in 2 chapters, even stroke order.. etc).

You also may be wondering how they teach this information. 1. Charts. 2. Explanations... and 3... Real manga examples! What better way to learn casual day to day conversation-style that's so apparent in Anime and everyday life? I can't think of a better way. I really don't want to learn Japanese from a hoity-toity course and speak like those geeks wearing lawyer outfits you see around town with their "the Queen's" Japanese. No, none of that, though you will be able to speak like that if you choose to. To illustrate, I was even saying some of the things in this book to Japanese waitresses with excited and happy results, such as: "You speak exactly like a Japanese man!!! Oh my God! Where did you learn?". Nowhere, no formal education, just many hours of anime, this course, and a sincere desire to be able to speak it fluently.

There is one complaint about the book... (another reviewer was correct in pointing this out). There is no stroke order to draw / write the kanji. I do find this quite irritating, as I'd like to go along with the book and learn these simple kanji without developing bad habits. (hence the 4-star rating). Thankfully though, all hope is not lost, and it's not that big of a deal. Get Heisig's Remembering the Kanji set which will teach you 2042 Kanji and their readings, stroke order, etc etc. Book 3 of 3 has another thousand or so).

In conclusion, if you love Anime / manga, and haven't purchased any other books looking for a beginner's Japanese course to do on your own, then this it. Look no further. I am extremely grateful to the author for deciding to use this radical yet effective method of teaching me Japanese.

Thank you.

My daughter bought this and is learning Japanese faster than when she was getting books from the library. I am impressed. I may spring to pay for the next one.