People who are studying or fluent in Japanese frequently praise Genki I and Genki II as “*the textbook*” to use when studying the language.
What is the equivalent of Genki for a Japanese person trying to learn English? If you do not consider Genki to be so great, then just ignore that part of the question. What do you consider to be the greatest (not just common but actually good!) English textbook for a Japanese person?
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I don’t think there is any equivalent.
Genki is so incredibly popular not because it’s the ” *best textbook ever* ” but because it’s good enough, and it’s *already* popular. That means there are anki decks and memrise courses and other community content, Q&A sites have already got the answer to questions about every line in Genki. You can easily find answers to your questions with a simple web search.
If you’re going to self-study Japanese you need to find a *very* good textbook in order for anything other than Genki to make sense, or else have a special case, e.g. learning the spoken language exclusively.
In Japan, on the other hand, everyone studies English in school. They already have whatever book their school uses, so there’s no reason for the self-studier to go looking for a basic textbook. That said, there are tons of 英会話 learning materials for those looking to get beyond the basics, but AFAIK there’s no overwhelming winner among them.