Hiya,
Sorry if this has been answered a thousand times already. I have spent a little while looking but I’m not too great with reddit.
I’m looking for immersion material aimed at beginners, of all media types.
I’m currently watching Shirokuma Cafe without subtitles on Crunchyroll but wanted to know what other anime that is quite simple that people recommend.
Is there any manga/ reading material that is mainly in Hiragana/ Katakana or has the ‘gana noted above kanji that people recommend?
I’m happy subscribing to sites and paying for content etc. I’m UK based so buying say Doraemon in Japanese has been really difficult. Finding it online (legally please) would be ace.
Please let me know any and all recommendations. Be they podcasts, stories, manga, anime, live action tv or anything else!
Please do provide links or information on how to access the content as that has been a major issue of mine!
Thanks!!
6 comments
With manga, the keyword you’re looking for is “furigana.” That’s what you call the little hiragana above the kanji, and they’re pretty common in anything aimed at kids, or even published by publishers that publish a lot of things for kids. Sometimes you find manga where it’s kind of weird that everything has furigana but it does.
It would help to know a little bit more about your tastes and how hard you’re finding Shirokuma Cafe (there’s also a manga btw, and I believe it has furigana on literally everything.) But Shirokuma is generally a pretty common and reasonable recommendation.
People recommend Yotsuba a lot, although I’m not personally a fan. As an absolute beginner I think a lot of manga might be too hard, but personally I like Bloom into You (やがて君になる). It has furigana on everything too, but none of the kid speech and (to me) a more interesting story. There are probably hundreds of good manga with furigana on all the kanji though, depending on what you’re into.
[Satori Reader](https://www.satorireader.com/) is a paid subscription and sounds like exactly what you’re looking for. The first 2 chapters of each story are free, and then there’s a monthly subscription after that. It’s a bit hard to find on their site because the image is currently bugged, but I’d recommend [Kona’s Big Adventure](https://www.satorireader.com/series/kona-adventure) as a first story to try.
For beginners I can recommend graded readers e.g. [tadoku](https://tadoku.org/japanese/free-books/) bc it’s free and digital or [these ones (physical books)](https://dokushoclub.com/2022/02/12/graded-readers/)
I’m in my 20’s and used Terrace House on Netflix to listen to how Japanese people in their 20’s talk with each other. I found it pretty helpful!
Some PS4 games have Japanese language in them if that’s an option you want to take.
Though some do actually require you to change your system language via settings into Japanese for them to appear. FFXII: The Zodiac Age, for example.
Doraemon has a manga, you could likely got it from an online Japanese bookstore like kinokuniya.
I recommend [Nihongo Con Teppei](https://open.spotify.com/show/4W4jYoKRmjlURKO1fIfcOK) Japanese Podcast for beginners.
It’s once of my pillars of learning Japanese and I love it so much, basically he speaks Japanese the entire podcast but slow and understandable, in cases there’s a new knowledge in the podcast, he would try to explain it in simpler Japanese, sometimes he would say it in English if there’s no other way.