I would love to start reading more, but am having trouble finding interesting stuff to read. Would love to hear your suggestions and what you started out with if you have read multiple books in Japanese!
狼と香辛料１ but it was beast of a first book, there’s a ton of rare nouns, and both fantasy and financial jargon, i don’t recommend it unless you’re a superfan of the anime and have a lot of grit for breaking brick walls with your head
村上’s first book 風の歌を聴け was way more accessible, and also pretty short, i recommend this as a first adult-level novel
even 漱石’s 坊ちゃん was more accessible, despite the older style japanese grammar and vocab spread throughout it, as well as the surprising and annoying pattern of having dialogue mixed with prose but with no 「quotes」 anywhere 😛 — note that this book is on a middle-school japanese student’s standard reading list
If we’re counting manga, my first was the first volume of [Crystal Hunters](https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/80075613). It’s simplified for language learners (N5 or below), so it does a nice job of bridging the gap between textbook exercises and actually reading books.
Uhh, either キノの旅 or コンビニ人間.
I was reading them side by side and don’t remember what I finished first
I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone first. It wasn’t the first book I read in English, but it was the first one I really remember reading as a kid and kicked off my love of reading so it felt like the right thing to do. From a language perspective it’s not the easiest book in the world, but it’s formatted very similarly to a Western style novel and since I’d already read the series it made it quite a bit easier.
First book I read was 上橋菜穂子’s 獣の奏者.
Thanks for the responses everyone I’ll definitely be checking some of these out 😀
娘じゃなくて私が好きなの1
The first book I read was 世界から猫が消えたなら and I would definitely recommend it. One other book that is super nice and easy is ペンギンハイウェイ, if I could, I would have chosen that to read first. But I recommend it to everyone, it is around 400 pages, but it is very easy to read and for me it was nice to take a break from more difficult books and read something where I don’t have to look up vocabulary on every other page.
My first manga was おじさまと猫. I’ve yet to finish my first book, but I’ve dabbled a bit in various easy books like 夜カフェ, また同じ夢を見たand すべての神様の十月
I recommend that you check out https://learnnatively.com/ where you can find books that are graded by difficult levels (by users, so it seems pretty accurate). I love using it to find novels and manga suitable for my level.
The first book I attempted, after equivalent of around 1 year of college classes, was パラサイト・イヴ by 秀明瀬奈, solely based on the fact that it was the basis of a video game. I only got a third through but was a fun challenge (hmm…funny I also never finished the game!). In retrospect, one benefit was that the prose was pretty straightforward.
The first book I actually finished, about a year later after ~2 years worth of classes, was 世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド by 村上春樹. I read it after reading the English translation.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. I’m a Potterhead so I would definitely pick HP. I also read tons of light novels related to my favourite video games , like the Final Fantasy novella and Tales of Graces and Vesperia light novels.
Higashino Keigo is another favourite of mine, the Japanese is on the harder side but I was able to read them at N2 level when studying for N1
Not fluent yet, but when I am, I intend to read the first three Megami Tensei volumes.
Been using Satori Reader a lot recently. Stories are quite interesting, it has translation and grammar points built in, you just click a kanji for translation. Each “episode” of a series focuses on specific types of vocabulary, ways of speaking, grammar points, etc. Difficult grammar is also underlined and has an explanation when you click on the passage. Also, narration with sound effects and voice acting.
First book I read was 密室殺人ゲーム.
They weren’t the first books I read, but if you like mysteries, I’d recommend 一つ屋根の下の探偵たち (novel) or ノッキンオン・ロックドドア (short story collection). They aren’t light novels, but they’re written in a similar style.
魔女の宅急便 (kiki’s delivery service)
Something practical: セキセイインコの飼い方・増やし方
月之書 by Yagyuu Juubei Mitsuyoshi. I have a thing for Japanese history, especially Samurai, and to learn more about this Samurai whose life is mostly shrouded in mystery was intriguing.
よるくま！I love children’s books in any language but being able to read it all the way boosted my confidence a lot!
Mine could’ve been ぐりとぐら back in the day… If not the massive egg they found in the forest left a huge impression 👀
If you’re earlier on in your learning, you might be better off starting with [Satori Reader](https://www.satorireader.com/). They have curated stories with audio, furigana toggle, definitions, annotated grammar and cultural explanations, and SRS.
Easier recs:
– [Crystal Hunters ](http://crystalhuntersmanga.com/free-stuff/) manga. It’s made for learners, and comes with vocab sheets. First volume is free in JP and English (and other langs). I recommend the natural JP edition, unless you’re very, very beginner.
– Teasing Master Takagi San manga – I’ve only read a bit, but found it relatively accessible, back when I tried
Somewhat harder:
– Kimi No Na Wa manga – I haven’t read too far, but I think it’s accessible enough, esp if you have the English to compare against
Currently reading: – Sword Art Online v25 (untranslated) – much more challenging. I have to look up vocab constantly, but it’s slowly getting easier. It helps that I’m deeply familiar with SAO.
– Satori Reader stories – perfect difficulty and benefit for my current level. Can’t recommend these enough.
バトルロワイアル
君の名は. I’d seen Your Name name a few times so I knew the plot and even specific scenes, which helped with my comprehension.
赤い満月の秘密 This is what pushed me over the edge to love Japanese reading. I was exploring the middle school library in japan(when I was an English teacher) and found a book that taught about space science in manga, and read the whole thing over a week.
また、同じ夢を見ていた was my first book and although it is simple and easy to read, it has a strong message beneath the events that occur and was pretty enjoyable
I tried a couple WNs from [https://syosetu.com/](https://syosetu.com/) but didn’t like them much (Probably because I just picked the ones I had the best coverage for in [https://jpdb.io/](https://jpdb.io/) like [https://ncode.syosetu.com/n6790fy](https://ncode.syosetu.com/n6790fy) ) so I stopped, currently reading this: [https://jpdb.io/novel/5366/mata-onaji-yume-wo-miteita](https://jpdb.io/novel/5366/mata-onaji-yume-wo-miteita) which is definetely not a piece of cake, but it’s pretty easy
for manga, I like kanjitomo for OCR, and for reading text on my phone I use a browser extension to generate epub from WNs or otherwise try and find an epub, and then use the typhon-kai reader ([https://github.com/dajimenezja/typhon/releases](https://github.com/dajimenezja/typhon/releases)) in android which can do dictionary lookups (I tried kiwi browser+ttu and also jidoujisho and both were pretty scuffed (Super laggy on large books, and triggered dictionary lookups while I was swiping to scroll down which was super annoying))
Does “reading” count? I was mostly marveling throughout the book that the sentences were no longer meaningless strings of characters. I also found a whole page that I understood completely – it was describing the colors of some of the best national soccer teams from South America: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. For the presidential discourse quotes I just searched for them in English 😅
I prefer graded readers. And I like anything and everything if it’s in easy Japanese.
化物語（上）
!remindme 1 day
GJ部, but it was a slog. I’d recommend 怪盗レッド instead, although it’s a bit lacking in kanji, which makes it a struggle in some places.
おしりたんてい
First book I read was Accel World book 1. I’ve read about half of that series now. First book I read and really understood was 鏡の孤城 which was excellent. Currently reading マスカレードホテル which is also excellent. Would recommend either of those. 鏡の孤城 is actually not that difficult either.
一リトルの涙. I started reading a bit late.
The first book I finished probably was 天気の子 & it was a really nice experience. I would definitely recommend works by Shinkai Makoto to fellow learners as the setting is contemporary but whimsical & the writing is easy to follow but you can still pick up a ton of new vocab if you want.
「コンビニ人間」 was the first book i read, easier then i thought. but the first “book” i read was the “new penguin parallel text” although not all stories, some are quite hard i think. But currently i’m reading 「君の名は」 and 「世界から猫が消えたなら」.
Surprisingly, Kokoro by Soseki, a novel published more than a 100 years ago. Very readable and, incidentally, very good novel.
my first book was gimai seikatsu, p cute, maybe hard for a beginner? i dont think it’s too hard, but anyway i would recommend it
38 comments
狼と香辛料１ but it was beast of a first book, there’s a ton of rare nouns, and both fantasy and financial jargon, i don’t recommend it unless you’re a superfan of the anime and have a lot of grit for breaking brick walls with your head
村上’s first book 風の歌を聴け was way more accessible, and also pretty short, i recommend this as a first adult-level novel
even 漱石’s 坊ちゃん was more accessible, despite the older style japanese grammar and vocab spread throughout it, as well as the surprising and annoying pattern of having dialogue mixed with prose but with no 「quotes」 anywhere 😛 — note that this book is on a middle-school japanese student’s standard reading list
If we’re counting manga, my first was the first volume of [Crystal Hunters](https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/80075613). It’s simplified for language learners (N5 or below), so it does a nice job of bridging the gap between textbook exercises and actually reading books.
Uhh, either キノの旅 or コンビニ人間.
I was reading them side by side and don’t remember what I finished first
I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone first. It wasn’t the first book I read in English, but it was the first one I really remember reading as a kid and kicked off my love of reading so it felt like the right thing to do. From a language perspective it’s not the easiest book in the world, but it’s formatted very similarly to a Western style novel and since I’d already read the series it made it quite a bit easier.
First book I read was 上橋菜穂子’s 獣の奏者.
Thanks for the responses everyone I’ll definitely be checking some of these out 😀
娘じゃなくて私が好きなの1
The first book I read was 世界から猫が消えたなら and I would definitely recommend it. One other book that is super nice and easy is ペンギンハイウェイ, if I could, I would have chosen that to read first. But I recommend it to everyone, it is around 400 pages, but it is very easy to read and for me it was nice to take a break from more difficult books and read something where I don’t have to look up vocabulary on every other page.
My first manga was おじさまと猫. I’ve yet to finish my first book, but I’ve dabbled a bit in various easy books like 夜カフェ, また同じ夢を見たand すべての神様の十月
I recommend that you check out https://learnnatively.com/ where you can find books that are graded by difficult levels (by users, so it seems pretty accurate). I love using it to find novels and manga suitable for my level.
the first harry potter book. Would recommend if you read it before, otherwise probably not. The second book I read was 時をかける少女, which is good for beginners [and had a bookclub on wanikani](https://community.wanikani.com/t/%E6%99%82%E3%82%92%E3%81%8B%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3-home-thread-beginner-book-club/33287). Anything with beginner/intermediate book clubs on there are pretty good choices, since you can ask questions and read through other people asking questions/getting answers
The first book I attempted, after equivalent of around 1 year of college classes, was パラサイト・イヴ by 秀明瀬奈, solely based on the fact that it was the basis of a video game. I only got a third through but was a fun challenge (hmm…funny I also never finished the game!). In retrospect, one benefit was that the prose was pretty straightforward.
The first book I actually finished, about a year later after ~2 years worth of classes, was 世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド by 村上春樹. I read it after reading the English translation.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. I’m a Potterhead so I would definitely pick HP. I also read tons of light novels related to my favourite video games , like the Final Fantasy novella and Tales of Graces and Vesperia light novels.
Higashino Keigo is another favourite of mine, the Japanese is on the harder side but I was able to read them at N2 level when studying for N1
Not fluent yet, but when I am, I intend to read the first three Megami Tensei volumes.
Been using Satori Reader a lot recently. Stories are quite interesting, it has translation and grammar points built in, you just click a kanji for translation. Each “episode” of a series focuses on specific types of vocabulary, ways of speaking, grammar points, etc. Difficult grammar is also underlined and has an explanation when you click on the passage. Also, narration with sound effects and voice acting.
First book I read was 密室殺人ゲーム.
They weren’t the first books I read, but if you like mysteries, I’d recommend 一つ屋根の下の探偵たち (novel) or ノッキンオン・ロックドドア (short story collection). They aren’t light novels, but they’re written in a similar style.
魔女の宅急便 (kiki’s delivery service)
Something practical: セキセイインコの飼い方・増やし方
月之書 by Yagyuu Juubei Mitsuyoshi. I have a thing for Japanese history, especially Samurai, and to learn more about this Samurai whose life is mostly shrouded in mystery was intriguing.
よるくま！I love children’s books in any language but being able to read it all the way boosted my confidence a lot!
Mine could’ve been ぐりとぐら back in the day…
If not the massive egg they found in the forest left a huge impression 👀
If you’re earlier on in your learning, you might be better off starting with [Satori Reader](https://www.satorireader.com/). They have curated stories with audio, furigana toggle, definitions, annotated grammar and cultural explanations, and SRS.
Easier recs:
– [Crystal Hunters ](http://crystalhuntersmanga.com/free-stuff/) manga. It’s made for learners, and comes with vocab sheets. First volume is free in JP and English (and other langs). I recommend the natural JP edition, unless you’re very, very beginner.
– Teasing Master Takagi San manga – I’ve only read a bit, but found it relatively accessible, back when I tried
Somewhat harder:
– Kimi No Na Wa manga – I haven’t read too far, but I think it’s accessible enough, esp if you have the English to compare against
– [不登校の幼馴染が学校に行く条件は、毎日俺とキスすることだった](https://bookwalker.jp/dedb448062-c0f9-48b1-9a0c-2bdb14ac5ed5/). First book I finished. There’s an Eng fan translation (incomplete): [My Childhood Friend Who Never Went to School Made It a Condition of Going to School To Kiss Her Every Day ](https://lightnovelreader.org/my-childhood-friend-who-never-went-to-school-made-it-a-condition-of-going-to-school-to-kiss-her-every-day ). It’s Lvl 5 on jpdb, but fwiw I found it easier than a Lvl 3 one I tried.
Currently reading:
– Sword Art Online v25 (untranslated) – much more challenging. I have to look up vocab constantly, but it’s slowly getting easier. It helps that I’m deeply familiar with SAO.
– Satori Reader stories – perfect difficulty and benefit for my current level. Can’t recommend these enough.
バトルロワイアル
君の名は. I’d seen Your Name name a few times so I knew the plot and even specific scenes, which helped with my comprehension.
赤い満月の秘密 This is what pushed me over the edge to love Japanese reading. I was exploring the middle school library in japan(when I was an English teacher) and found a book that taught about space science in manga, and read the whole thing over a week.
また、同じ夢を見ていた was my first book and although it is simple and easy to read, it has a strong message beneath the events that occur and was pretty enjoyable
I first started with these 2 manga: [https://myanimelist.net/manga/104/Yotsuba_to](https://myanimelist.net/manga/104/Yotsuba_to) and then [https://myanimelist.net/manga/67979/Kuro](https://myanimelist.net/manga/67979/Kuro)
I tried a couple WNs from [https://syosetu.com/](https://syosetu.com/) but didn’t like them much (Probably because I just picked the ones I had the best coverage for in [https://jpdb.io/](https://jpdb.io/) like [https://ncode.syosetu.com/n6790fy](https://ncode.syosetu.com/n6790fy) ) so I stopped, currently reading this: [https://jpdb.io/novel/5366/mata-onaji-yume-wo-miteita](https://jpdb.io/novel/5366/mata-onaji-yume-wo-miteita) which is definetely not a piece of cake, but it’s pretty easy
for manga, I like kanjitomo for OCR, and for reading text on my phone I use a browser extension to generate epub from WNs or otherwise try and find an epub, and then use the typhon-kai reader ([https://github.com/dajimenezja/typhon/releases](https://github.com/dajimenezja/typhon/releases)) in android which can do dictionary lookups (I tried kiwi browser+ttu and also jidoujisho and both were pretty scuffed (Super laggy on large books, and triggered dictionary lookups while I was swiping to scroll down which was super annoying))
Does “reading” count? I was mostly marveling throughout the book that the sentences were no longer meaningless strings of characters. I also found a whole page that I understood completely – it was describing the colors of some of the best national soccer teams from South America: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. For the presidential discourse quotes I just searched for them in English 😅
[世界を動かすことば 世界でいちばん貧しい大統領のスピーチ](https://yomeruba.com/product/tsubasabunko/321507000272.html) on Yomeruba/Bookwalker back in 2020 when it was free to read because of the pandemic. Was *Crystal Hunters* a thing back then?
I prefer graded readers. And I like anything and everything if it’s in easy Japanese.
化物語（上）
!remindme 1 day
GJ部, but it was a slog. I’d recommend 怪盗レッド instead, although it’s a bit lacking in kanji, which makes it a struggle in some places.
おしりたんてい
First book I read was Accel World book 1. I’ve read about half of that series now. First book I read and really understood was 鏡の孤城 which was excellent. Currently reading マスカレードホテル which is also excellent. Would recommend either of those. 鏡の孤城 is actually not that difficult either.
一リトルの涙. I started reading a bit late.
The first book I finished probably was 天気の子 & it was a really nice experience. I would definitely recommend works by Shinkai Makoto to fellow learners as the setting is contemporary but whimsical & the writing is easy to follow but you can still pick up a ton of new vocab if you want.
「コンビニ人間」 was the first book i read, easier then i thought. but the first “book” i read was the “new penguin parallel text” although not all stories, some are quite hard i think. But currently i’m reading 「君の名は」 and 「世界から猫が消えたなら」.
Surprisingly, Kokoro by Soseki, a novel published more than a 100 years ago. Very readable and, incidentally, very good novel.
my first book was gimai seikatsu, p cute, maybe hard for a beginner? i dont think it’s too hard, but anyway i would recommend it
I didn’t read any yet lol