crystal hunters <=== very easy for beginners, first issue legally free
yotsubato <=== I read this when I was half-way through Genki II
Card Captor Sakura
こどものおもちゃ
ちびまる子ちゃん
よつばと！ is one I’ll always recommend to early-intermediate learners. There’s also Takagi-san, Nagatoro-san, NonNonBiyori, Asobi Asobase, and Skip and Loafer.
I recommend the above with the caveat that while they are not especially complex, they are still not *easy,* and you’ll be looking up words nearly every panel and struggling to puzzle out every third sentence for a long time to come, but there’s nowhere to jump in except at the deep end.
I found that *なめて、かじって、ときどき愛でて* was written in surprisingly easy Japanese and was very good.
Flying Witch
リコとハルと温泉イルカ
Aqua/Aria
やがて君になる (Bloom into You)
After Yotsuba read Slam Dunk!!
Pokémon special. Hoshi no Kirby. Doraemon. Duelmasters. Pretty much every manga that is featured in Korokoro comics monthly. It’s literally for elementary school kids. I’d also recommend dragonball sd. It uses easier language for kids.
This website offers a lot of recommendations based on level. It may not be perfect but it’s a great start.
You can read a lot of manga on this site and easily look stuff up along with Yomichan or Migaku as the text is selectable. https://bilingualmanga.net/
I’m not sure if this is above your level or not, but I was reading chainsaw man, and it was surprisingly extremely easy to read. Interesting manga with pretty easy dialogue.
Honestly, lots of Manga are easy to read. Slice of life is probably your best bet. Find one you will actually like and stick to.
からかい上手の高木さん is a fun and easy one though, if I were to give a recommendation.
Nagatoro
One I would also recommend is the doraemon bilingual series, it has English in the speech bubbles and then Japanese on top, it is mainly aimed at children who wants to learn English but can work vice versa. Also Dragonball complete edition or Dragonball SD edition, easy Japanese. Shirokuma cafe and maybe even Conan, it is also targeted at children but you have to look for yourself
I have none named Aku no Hana
I’ll always recommend this but if you’re N4/N3 level then shoujo manga like 君に届け is pretty understandable—obviously you’d still need a dictionary every so often but the kind of conversations they have aren’t particularly hard to follow
But also any manga with furigana also works ! Planning on reading ナナ next and it also has furigana so I’m gonna guess it’s around same level of 君に届け
shiroyama to mita-san
ハピネス
Baki (most of the time atleast)
I’m roughly n4/n3 and I’m working on NANA. It’s recommended for N3-N1. It’s a huge struggle and challenge. I’m honestly suprised how much vocab and kanji I recognize. The grammar isn’t hard to grasp and it’s fairly easy to piece the story together. My other Manga conquest is my dress up darling. This one is also pretty easy but I’ve encountered a lot of vocab I’ll never use. NANA made sense because I talk about music and art a lot. Consider your irl hobbies and goals. You can then choose a series that covers them 🙂
Yuru Camp is pretty easy to follow. No furigana though.
In the end, I went to BookOff in Kyoto and found the whole collection of Barakamon for 3000¥. There is furigana for all the kanjis too! Thank you everyone for the suggestions!
21 comments
crystal hunters <=== very easy for beginners, first issue legally free
yotsubato <=== I read this when I was half-way through Genki II
Card Captor Sakura
こどものおもちゃ
ちびまる子ちゃん
よつばと！ is one I’ll always recommend to early-intermediate learners. There’s also Takagi-san, Nagatoro-san, NonNonBiyori, Asobi Asobase, and Skip and Loafer.
I recommend the above with the caveat that while they are not especially complex, they are still not *easy,* and you’ll be looking up words nearly every panel and struggling to puzzle out every third sentence for a long time to come, but there’s nowhere to jump in except at the deep end.
I found that *なめて、かじって、ときどき愛でて* was written in surprisingly easy Japanese and was very good.
Flying Witch
リコとハルと温泉イルカ
Aqua/Aria
やがて君になる (Bloom into You)
After Yotsuba read Slam Dunk!!
Pokémon special. Hoshi no Kirby. Doraemon. Duelmasters. Pretty much every manga that is featured in Korokoro comics monthly. It’s literally for elementary school kids. I’d also recommend dragonball sd. It uses easier language for kids.
Shinchan, doraemon
Any manga with furigana imo
https://learnnatively.com/
This website offers a lot of recommendations based on level. It may not be perfect but it’s a great start.
You can read a lot of manga on this site and easily look stuff up along with Yomichan or Migaku as the text is selectable.
https://bilingualmanga.net/
I’m not sure if this is above your level or not, but I was reading chainsaw man, and it was surprisingly extremely easy to read. Interesting manga with pretty easy dialogue.
Honestly, lots of Manga are easy to read. Slice of life is probably your best bet. Find one you will actually like and stick to.
からかい上手の高木さん is a fun and easy one though, if I were to give a recommendation.
Nagatoro
One I would also recommend is the doraemon bilingual series, it has English in the speech bubbles and then Japanese on top, it is mainly aimed at children who wants to learn English but can work vice versa. Also Dragonball complete edition or Dragonball SD edition, easy Japanese. Shirokuma cafe and maybe even Conan, it is also targeted at children but you have to look for yourself
I have none named Aku no Hana
I’ll always recommend this but if you’re N4/N3 level then shoujo manga like 君に届け is pretty understandable—obviously you’d still need a dictionary every so often but the kind of conversations they have aren’t particularly hard to follow
But also any manga with furigana also works ! Planning on reading ナナ next and it also has furigana so I’m gonna guess it’s around same level of 君に届け
shiroyama to mita-san
ハピネス
Baki (most of the time atleast)
I’m roughly n4/n3 and I’m working on NANA. It’s recommended for N3-N1. It’s a huge struggle and challenge. I’m honestly suprised how much vocab and kanji I recognize. The grammar isn’t hard to grasp and it’s fairly easy to piece the story together. My other Manga conquest is my dress up darling. This one is also pretty easy but I’ve encountered a lot of vocab I’ll never use. NANA made sense because I talk about music and art a lot. Consider your irl hobbies and goals. You can then choose a series that covers them 🙂
Yuru Camp is pretty easy to follow. No furigana though.
In the end, I went to BookOff in Kyoto and found the whole collection of Barakamon for 3000¥. There is furigana for all the kanjis too! Thank you everyone for the suggestions!