Hello! I am looking for a manga or anime to read/watch. I have been studying for about 2 years and am N4. I know I am still a beginner and that I wont understand everything but whenever I immerse one of two things happen. One I understand very little and spend a lot of time figuring out what everything means but this is really tedious for me and I get bored. Or two I get something easy, but the story is so boring I get bored again lol. Is there anything thats kinda challenging, but not something that forces me to stop every second, while having some level of story? Any recommendations are appreciated. Thanks!
8 comments
Card Captor Sakura is my general recommendation. There is still some advanced parts, particularly spell incantations, but if you skip those bits it’s one of the easiest. It’s also on netflix with Japanese subtitles so it’s easy to access.
[mokuro.moe/manga](https://mokuro.moe/manga) has ocr manga, so probably use yomichan and ankiconnect and pick one of them. yotsuba to is on there, and is probably the most recommended beginner manga, so if you havent tried that one maybe give it a go. but the website has a shit ton of scanned manga
I mostly play games, but there’s some content I enjoy that might help. Have you seen the Japanese Pokémon Kid TV YouTube channel? It has a lots of songs and shorts that are fairly digestible. The anime shorts might be a good stepping stone into larger series. I also really like the simpler ghibli films. Totoro is the easiest. Then work up from there. Kiki and Arietty are pretty manageable.
You can use jpdb.io built in decks to search for anime by difficulty. https://learnnatively.com/ is great for reading.
Personally I finished Genki and have started on Yotsuba and Shirokuma Cafe for manga and anime respectively. Both are very approachable so far and most lookups I’ve had to do are some words here or there or seeing out casual versions of things for the first time like そういや ＝ そういえば
To be honest I think the best tip is to read something you enjoy. If you read something ‘easier’ but you find it really boring. You probably won’t want to read it that much and will end up stopping. I would say just pick a manga you really enjoy and read that. It might take longer and be more difficult but you will be more motivated to read it and will probably learn more 🙂
For a recommendation I would say Slam Dunk by Takehiko Inoue. I’ve been reading it and it has been a nice balance of reading and dictionary so far. It’s also fast paced and really funny imo
I just started watching the latest pokemon anime as my first immersion experience. I also tried reading yotsuba but to learn anime is more stimulating because you are practicing listening instead of just reading. Pokemon seems like a good place to start, i’m a beginner as well and so far i’m going through it alright.
With manga, I think you should try to remember a slice-of-life anime/manga that you previously enjoyed, and just read that. I’ve tried reading all the usual recommendations but they always felt like a chore to read, but reading my favorite series (horimiya) made the process much more enjoyable.
P.S. If your manga scan isn’t good enough to see the furigana well, i recommend the firefox extension Furiganaize (sadly, it’s only on firefox, all the chrome alternatives are bad). It adds Furigana to every Kanji, and it’s pretty accurate for everything except names. If you don’t know how to make ocr manga, you can dm me.
I’m currently watching Kotaro Lives alone on Netflix and I highly recommend it. It has Japanese audio and matching japanese subs which is perfect to follow along. Also a super cute show with easy dialogue for the most part!