Back into Manga.

I believe I've written about this before, but the first manga that I started reading was Dragonball. Luckily a friend had the entire series, so I'd end up borrowing several tankobon a week, and it became part of my Japanese reading practice. Although, the dialog was quite simple, I was able to learn quite a few words: 突撃だ～！was one of my favorites. Thinking back, it was actually a really great way to learn the language:

• It was fun.
• It was an interesting topic for me.
• The words were repetitious.

That final point is the most important in remembering vocabulary. Not only was the context usually clear, but the main words would occur in cycles, kinda like the spaced-repetition learning systems that are all the rage today.

Anyway, after Dragonball (or maybe it was during a break from DB), I read Video Girl Ai, Yaiba, Detective Conan, and Lemon Heart, among others. As most people now realize, there are manga on every subject and interest imaginable, which makes manga (in Japanese) a great supplement for learning the language.

After a hiatus of about 10 years from manga, thanks to working here at beNippon, my interest has come back. First I started reading Yotsuba&! up to volume 6, with vol. 9 out, I need to pick up the latest three. My most recent acquisitions have been several of the Bamboo Blade series. I read volume 1, finished volume 2 yesterday, and I'll be starting on 3 today.

I became interested in this series when I first came across this Tamaki Kawazoe (sold out) figure sitting on our shelves. Then after watching this video on YouTube, I was hooked.

I'm pretty much a sucker for this type of story: a quiet, weak looking person is really powerful, and just kicks ass. Add martial arts, crazy characters, and some humor, and you get a pretty entertaining manga, IMO. In a nutshell, Bamboo Blade is the story of one messed up teacher/kendo coach trying to get his kendo club to beat his sempai's girls' kendo team to win a year's worth of sushi, hilarity ensues.

From a Japanese learner's standpoint, the dialog is not very difficult if you're familiar with daily conversation, but provides enough of a challenge that you'll actually find yourself learning something. Do you have any manga recommendations? I'd love to hear them, so please leave a comment below.