Beginner Manga Recommendations for Japanese Learners

It's time, you've done your due diligence in studying. Now it's time to jump into native material. But where to start? Here are a few manga series that I've read that I think would be a reasonable place for a Japanese learner to start their immersion journey.

Disclaimer: I haven't read every series, and the manga that's interesting to me might not be interesting to you. We also all encounter different words as we go along our language learning journeys. A series that I find relatively easy might have you looking up every other word. The trick is to not get discouraged and just keep on pushing through! As with everything, it gets easier the more you practice.

消えた初恋 - アルコ＆ひねくれ渡: This BL series follows a group of four friends and their experiences with love in high school (it also has a drama adaptation that I highly recommend! Available to watch for free on Viki). This series is so silly and just a fun time. The art has great visual gags and it's definitely a series where you can sit down and not even realize that suddenly you've gone through an entire volume and why didn't you buy more of this series to start with? It has furigana on everything, but the characters do speak pretty casually, so there's some slang and less standard language. This series is completed with nine volumes.

佐々木と宮野 - 春園ショウ: This is another sweet BL about Miyano, a high school first year, who catches the eye of an upperclassman, Sasaki. After asking to borrow Miyano's book, the two bond over a shared enjoyment of BL manga. The vocabulary is pretty simple in this one as well, but it does use quite a bit of otaku slang, which can be difficult if you've never encountered it before. It has furigana on everything, though! This series is ongoing with nine volumes and also has a spin off series titled 平野と鍵浦 which is also ongoing with four volumes.

月刊少女野崎くん - 椿いづみ: The first manga I ever read in Japanese! This series follows a high schooler, Sakura, as she confesses to her crush and classmate, Nozaki. However, Nozaki thinks that Sakura is just a fan of his shoujo manga series, and recruits her to be his assistant. This series is so enjoyably silly with a wonderful cast of characters that absolutely steal the show. There's a bit of vocabulary specific to the process of making manga, but it isn't too overwhelming. There's also plenty of casual speech and some great moments that can't quite come out in translation (bonus fact: I actually wrote a paper on this series and how humor is translated in one of my university linguistics class). It also has furigana on everything. It's ongoing with fifteen volumes.

加瀬さんシリーズ - 高嶋ひろみ: This adorable little GL series follows two high school aged girls, popular and athletic Kase and the shy gardener Yamada, as their relationship develops over their high school years. The vocabulary in this one is relatively simple with the exception of some more specific words, but those tend to pop up time and time again. This one doesn't have furigana but I think it's a great introduction to readying manga without furigana! This series is completed with five volumes, but there's an ongoing sequel series called　山田と加瀬さん that currently has three volumes released.

ささやくように恋を唄う - 竹嶋えく: This is a music based GL series about a high school first year, Kino, who tells an upperclassman, Nagi, that she loves her music. Nagi, however, misunderstands this as Kino confessing her love for her. The story follows both the relationship between Kino and Nagi as well as the trials and tribulations of Nagi's band. This is another one without furigana, but the vocabulary tends to be simple enough that I think it's still pretty accessible. It's ongoing with eight current volumes.

かけた月とドーナッツ - 雨水汐: Our last GL, this follows two coworkers, Uno and Satou, and their blossoming relationship in a society that pushes conformity and marriage on women. I really loved the way this series depicted coming into one's sexuality as an adult. Another one without furigana, but simple vocabulary regardless. A possible difficulty with this one might be the office vocabulary, though. This series is completed with four volumes.

Genuinely loved the experience of being at camp for the first time and seeing all the companions with their tits out like they're all gonna go clubbin or some shit

Then there’s Gale

Who's just. So utterly swagless that his clothes smell like dusty old books. My man doesn't give a fuck about the drip he's getting his ass ready for bed

break in the case

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

HIND RAJAB! SHE WAS 6 YEARS OLD!

"I respect you and won't stop you from being who you are" and "I'm not ready to call you by a new name and pronouns because it hurts me" can not co-exist when the speaker is your parent who has a huge amount of control over your life.

Berlin bound, baby!

Haven’t seen my bff for three years so you can bet we’re in for a good time.

meg baby, I promise we’ll all look the other way if you decide to strangle that chimera ant built bitch. I promise we won’t say nothing.

2023 favorites

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

Happy Holidays from bkdk 🫶

look at how cute 🥺 also look at the hand size difference look at how tiny jimin's hands are compared to seokjinnie's its making me bawl 😭 (cr. namuspromised)

A personal head-canon I always held regarding "Cloverfield's" title.

Assuming we -the audience- are seeing found footage from a past event, how much of the world has changed since the initial monster attack?

In this alternate future (our present), Central Park is turned into a memorial as part of a massive rebuilding effort. A place where the dead and missing are commemorated by clovers (which represent love, luck, faith and hope).

All of the green in Central Park is reduced to a small clover field at the heart of Ground Zero.

ichibunny 🥂

no filter vers + bonus doodle

The Return of the Speedster

Years had passed since Wally's death. Years since the Young Justice team had split up because of it, none of them could move on, as much as they liked to pretend about it, Nightwing was the one who had taken it the worst.

While the years passed on the hero's dimension, Danny was exploring Clockwork's haunt in the Infinite Realms, something that took him a long time as his mentor was hard to convince; while he was at it he found something strange. Clocky had told him it was the "Speedforce" although the halfa had no idea what that meant. He frowned wanting to explore it but his mentor stopped him every time, telling him it wasn't safe.

Unfortunately that wasn't enough to stop the teenager, who slipped into the crack in time. Danny was quite lucky, as the watch that had merged with him long ago from the "Dark Dan" incident had left him somewhat immune to the effects the site had, not that he knew it.

When he stepped inside, all he saw was an incomprehensible place. Since he wasn't seeing something interesting he was about to leave when he noticed a boy in a weird suit running. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, didn't Clocky tell him the place was off limits?

The boy noticed him too and explained in panic that the place was dangerous and could kill him. To which Danny rolled his eyes.

"I don't think you can kill something dead" he scoffed showing his ghostly tail. The boy didn't take that revelation very well, as he started muttering about being dead and in the afterlife. Danny, seeing that the boy had gotten distracted and stopped running, pulled him out of the place and guided him towards Clockwork's haunt. He had to ask his mentor about the weird kid and the best way was well, kidnap him from the strange place.

Both ghosts watched the speedster (Wally?) continue to mumble about having passed into the afterlife while having an existential crisis on the couch. Danny was tempted to tell him he was alive and everything was a misunderstanding but he had to get information first. And maybe get him back home if it was all a mistake.