So, you think you can just go and learn basic Japanese without all those boring textbooks? You think you can just use manga? While I wouldn't recommend this book as your sole text book, I do endorse it as being a great book to familiarize yourself with casual, spoken Japanese.
I'm sure another textbook comes to your mind: Japanese in Mangaland. The big difference between this book and that book is that this one uses real manga. It takes the actual manga, and then uses it to build lessons regarding reading, grammar, and other basic skills. I've heard that the manga featured in the other book is actually made up. I also found a few small errors in the Mangaland book.
It slowly builds up on complex sentence structures, covering things most formal texts leave out, and it's fairly easy to remember what you've read. My biggest disappointment with this book is that it only covers basic skills. It should really come out with more volumes, like Japanese in Mangaland does, and some workbooks as well. I'll bet it could actually take you through all the JLPT tests if it did this.
It's a gimmick book, but there's real solid information in it, and the gimmick does more than hook manga fans into it. It's not just about reading manga; it's about learning Japanese.
You can download a small sample of it here.
Japanese the Manga Way is an illustrated guide for learning conversational Japanese using our beloved manga format.
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