Just wanted to know what are some good manga for people who finished RTK.

For me, I really like this manga called LIFE by Keiko Suenobu.

It's a comic about ijime (bullying) in japanese schools and a whole lot of
other problems faced by teenagers. Words are few compared to most manga
and are all easy to understand (with furigana for all kanji).

Anybody else have suggestions for manga for people that just finished RTK?

Looking for something down to earth and not very technical.

Thanks.

Hi chamcham,

I recommend SLAM DUNK for people that just finished RtK. Furigana for all kanji and uses very simple speech. It is also very funny and great even if you know nothing about basketball. I know sports manga may turn some people off, but I highly recommend checking it out.

I just finished all 34 volumes of Beck. It's good, but the dialog is trickier than Slam Dunk, but still fairly basic. The later volumes have long boring dialogs, though. Loved the first half of the series but the last 10 volumes or so felt like work. Still worth a read, though. (Also, I read all 34 volumes in like 5 days, which might be part of the reason it started to feel like work, haha)

Death Note is another good one that adults seem to enjoy. This one was tougher and it forced me to use a dictionary at times which is a big no-no for me, so I shelved it for the time being. Interesting story and fantastic art, check it out if you haven't already.

If you want a great action (but extremely graphic) manga with very simple and basic dialog I would recommend GANTZ. Little-no furigana, though. Vampires, dinosaurs, futuristic weapons, and aliens. And samurai swords.

Speaking of ijime I would recommend Hajime No Ippo. It's another sports manga (boxing), but it really stands out. A little more advanced than SLAM DUNK, but there's a reason it's at 70+ volumes! Great stuff.

I just picked up 12 volumes of Tenjo Tengo for $12 (thank you Book Off!). It seems pretty generic so far but the dialog is medium level and there is no furigana. They also use some strange made-up fighting names/techniques/etc. Artwork is great and worth the $12.

Try Death Note with this page:

http://lunar.littlestar.jp/stardust/engl.../DN-1.html

and you will understand a lot and also have some sentences already typed up for you to add to your srs.

Yotsuba& is nice and simple. It's a cutesy book, though... Don't be looking for action or scifi from it.

Crayon Shinchan. The sentences are very simple, it's usually kid-adult conversations, so you don't have to worry about advanced grammar patterns. All you have to worry about it new vocabulary. The manga also has the bonus of being really fun, even if you're 40 years old you can easily appriciate it. The official crayon shinchan volumes are available in two versions, one has furigana and the other does not. I would recommend getting the non-furigana version if you can.

I'm enjoying Death Note as well.
And I'm halfway through Hikaru No Go. The language isn't too difficult, and the story is not hard to follow, so it's easy to get into - but then, I'm a go player...

I'm reading Death Note and HunterXHunter at the moment.. What really surprised me is, that I actually find Death Note easier to follow than HunterXHunter.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:I'm reading Death Note and HunterXHunter at the moment.. What really surprised me is, that I actually find Death Note easier to follow than HunterXHunter.

Well, the story is really convoluted in HunterXHunter. I think it'd be difficult to follow in your native language, lol. Also, too much kana makes it hard(er) to read!

I'm really enjoying ロザリオとバンパイア. The sentences are nice and simple, and it's got a fun plot (at least for me... but then again, I'm on a really big vampire kick right now).

Ranma 1/2 is funny and easy to read, I found I could read it and get most of the jokes after finishing RTK. It's an oldie though.

I'm finding Death Note surprisingly easy too, just expect to skim through some police investigation/news scenes. I'm reading Nana too which is more 日常的 but actually harder. The vocab is easy but there's a lot of slang and casual contractions. With Death Note you're more likely to hit sentences that sound straight out of a textbook.

suffah Wrote:I recommend SLAM DUNK for people that just finished RtK. Furigana for all kanji and uses very simple speech. It is also very funny and great even if you know nothing about basketball. I know sports manga may turn some people off, but I highly recommend checking it out.

Thanks for the rec, my Uni library has the whole series but I hadn't looked much at it because of the sports manga thing. You're the second person to say it's good, I'll go check it out tomorrow.

Hayate no Gotoku ハヤテのごとく is an easy read. 17 volumes are out now. Lots of furigana, and it's not what I'd call challenging. There may be a few obscure references, but for the most part, it's not difficult language. Plot-wise... wait, there's a plot? It's light comedy, nothing heavy.

Also, the Telepathy Shoujo Ran series of Manga テレパシー少女蘭is an easy read, since it's aimed at elementary school kids. It's based on a series of children's books about two girls with psychic powers who solve crimes. I haven't picked up the books yet, but the manga is a pretty easy read.

I like "Kirara no Shigoto," about a young woman trying to become (and be taken seriously) a sushi chef in Tokyo. Just finished the first volume, and so far the story is rather engaging.

I've been reading ポケットモンスターSPECIAL. I've been learning heaps of vocab from it.

I was horrified at the bad language though--words like くそう、俺、やろう、use of [して]やる to mean give, brusque imperatives. I mean Pokemon is for kids, right? Is all manga like that?

None of that's 'bad' language in the English sense. It's just not formal or polite. So, yes, it's all like that.

Wow. Thanks for all the suggestions. Wasn't expecting so many replies.
A lot of good mangas in here.

Will take a look at everything and see how it goes.... :-p

Raichu Wrote:I've been reading ポケットモンスターSPECIAL. I've been learning heaps of vocab from it.

I was horrified at the bad language though--words like くそう、俺、やろう、use of [して]やる to mean give, brusque imperatives. I mean Pokemon is for kids, right? Is all manga like that?

Um... out of those words, くそ is the only one which is bad language. Why would manga be written in polite form, it's not for people who are training to work at a company. It's written in normal casual japanese, just like comics of other languages.

「おいピカチュやろう、俺はお前を食ってくそにしてやる」

Was it that kind of sentence? I never knew that Satoshi was so mean.

I don't know about the company you guys keep, but the Japanese people I've spoken to say they would never use coarse language like that, even in casual speech, and one of them who had kids said he'd be pretty miffed if his children spoke in language like that.

Neko Raamen - it's a pleasantly surreal story about a cat that runs a raamen shop and his one long-suffering customer.

A bonus is it's mostly four-box strips (I forget the Japanese term) so it's quite easy to pick up, read a few and put down again. Good if you're daunted by reading a whole book-length story.

Four-box strips - 4コマ漫画 - http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E3%82%B3%...B%E7%94%BB

That reminds me another great resource are the old Mangajin magazines. Might be good to look up if you don't want to jump into a completely Japanese only environment (but jumping in is definitely the way to go).

I'm reading through death note at the moment, and there are lots of things I don't totally understand, or words I don't know... but if I stopped to look each one up I know I wouldn't bother reading at all. So my question: is this okay? I can still generally follow what is going on.

When I read manga I forbid myself from using the dictionary while I'm reading. It's much better to read and focus on the parts that are at your level rather than try to translate everything and end up only reading the first 10 pages.

My recommendations: One Piece, Hikaru no Go, Naruto, Dragon Ball

hikaru no go and dragonball are defenitly easy enough, especialy when you have seen or read the story 5 times or more

same for any other manga you have read in english several times.