As you can see, I'm new here, and would like to begin reading Japanese literature. The problem is that I'm incredibly picky when it comes to books, no matter what language. I'm 16 years old, turning 17 this year (probably much younger than everyone else here, but bear with me!) but I've had almost 7 years of formal education in Japanese and take my studies very seriously.

What I DO want to read is something with lots of furigana, but I don't want the content to be too childish, and I'd rather read something that's by a native Japanese author because I want culture AND language.

The genres I don't read are crime, sci-fi and conventional Western-style fantasy - as in elves, dragons etc., but I haven't seen much of that in Japanese fiction - and I'm not huge on anything manga-esque either, so no light novels.

I have access to a couple of Japanese bookstores here in my corner of the world, as I live in Australia.

Sorry if I shouldn't be posting here at all, being a high-schooler and whatnot. But any advice is still appreciated!

I see Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami recommended a lot. People say they find them easy to pick up and read. I've not read them myself, though. There's a lot to choose from in terms of Japanese novels, and so you not reading those genres really isn't too much of a problem.

erlog Wrote:I see Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami recommended a lot. People say they find them easy to pick up and read. I've not read them myself, though. There's a lot to choose from in terms of Japanese novels, and so you not reading those genres really isn't too much of a problem.

I actually got Murakami's Norwegian Wood (translated into English) from the library today, but I'm not really enjoying it from the first few pages I've read. Oh, and Yoshimoto's The Lake, also translated, though I haven't read it at all.

And your post is very reassuring, but that first post is just to give a general idea of what I refuse to read, since I seem to find things to dislike about almost every novel I pick up.

[Zgarbas]

Haruki is basically stuck in soft fantasy, but it has little to do with western conventions. He's really easy to read though.

I really like Yamada Taichi.

Your just starting out, so try not to be too picky. The bilingual "Read Real Japanese" is a pretty good starting point, as are other bilingual readers or a graded reader.

Light Novels cover wide variety of genres, and it's pretty much a middle and high school reading level, not too different from young adult books. I think it's kinda ignorant and insulting to refer to them as manga-esque, just because they might have a few illustrations and some anime are sourced from these books. I really wouldn't discount them completely yet.

Kino's Journey is often recommended to beginners due to it's heavy focus on dialog. And it's all episodic, so if one story doesn't interest you, it doesn't hurt to much to jump around. I honestly don't know if stories about traveling to all sorts of strange new places falls into your genre gripes.

Anyway, just don't close off all your options and good luck finding something to read.

Daichi Wrote:Your just starting out, so try not to be too picky. The bilingual "Read Real Japanese" is a pretty good starting point, as are other bilingual readers or a graded reader.

Light Novels cover wide variety of genres, and it's pretty much a middle and high school reading level, not too different from young adult books. I think it's kinda ignorant and insulting to refer to them as manga-esque, just because they might have a few illustrations and some anime are sourced from these books. I really wouldn't discount them completely yet.

Kino's Journey is often recommended to beginners due to it's heavy focus on dialog. And it's all episodic, so if one story doesn't interest you, it doesn't hurt to much to jump around. I honestly don't know if stories about traveling to all sorts of strange new places falls into your genre gripes.

Anyway, just don't close off all your options and good luck finding something to read.

My personal hangup about light novels is that I have a serious problem with the fact that they're strongly connected to the anime/manga fandom - I used to be a serious anime fan, but now it's a guilty pleasure that I only really dabble in occasionally, and the fans, both Western and Japanese, disgust me. Is there such thing as a light novel without the manga-style illustrations and cover, or is that what makes it such?

Don't force yourself to read a light novel if you don't want to . That's fine. I don't read light novels either.

I recommend mori eto and Honda takayoshi

go to the bookstores and tachiyomi anything that interests you and you can also See if there's enough furigana for you.at the end of the day it's your taste in writing

I picked up this book recently, and I think it might fit what you're looking for. It's the story of a Japanese teacher in Japan, and all the boneheaded stuff she has to put up with teaching foreigners the language. It's fully furigana-ized, and although it's illustrated, it's got none of that fantasy/manga stuff, and is targeted at adults. Check it out.

日本人の知らない日本語

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%...4840126739

The first book I ever read was 世界の中心で愛を叫ぶ (tragic romance) which I would recommend to anyone who wants to get into reading Japanese. No furigana but the vocab is relatively basic. Other than that I would recommend オオカミと香辛料 (a strange mix of economics, romance and religion/politics more or less in that order but I think it pulls it off well) which is a light novel but you can just buy a book cover if you don't want people to see the cover art (which is what most people do). While reading オオカミと香辛料 my Japanese level improved quite a bit - I would hazard you to throw out so many good stories and such good study material just because of the cover art. If you are about intermediate level in Japanese they are simple enough that they are relatively easy reading, so you can actually enjoy the stories which should be the main point of reading in the first place, but at the same time hard enough to provide good study material. I'm reading 新世界より (scifi) right now, it is a hard read but it's a very interesting premiss.

tl;tr I recommend giving 世界の中心で愛を叫ぶ a try. Also, as cliche as it is, don't judge a book by the cover - light novels can be pretty good.

I recommend reading the reviews to sekai no chuusin de sakebu on amazon. some of them are hilarious... The 1 star reviews. The ones on the keitai shousestsu are even more funny.

Just bc a lot of people recommend something or it has a lot of 5 stars doesn't necessarily the book is gonna be good or even well written ( it happens actually lol. There was some book thats really popular and peope who write the one star reviews are like this person needs to relearn their japanese and why is this popular). What I mean you can help it if you fall into that trap but don't force yourself to finish crappy books

No problems about being the youngest here, I'm 13, so it's probably me.
I don't know much about Japanese books, but I'm just starting out.
Anyway, if you don't mind video games and have a DS lying around somewhere, I'd recommend the "friendly version" of the Professor Layton games which have furigana.
Also, if I recall correctly, Legend of Zeldahantom Hourglass has a system where you touch a kanji and it gives you the furigana. Could be useful.
A slightly easier to understand game series might be the Pokémon series, as you can pick to play in all hiragana with spaces or with kanji (games before Black/White are in all hiragana)
Sorry I couldn't be much help to you, but good luck!

Daichi Wrote:Your just starting out, so try not to be too picky. The bilingual "Read Real Japanese" is a pretty good starting point, as are other bilingual readers or a graded reader.

Light Novels cover wide variety of genres, and it's pretty much a middle and high school reading level, not too different from young adult books. I think it's kinda ignorant and insulting to refer to them as manga-esque, just because they might have a few illustrations and some anime are sourced from these books. I really wouldn't discount them completely yet.

Kino's Journey is often recommended to beginners due to it's heavy focus on dialog. And it's all episodic, so if one story doesn't interest you, it doesn't hurt to much to jump around. I honestly don't know if stories about traveling to all sorts of strange new places falls into your genre gripes.

Anyway, just don't close off all your options and good luck finding something to read.

I enjoyed Janet Ashby's books in the RRJ series (especially the first one which I think is out of publication) but I can barely get through Michael Emmerich's translations. The way I don't enjoy his translations helps me see how important a good translation can be. I have found only good translations of Natsume Soseki's books. I think Kokoro is a good read and it won't feel too dated in the translation, and it's a good book to read at that age, though a bit dismal.

I definitely recommend Murakami Ryu. His books are short, engaging, and often have a movie made after them so you can approach it from all angles. I'm not sure how many books you can find in English though. I'm reading Audition right now with the native text and translation side by side, one chapter at a time. I've seen the movie two or three times, and now reading the book feels like I can get more insight into the characters and their motivations, as well as the overarching/underlying themes/messages of the book.

This thread is going to help me as well. I'll check out Kino's Journey when I'm done with 'Audition' and then Banana's 'Kitchen'. Thanks.

You're awesome, btw, looking into bilingual literature at sixteen. Enjoy!

Hirakana Wrote:No problems about being the youngest here, I'm 13, so it's probably me.
I don't know much about Japanese books, but I'm just starting out.
Anyway, if you don't mind video games and have a DS lying around somewhere, I'd recommend the "friendly version" of the Professor Layton games which have furigana.
Also, if I recall correctly, Legend of Zeldahantom Hourglass has a system where you touch a kanji and it gives you the furigana. Could be useful.
A slightly easier to understand game series might be the Pokémon series, as you can pick to play in all hiragana with spaces or with kanji (games before Black/White are in all hiragana)
Sorry I couldn't be much help to you, but good luck!

It's funny that you say that now, because I just completed Pokemon Fire Red in Japanese. I'm a gamer, not a reader (which is the problem), so video games are a good suggestion.

It's good to see I'm not the only kid here! I just got a little scared that everyone would at least be in university, and a high schooler would get laughed out of the room (even though I've already finished the whole high school Japanese course)

love2KISEKI Wrote:

Hirakana Wrote:No problems about being the youngest here, I'm 13, so it's probably me.

It's good to see I'm not the only kid here! I just got a little scared that everyone would at least be in university, and a high schooler would get laughed out of the room (even though I've already finished the whole high school Japanese course)

You're killing me here, thirteen and sixteen? I'm feeling unaccomplished over here, being seventeen. Recently I've been shirking reviews to play (sadly English translated) visual novels instead of finishing the RTK I finished previously then forgot most of.

*Turns Anki back on*

^agreed


Like Daichi said, it's hard to get used to Japanese literature if you're picky. Just buy a lot of easy [&cheap] books and see what you like.

I also recommend キノの旅. It's a great read and I find it simple, grammar-wise.

It also has an anime, and the first episode of the anime corresponds to the first chapter of the first book, so you can watch it and in less than half an hour you'll already know if it's the kind of story you want to read.

Here's another tough one. I actually requested an inter-library loan of some Japanese books from the state library, as my local library doesn't have them since it's not a community language, and my order came in yesterday, but they were all books that weren't to my taste in some way or other: manga, historical fiction, translated English novels, crime fiction and one light novel with a sickeningly 萌え looking cover. I still feel really ripped off, but then again I didn't say a word about my pickiness as I knew it wouldn't help things at all. And then there was this one: http://hon.gakken.jp/book/1020333200

The title certainly doesn't help... something called 世界一のモテ is bound to be trashy, right?

I emailed my teacher to ask her what it was, and she said it's basically one of those books with stuff about love, fashion etc. and that I should give it a try. But I want *real* books and not just some fluffy elementary-school trash with cutesy illustrations. Is it worth a try anyway, simply for the language?

A Japanese friend recently recommended the book 西の魔女が死んだ to me. I just started reading it, but it's quite easy, and praised by adults although written for the young..

If you prefer games, the Zelda games are pretty good for reading. The text isn't too difficult and the newer games (GameCube and Wii titles for sure) have furigana. The older ones (NES, SNES, etc.), being limited by hardware, use the strange mix of kana and kanji that's rather common in games from the era. Given that, they are still actually pretty easy to read. (Side note: I don't actually know how they did the scripts for the N64 Zelda titles, since I haven't played those in Japanese yet.)
Not to mention, once you can understand the vocabulary to one, you're pretty much set on all of them.
Unfortunately, putting furigana in games is too much of a pain for most developers to bother with it, so it's not very common.

Like others have said though, don't completely disregard manga and light novels, there are some real gems in the pile of crap that most people, Western and Japanese alike, consider as the entirety of the formats. No need for the harsh words towards the fans either. Most fans, like me, aren't like the stereotypes I'm sure have been pushed into your mind by society.
Having said that, I don't really have anything to really recommend to you, since our preferences seem to be at odds, but I would recommend Mizukami Satoshi's works in general. At first glance, they may seem to be the same old fantasy, action manga (well, my three favorites do anyway), but they're not. This guy knows how to tell a story and how to balance everything out. Plus, they're actually aimed at a slightly older audience, so it's not all just flashy action scenes and occasional 'plot'. In fact, the plot tends to outweigh the action (which I like).
I'd also recommend 君のナイフ, just ignore the fact that anything remotely fantasy like ever happened, since the mangaka seems to have decided to forget it as well. Also, this manga doesn't have super 萌え art, if that's a problem for anyone.
None of these have furigana, just as a heads up.

The N64-Zeldas don't have furigana, but their not that hard to read, especially if you've played another Zelda game before.

I would say to be careful with games. It's easy to convince yourself you're practicing or studying even if you're not. It's good for building reading speed, but I found that it didn't really improve my Japanese very much.

It's still good to do as part of everything else you do as a bilingual person, but I would be very careful about how you approach it. With something like subs2srs it's easy to take anime, and make it into real systematic studying. It's very hard to do that with games.

This why I still think manga or simple novels are better at first. Manga is good because there's not so much text that it's overwhelming, and you can experience the story without getting bogged down. Manga does have diminishing returns, though, as your Japanese improves. At a certain point you do need to switch to novels in order to get the sheer amount of exposure to sentences that it takes to push forward.

So, ultimately, something dense like novels or long form essays is what you should be shooting for in your study time. Outside of your study time feel free to do whatever you want with Japanese, but don't get so wrapped up in it that you stop your other real studying.

sholum Wrote:If you prefer games, the Zelda games are pretty good for reading. The text isn't too difficult and the newer games (GameCube and Wii titles for sure) have furigana. The older ones (NES, SNES, etc.), being limited by hardware, use the strange mix of kana and kanji that's rather common in games from the era. Given that, they are still actually pretty easy to read. (Side note: I don't actually know how they did the scripts for the N64 Zelda titles, since I haven't played those in Japanese yet.)
Not to mention, once you can understand the vocabulary to one, you're pretty much set on all of them.
Unfortunately, putting furigana in games is too much of a pain for most developers to bother with it, so it's not very common.

Like others have said though, don't completely disregard manga and light novels, there are some real gems in the pile of crap that most people, Western and Japanese alike, consider as the entirety of the formats. No need for the harsh words towards the fans either. Most fans, like me, aren't like the stereotypes I'm sure have been pushed into your mind by society.
Having said that, I don't really have anything to really recommend to you, since our preferences seem to be at odds, but I would recommend Mizukami Satoshi's works in general. At first glance, they may seem to be the same old fantasy, action manga (well, my three favorites do anyway), but they're not. This guy knows how to tell a story and how to balance everything out. Plus, they're actually aimed at a slightly older audience, so it's not all just flashy action scenes and occasional 'plot'. In fact, the plot tends to outweigh the action (which I like).
I'd also recommend 君のナイフ, just ignore the fact that anything remotely fantasy like ever happened, since the mangaka seems to have decided to forget it as well. Also, this manga doesn't have super 萌え art, if that's a problem for anyone.
None of these have furigana, just as a heads up.

It's pretty much just 萌え style art and things that have crazed fanboy/fangirl followings I want to avoid. I don't think all anime fans are that bad, by the way, it's just that a friend of mine pretty much fits the definition of 腐女子 and she can get really in-your-face about it.

Pretty much anything else that doesn't fit into the genres I dislike is fair game for recommendations... and there's nothing wrong with fantasy as long as it isn't your conventional Western-style sword-and-sorcery saga with an epic quest for some artifact and the rescuing of some elf princess (Maybe I just described a Zelda game... but that's different, since I've been playing them since way back when and they're more enjoyable than any of the fantasy books I've forced myself to read in English), but the category is so broad and 'fantasy' doesn't seem to carry the same meaning in Japan as it does in the West.

Several weeks ago I bought a copy of some manga I don't remember the name of, but it's a modernized version of the 桃太郎/Peach Boy story with a female protagonist and it's not bad at all. I know, I'm a huge pessimist, but this thread has let me open my mind a little thanks to all the suggestions.

I reckon what erlog said is spot on.

[Zgarbas]

loce2kiseki: This is offtopic, but Fantasy is so much more than that. Don't dismiss it so readily because there's a stereotype for it. Books like American Gods, His Dark Materials, The Dark Tower series, the Amber series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Discworld series, Dune, etc. are sooo much more than your conventional Western fantasy and yet they're pretty much the most well known of the genre. Fantasy can really take you to a whole new world if you're open minded about it. (also no one does humor quite like Pratchett and Douglas Adams do it)
Sci-Fi is also more than just Sci-Fi when it's done right. I especially like reading Clarke. While I don't read Orson Scott Card out of principle, he's also been many a people's gateway to Soft Sci-Fi.

You'd be amazed at how much more a literary world can become once you lose the realist limitation. It's a shame to not give it a good chance =). I used to dislike fantasy out of principle, but then I actually started reading the genre and it has rocked my world ever since <3.

[/end rant on the magic of books]

If you just tell people what you hate, that's not gonna lead to much constructive advice. You should instead say what you have read and like, so that like-minded people can recommend something similar.

Also, does it have to be something by a Japanese author? Unless you speak Russian and German, most of the world's best literature you're gonna have to read as a translation anyway. Might as well make it a Japanese translation. Perhaps something you already read in English and plan on re-reading anyway, at first. That will help you follow along much better.