I did NOT say "manga is bad."

(Can't believe I have to point this out by actually quoting myself) Emphasis added.

rich_f Wrote:Anki helped a lot early on. So did Manga. It helped me get good fast with reading hiragana and katakana. But after a certain point, I should have moved on.

Attending to too much of any genre of form of media will screw things up when you're learning a language. Mix it up.

If anything, I think most manga just isn't dense enough to teach you much after some point. Can still enjoy them as a light form of entertainment though.

Well at some point manga is going to do about as much to make you a literate adult in Japanese as reading comic books in English would do for your academic/adult English skills.

Overall I'm quite content and there aren't that many things that I'd do differently. However, I'd probably make better use of the opportunities that living in Japan brought with it. I'd study more informally just by leading an active life involving other people. Now that I'm back in my home country all the traditional study options such as anki/textbooks/media are still easily available. The chances to use the language in daily life have mostly vanished though.

offtopic about working in Japan:
Maybe we should start a separate thread to discuss those matters. Personally, I've enjoyed my time in Japan very much. However my perspective was that of a student at first and then of an intern afterwards, so I have little illusions about having experienced the full harshness of Japanese work culture. That sets me into some kind of dilemma though:
While my heart says that I'd gladly return to Japan for some more time, my mind raises strong warnings...