Manga is a hugely popular style of Japanese reading material. With over 600 million readers worldwide, manga is one of the most popular forms of reading in the world today. Even if you’ve never read a single manga before, you’ll have no trouble reading and understanding manga. There are a lot of different manga genres and reading them requires reading differently.
However, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, reading manga is one of the best ways to learn Japanese. In this post, you’ll learn how to read manga from start to finish and be able to understand Japanese reads, Japanese grammar, and Japanese culture.
What Is Manga?
Manga is a Japanese term that refers to comics and graphic novels that originated in Japan. Manga contains different themes often based on real-life scenarios. Manga is a huge part of Japanese culture and there are hundreds of thousands of different manga out there. You’ll be able to read most of the popular manga you know in Japan by reading it on online manga sites or applications.
Almost all manga published in Japan is only available in Japanese. The exception to this is publications like “Shojo” or “Shounen” manga which are published in many different languages. The most popular manga in the world is published in the “Shojo” or “Shounen” manga yaoi genres. Japanese comics also have unique plots such as the secret life of the demon king which makes manga books unique and interesting for most readers.
How To Read Manga?
Reading manga is a different task than reading regular novels. When you read a novel, you’re reading for stories and characters. Reading manga, you’re more focused on the Japanese language and Japanese cultural elements. If you don’t pay attention to these details, you’ll be able to understand the story and characters’ roles, but you’ll confuse the Japanese culture and elements.
Reading manga is a very similar task to reading foreign novels. However, there are a few key differences that you need to be aware of. When you read a foreign novel, you’re reading for the characters and the story’s meaning. Reading manga, you’re more focused on the story’s and language’s meaning.
If you don’t pay attention to these details, you’ll be able to understand the storyline, but you’ll confuse about the Japanese language and elements. Manga is also read in a specific style from the upper right side of the page to the lower left side of the page. New readers have a hard time following this but with constant reading, you can get usual on this.
2 Easy Steps To Read Manga From Start To Finish
- Go Through A Manga Reading Process
When you’re reading manga, you’re going to be reading long chapters at a time. Therefore, it’s important to read a long chapter before you move on to the next one. There are two things that you need to do before you move on to the next chapter. First, you need to understand the characters and understand the story. Second, you need to understand the language and cultural elements.
First, read the chapter to understand the characters. Find out what their personality is like and what their motivation is. After you’ve read the chapter to know the characters, you need to read the chapter to understand the story. First, find out the setting of the story. The setting is what surrounds the story.
The setting could be anywhere from the characters’ location to the setting of the story. For example, the setting of a school story could be the classroom while the setting of a sports story could be the gymnasium. Next, find out the plot of the story. The plot is what happens in the story. The plot could be anything from the main character’s goal to the sub-plots that happen in the story.
After you’ve found out the plot, you need to read the Japanese language and cultural elements. First, read the kanji. Kanji is a Japanese language element. Kanji is what the Japanese language is written with. Japanese novels and mangago are read in Japanese with Japanese characters called kana, but the Japanese language and cultural elements are in kanji.
Kanji are essentially Chinese characters, but they’re used in Japan. Next, read the furigana. Furigana is a literal English translation of Japanese words. For example, if you read the word “Kumo” in the word “Kumo no you ni furu” in Japanese, it would be in English as “towards the cloud” in literal English.
If you’d like to read comfortably with the book translated into English you can always try visiting a manga site online that offers reading Japanese comics in English. I recommend you to visit Mangaowl to read the manga you prefer for free. Although it’s free it has been a crowd’s favorite due to the services it can offer.
- Create A Manga Reading Habit
Developing a manga reading habit back in the day required a lot of money spent on borrowing or buying specific manga volumes. Currently, technology made creating a manga habit easier and more convenient for readers. To build a manga reading habit you need to have a few things.
- Smartphone, Tablet, Laptop, Or Desktop. You need a device where you can browse and search for the online manga site that you’ll need to start reading. It is a convenient way of developing reading habits because it requires less to no money spent.
- Internet Connection. This is a very important part of building a manga reading habit. Most of the things you need to know before choosing a manga need the presence of an internet connection. Reading manga books requires thorough research of reviews that can help you select the best book to read. Through this method, you can spend more of your time reading.
- Reliable Manga Site. A manga site where you can access millions of comic books is what you need to get the most out of manga. Although there are numerous manga sites you might find online, not all of these sites have all the manganelo available around the world. Mangaowl is a manga reading site that enables its users to read manga for free and access it anywhere at any time.
Conclusion
Reading manga is one of the best ways to learn Japanese. You can pick up any type of manga and start reading it. It doesn’t matter what type of manga it is—sports, school, romance, or horror—you can find your favorite manga and start reading. Once you start reading, you should make sure to build a manga reading habit and you should read as much as possible. The more you read, the better your Japanese will get.
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