Language Journal: September 21st 2018

Well, things are going well. About 4 weeks from my first Box of Manga delivery and I'm done all 6 books.

I've said it before and will likely say it again. Comprehension of the books could have been higher. But, was also higher than I anticipated. The more difficult books were also the most engaging. In the end, ちぇみ三兄弟 was the least enjoyable. But, it also ended up being less difficult than I had anticipated.

日常 was probably the most difficult in general terms. And 僕だけがいない街 was probably the most difficult in terms of specific terminology. オレンジ was the easiest by far.

日常 was difficult for two reasons. As a comedy, the sentences themselves could be just flat out weird. There was also word play on occasion. And what I suspect was weird choices of words in some cases. The grammar itself was also fairly advanced. All of this lead to a very difficult time reading the vast majority of the book. But, it was also a compelling read, and the difficult sentences made some of the best flash cards.

僕だけがいない街 on the other hand had fairly simple grammar most of the time. But, then, most of the story happens from the perspective of a grade schooler. Where it handed me my ass was when it started talking about crime related terminology or his special ability. These are definitely NOT common words. So, they didn't make great flash cards and they just stumped me most times through.

ちぇみ三兄弟 was also a comedy. But, it was less intense in the humor department. And also relied on Japanese tropes I don't really associate with. And, it was more of a slice of life comedy. So, the comedy itself was also much more subtle. While it didn't have Furigana 100% of the time, the language itself was often some of the easiest. It was probably the quickest I got through a book.

オレンジ takes the cake as the flat out easiest read ever. It is slice of life, and takes place in a high school. There is a lot of talk about food, clubs and school. Most of the terminology was already stuff I had seen. There was Furigana, and the tone in the book was fairly constant throughout. I had thought it was just easy because I had seen the anime. But, I watched Erased both in anime form and as a live action and was much more engrossed. And yet, none of that really did much to improve my reading.

In fact, with Orange I could just tell what they meant most of the time by referencing the manga itself if I got lost. With Erased, I would often have to try and see if I could remember an exact scene from the anime or show when I got lost, and still resorted to numerous translation services more times than not. So, while having seen the anime certainly helped put stuff into perspective, I don't think it helped all that much.