Reviews
(3.83/5)This manga sucks so bad it turns into a comedy but I can see the appeal for beginners
So, this was not my first manga. But I read the first 8 volumes with my language partner (who had never read a manga in JP before).
To put it simply, the story sucks ass. The vast majority of characters act so stupidly and irrationally that it makes you want to close the tab. Nearly none of them are sympathetic in the way that the author is going for, and the series tries way too hard to make it seem scary to the point that it just ends up like a comedy.
But for language learning? I can see
When I started ハピネス I was maybe N4 level grammar-wise and had about 1000 cards in my Anki deck. I got through it just fine by looking up words and (very occasionally) grammar. I had to look up ~10-15 words per chapter. Previously I read からかい上手の元高木さん, for which I had to look up ~5-10 words per chapter.
There's only a handful of manga accessible to beginners. Happiness brings much-appreciated diversity in storytelling to the beginner level, by being a violent thriller about teens becoming vampire
An interesting start
Interesting start to what seems like a dark, psychological vampire story. My brain needed to read anything other than Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear for a bit and this is just about as far as it gets from that. Someone mentioned it felt a bit like a dark version of Spider-Man's origin and I definitely got that vibe.
Language-wise it is fairly easy as many have noted, though I did still have to look up a fair few words. Most sentences are pretty short utterances rather than lengthy dialogues, but there is
General Entertainment:
This Manga isn't bad. Honestly, quite a fun read and not a bad story, wasn't bored. Not the best story that has ever seen light, of course, but definitely not bad. I do think the very easy language hindered the story from using it's full potential, the dialogues were quite... simple? It is a finished story so it does have an ending, which is very nice.
Language Learning:
Very easy, like extremely easy Manga. This being my first Manga i still did not understand *everyth
Engaging story, relatively easy to understand
It's not the most original story ever (at least for this volume, it reminded me a lot of Tokyo Ghoul), but it's well written, it's entertaining, and I liked the characters and their relationships.
Language-wise, you'll need a dictionary for every other sentence if you're around N5, so the L16 rating (within N4) is probably right. Since it's informal spoken Japanese, there are many sentence structures that will be unfamiliar to anyone who's just studied from textbooks or in sc
Could not recommend this enough as a first manga for beginners.
This is not my first manga, but I wish I found this earlier during the beginning of my reading immersion journey. As I have only read 3 volumes, this is just a general review so far.
The pacing and style are very cinematic, the unsettling and perverse undertones making it tense and, for me, really hard to stop reading when I start. Happiness has a very similar tone to Oshimi’s other works, which you’ll either love or hate. I’d really suggest to look up the manga and its themes before reading, a
A great first manga
Reading manga can be somehow much more difficult than novels or graded readers, mostly because of all the abbreviations, colloquial expressions and so on. I felt like ハピネス was a great way to get started with such material.
I find the story much more interesting than any other beginner-accessible content I found. The art is beautiful, there’s a real story, and it felt like actually reading for pleasure.
The grammar and vocabulary used can be much different from what you’re used to at a beginne