スーと鯛ちゃん 1

great for high n5.

love the story, very funny and sweet

This was my holy grail, a manga that I could read as a near-beginner. Some of the grammar and vocabulary is potentially challenging, but it's spaced out. This means that you can pause and break down the difficult sections without it turning into a time sink. And if you can't figure something out, it's easy to deduce just from the illustrations.

The chapters are short and episodic, which is a good pace for beginning learners. There's 100+ chapters out now, plenty to sink your teeth into.

The premise of the manga is obviously not for everyone. It's cute cats having low-stakes adventures. However, even people who don't usually go for cat adventures may enjoy having a fun read to integrate into their studies. Most graded readers at this level are horrendously boring by comparison.

This is another series about cats from the same author as Chi's Sweet Home. I really liked Chi and was expecting something similar. Unfortunately, this just doesn't have the same charm for me. It's cute, but didn't really keep my interest. I only read the first book.

Having said that, this would be an excellent first manga series for a beginner. Unlike Chi's Sweet Home, it doesn't use "baby talk" or mispronounced words. There is not a lot of text and very few kanji (all with furigana). I think I would have liked it a lot more if I had read it earlier.