Specs
Reviews
(3.87/5)A great first novel after reading manga
A classic collection of “short-short stories” that are each roughly 4 pages long. They’re generally sci-fi themed, so some vocabulary may be unfamiliar at first, but is generally repeated enough for you to get accustomed to it. E.g. 宇宙人(うちゅうじん / alien)
Each story has a twist or moral at the end, so it’s a fun puzzle trying to make sure you’ve followed correctly. Highly recommend it!
小学3年
Elementary grade 3 reading level
Very good candidate for your first “novel” in Japanese. The chapters are short, don't depend on each other, and written in a very clear, straightforward, simple style.
Furthermore, the vocabulary is quite restricted and repeated very often... perhaps too often. It was getting quite repetitive by the end of the book which diminished my entertainment rating. The repetition in the structure, setup, and lexical fields of the stories is the part of why it is so approachable for beginners though.
I also liked being able to test my comprehension by checking if I understood the twist/punchline, because there were times where I felt like I understood the words but I didn't get the twist until I re-read a few key parts.
Would I have read this book in my native language? No, but it is very good for language learning.
Cute and funny short story collection about wacky scientists and their strange inventions. Most end with either a punchline or a Twilight Zone-esque twist and there's usually a good moral. Reminded me a bit of Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends".
As far as language learning value, the book is excellent. Since the stories are short, you don't get burnt out trying to finish a chapter which can happen in larger books. The trickiest aspect for me is that some words I'm used to seeing in Kanji are rendered in Kana here and that tripped me up quite a bit in places.
Great for N3 level
This collection of short stories was quite accessible for me (around N3/N2). Even if you are at N4, I think that this is probably one of the few light novels that wouldn't be too difficult to get through yet is still quite interesting.
The short story format (4-5 pages each) is also quite nice for language learning purposes.
I enjoyed the stories for the most part - there were a few that were a little too predictable, but overall it was a nice read. Highly recommend!
きまぐれロボット is a collection of 27 ultra short comical sci-fi stories by Hoshi Shinichi, a highly influential science fiction author active from the 50s through the 80s, whose stories remain popular even today.
I think this book is close to ideal for language learning purposes. The author has a simple writing style, not at all literary or flowery, and he tends to reuse the same common words instead of lots of synonyms. Each story is very short (only 4 pages), so you if you can get through one per day, you'll be done in less than a month. Since each story is self-contained, if you're really struggling with one you can simply skip it and move on to the next without losing out on anything. The 角川つばさ文庫 edition has full furigana, but even if you have an edition without furigana I don't think the kanji would be particularly difficult.
I won't claim the stories are riveting — many of them are basically jokes that have a long build up to a punch line, or Aesop-like fables with a satirical twist at the end. Still, they're not written in a patronizing or "kiddy" way, so I think even adults can enjoy them; I'd certainly rather read stuff like this than the vapid conversations that pass for reading practice in a textbook. My favorites would probably be the title story きまぐれロボット and 金色の海草 because I enjoyed the funny twists at the end.
In a nutshell, if you're roughly upper N4/lower N3, past graded readers but unwilling to read Magic Tree House, and everything else is too difficult, then this book is a good place to start learning from native material.
One of the easiest books I know. Similar level to "the girl that lept through time". The stories are for children but entertaining.
Has furigana.
Boring but functional
This was my second Japanese book. I found the vocabulary fairly easy, but I needed help from my friend Google Translate for many sentences. From a language-learning point of view it was a good book — maybe a little too difficult for me — but I didn’t find it interesting at all. Still, I forced myself to finish it anyway.