チェンソーマン (1)

Suprisingly very doable to read

This review is for the first volume only.

I expected to have a way harder time with chainsaw man because of the n3 rating, I've just been learning japanese for 3,5 months and was primarily reading n4 manga with (at the moment) ~2500 words known and some grammar study here and there.

I decided to give it a go and aside from the more uncommon words I came across, it was quite easy to read. The grammar is relatively simple and easy to understand and it's also very easy to differentiate between who is talking and who a sentence is directed at. With "easier" manga I've had troubles with mistaking the subject of the sentence, and the grammar in general. Denji often speaks "rough" japanese (idk the correct term for it), what I mean by that is that he often pronounces words differently or incorrectly, but I didn't find that to be an issue for me.

Compared to a manga of a similar grading (koe no katachi), I found this to be way easier, although maybe I've just unconsciously improved since then. I'm guessing that the higher rating might be because of the word use, but with a manga ocr application (Poricom) looking up words was a breeze. I had to look up words commonly, but it wasn't any more than I was already used to (prob 1-4 words per 2 panels).

If you're contemplating on trying this manga and you fear the grading might be above your level, I'd say to try it anyways. If you don't find looking up words to be annoying, then it's sure to be a great read.

Edit: Rereading some panels of previous manga I've read, I realised I did get better at reading, although I didn't notice that before. I still think that chainsaw man is relatively friendly in terms of grammar, although my comparison with koe no katachi was biased due to me not having read as much as I have now.

感想

★★★★★★★★ - 優れている

Entertaining & great for informal dialogue.

This is a review of all volumes within “Part 1” of Chainsaw Man (volumes 1-11).

I had been wanting to read this manga for around 2 years now, but thought I would save it for trying to read in Japanese. I’m around N3, hoping to slowly work my way up to N2 by reading.

From a language learning perspective, this manga is really good for drumming in a lot of casual contractions and the causative form. Overall there isn’t as much text as I’d imagine from other manga of the same grade, making it a really good stepping stone into other manga of the same range.

For someone at my level this was the perfect difficulty, I found it challenging in places, but also quite breezy in others. There is, however, a couple of dialects as some of the characters are from Kyoto and Miyagi, however, due to the business setting it’s not that bad.

Overall a really enjoyable manga, the story making it really easy to carry on despite its difficulty. Highly recommend.