耳をすませば

Good first manga if you like the film

I think this was the perfect manga for me to start with. The vocabulary and grammar are fairly easy, and being a manga it's easy to follow even if you don't understand a sentence. It's definitely worth reading without looking up words you don't know (unless it's repeated often of course), in fact there were very few words I didn't know. It definitely gave me the confidence that I can start incorporating much more reading practice into my learning.

However, the story isn't super interesting, and the extra side story isn't very good (or maybe I just didn't understand it...). I really love the Ghibli adaptation so despite being quite different it was definitely worth reading. It wasn't boring or slow, just not exactly gripping, so if you've seen the film then it's a good first manga.