デルトラ・クエスト 1 沈黙の森

Deltora Quest - A Great First Epic Fantasy Series for Japanese Learners

Summary & Overall Thoughts

• Deltora Quest tells the tale of Lief, a blacksmith's son who has to recover the 7 gems of Deltora in order to defeat the shadow king and save the world. This is the first book in the series (of 8).
• I read this series when I was in elementary school and it was what started my love for fantasy novels, so these books hold a special place in my heart. Reading the first one in Japanese was quite nostalgic and I plan to continue the series.
• Similar to books like Harry Potter, while this book is aimed at kids, it can also be enjoyed by adults.
• Due to the relatively easy language and quick pace (see notes below), I'd highly recommend this as a first epic fantasy series for Japanese learners.

Language Learning Thoughts

• Pros: Probably the lowest level epic fantasy novel I've found. Plot tends to move more quickly than other fantasy novels I've read. In general, vocabulary is quite easy for a fantasy novel (but will still be difficult if this your first one!). I tended to look up maybe 5-10 words per page while reading on my Kindle (note that I'm one of those people who looks up 95% of the words I'm uncertain of). Chapters are short (~10 pages each), and each one ends in a cliffhanger, motivating you to keep reading!
• Neutral: Furigana for almost every word. If a word is repeated shortly thereafter, furigana is omitted.
• Cons: Many words (especially verbs) are written in all hiragana. This was a con for me but I could see it being useful to those who are still working on building up their kanji knowledge. This is also a translation (originally published in English), but it has decent reviews on Amazon, and one of the reviews said the translation was good (翻訳も良好 was the exact wording) - but it is just one review so maybe keep that in mind. I didn't notice anything unnatural but also my Japanese likely isn't at the level to notice a lot of those nuances.