本当のまんがを初めて読みました！よかった！クリスタルハンターのまんがよりドラゴンボールはもっと難しいですよ。クリスタルハンターは日本語を教えます。ドラゴンボールはこのことがありません。キャラクターの名前はよく漢字に書きます。（とふりがな、ありがとう鳥山さん）テクストは本当に小さいですね。ふりがなを読むことはよく難しいです。クリスタルハンターは同じ言葉をよく使います。ドラゴンボールは一度使う言葉が多くあります。

ドラゴンボールの話はもう知りました。長年前にドラゴンボールのアニメをみました。でもまんがはまだ読んでいませんでした。まんがの話はアニメの話似ています。この話は１９８０ｓの文化の話です。ブルマはよく裸です。二つ目の半分にブルマはうさぎのスーツを着ます。（プレイボーイのモデル似ています。）悟空も（数回）裸です。

私はドラゴンボールよりドラゴンボールZよく知ります。でもたくさん私を知るキャラクターを出ることは私にびっくりしました。ウーロンはもっと大切な敵です。チチとヤムチャとぷアールもいますね。

All right, we’re back. That was even more Japanese, I think. And appropriately so! For my English readers, this is me talking about the first issue of the Dragon Ball manga! And as I said above, hot damn, I’m excited to have read a real, honest-to-goodness normal manga for the first time! Not aimed at language learners (and you can tell), just there for entertainment. It was slow. Like holy crap was I slow at reading this. And I had to look up so much. But sometimes there would be a streak and things would all be making sense for a few pages. Very satisfying.

Also as I touched on in the Japanese section, I’m surprised at how many famous and long-running Dragon Ball characters appear right away. But also by the order of them - who starts with Oolong? Names tripped me up a few times, because they when I don’t recognize them, they also don’t translate, so I have to work around them for a while, but I think I got them all by the end. The added context of knowing the characters made that possible (like when I recognized Master Roshi’s name phonetically).

I had great fun with 牛魔王（ぎゅうまおう）, which I worked out pretty quickly was a name, but didn’t know who it was. Who was this evil guy who lived in the castle on the mountain that was constantly on fire, where the 6 star dragon ball is? (Also what’s up with the counter words for the stars in the dragon balls? I worked out what those were, but absolutely do not understand them. 羽 and 匹 please.) I could piece together some meaning from evil guy’s name’s kanji (beef/cow and lord/king). It all finally clicked when he appeared for the first time (right at the end) and I realized it was “Ox King” (ChiChi’s father). Like, I probably should’ve been able to work that out beforehand.

Anyway, a remarkable start to an enormous series and a challenging one from a reading difficulty perspective for me. I would happily keep going, but the way I picked up learner mangas in Japan was to get first issues of a lot of series I knew (betting on my existing context being helpful - which it absolutely has been). But that does mean I only have issue 1. I’ll have to pick up some more next time (or find/import them).

Dragon Ball is a product of its time, but it’s still a great romp through some silly fun. It set up a whole decades-long series that took over the world for a reason.

ドラゴンボール #1

By 鳥山明

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I wondered how this one would turn out and I was pleasantly surprised. The other Chronicles of the Avatar books about Kyoshi and Yangchen focused on characters we hadn’t seen much of in the shows, whereas we had seen relatively more of Roku. How would this book square with the personality we saw there? Would it tread too close to the show’s domain and end up not feeling like its own story? But of course, the Roku we know from the Avatar TV shows is the wise old man - offering Aang sage advice from on high. This book is about a younger Roku, newly an adult and who has lost his brother and is still reeling from it.

It played out well, and Sozin (of the comet) being one ofn the major characters was also a nice connection to the rest of the Avatar universe, while still being its own separate thing. Knowing what we do as the reader, you can see the unfortunate arc ahead for Sozin. How he could have been saved before this book, but the ruthless quest for power has overtaken him now, even if some vestiges of his previous friendships still persist.

Gyatso is another great inclusion, and manages to channel some of Aang’s combination of joyful peacefinder with loveable goofball. Similar to Roku, it’s fun to see a younger version of a character that we only ever saw for a short time as a wizened old man in the show.

The story of this book itself is also much more focused than I expected at the beginning. We set up for a world-spanning Fire Lord rivalry - and maybe that’s where the next book goes - and the island shrouded in mist seems like it’s going to be a small step on an Avatar’s journey to realization. But the island is the book. And the book benefits from that focus - it tells one story and well. Malaya’s connection to Gyatso tugs at the heartstrings and her own struggle against the culture of her island that she disapproves of. The conflict between the arriving earthbenders and the people of the Lambak clan doesn’t have clear heroes and villains, just people who are trying to be who they are.

Overall I enjoyed this book a lot. The transition from F.C. Yee as the Chronicles author was easy to make - Randy Ribay’s style is cohesive with the world it describes. I did think the “secret tunnel” callout was too forced, and that’s coming from someone who loves tie ins (just read my other reviews, even earlier in this one). But it all lands well as a story that I very much want to see where the second book takes Roku and us.

The Reckoning of Roku

By Randy Ribay

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Somehow, it has taken me a few weeks to write this review, because I finished the book quite a while ago. Sometimes that just happens. I try to make my reviews/posts relatively simple for me to write to avoid this, but sometimes that’s not enough. Anyway, on to Seed Money!

Want to be angry about plants, farming, and seeds? This is the book for you. It’s an interesting crossover between digital ownership and corporate ownership of genetically engineered plants through patents. Like John Deere brings right to repair advocates for tractors together with those for electronics, Monsanto can clearly unite farmers who want to own their own seeds with people who want to own their own video games.

You do have to wonder where companies continue to find the mustache-twirling caricature villains to fill out their decision-making processes. Between the atom bomb, Agent Orange in Vietnam, effectively extorting farmers who grow the food that keep us all alive, gaslighting researchers who have concerns with Monsanto’s products (when Monsanto’s own internal data lines up with the researchers), it really is some cartoon villainy shit. But this book really doesn’t set out to stitch Monsanto up (it even stands up for them in places), the facts do it instead. And it’s interesting to see the seeming reversal from Monsanto’s, ahem, roots with John Queeny to its modern day incarnation. John Queeny’s no saint, but some of his specific moral positions are directly opposed to the modern Monsanto ones.

The book itself is an interesting dive into something I had heard a little about, but now have a better grounding in actual context. I look forward to reading more about it to get a better understanding. But I’ll stand right here and say that disallowing replanting of seeds (or deliberately engineering a crop to make it ineffective) is clearly not an ethical thing to do. If more folks read this book and it leads them to oppose these kinds of businesses, that seems like a good thing to me.

Seed Money: Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future

By Bartow J. Elmore

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これは今さいごのクリスタルハンターのまんがです。私はかなしみです！他の日本語の本を見つけなければなりません。でも私は今日十冊めのクリスタルハンターのまんがを話しています。前の本に難しくて悲しい出来事が起こしました。カルとナイツとダフニーたちは彼らの歴史を見えます。この本にもっと嬉しい出来事を起こります。よかったですね。スバサとお兄さんも本当に家族になります。え、多分みらいの本になれます。

But really, it is great that all of the characters get a bit of a break after being through the ringer for the last few books. Tortured childhoods, chained up and beaten for sport, and being brainwashed by evil metal helmets takes a lot out of the adventurers. This time, they do finally get a moment to take a breather. It’s particularly nice to see Taka and Subasa reconcile a bit. It’s a bit strange how quickly he gets along with Cal, Bansom, and Irwin, but we’ll let that slide.

I can’t help but think that the queen is up to something, but it looks like that’s intrigue for the next issue in the series.

Which I will now be eagerly awaiting! I have finally caught up with the publication rate of these books, so now I need to find something else suitable to my language level to read.

As always, Crystal Hunters is a joy to read as a language learner. And I hope has lifted me up to the point where some of the simpler mangas that weren’t specifically written with language learners in mind might be within my reach.

Crystal Hunters #10

By Nathaniel French

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２０２６のさいしょの時に七月までに日本語で五冊の本を読む事が私をチャレンジしました。六月三十日にこの本を読むのをおわりました。チャレンジは勝ちます！（このレビューは遅いでも本当に先週の前に本を読むのはおわりました）

私たちはこの本にカルの歴史をもっと学びます。カルの子供の時はとても難しいです。これはカルのキャラクターを説明します。スバサとスバサのお兄さんの戦いも彼らの歴史に似ています。

As I said above in Japanese - I set myself a goal of reading 5 books in Japanese before July 1st, and by finishing this book on June 30th I just about made it by the skin of my teeth! At one point I was sure I would never get to 5, but the next 5 Crystal Hunters mangas turned out to be exactly what I needed. I made them a part of my everyday reading schedule, separate from my normal reading, and pretty soon I was blasting through them. The tenth book is up next, but that’s also the most recently published one, so I’ll need to branch out to reading something else in Japanese to keep the momentum going.

The story continues to tell a remarkably mature tale despite the simplified language. And the language is gaining complexity as well - it’s not just a vocabulary test anymore, I’m figuring out some grammar as I go too. Things are looking pretty grim for the heroes in this book, and the cover of the next one tells me it continues that way.

I still thoroughly enjoy this series, and can’t recommend it enough for language learners.

Crystal Hunters #9

By Nathaniel French

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The structure of this book is an interesting way to tell a story. It is itself a book, obviously. And the first layer of its story is from the perspective of Flo, who is an American book translator living in Japan, who translates books from Japanese into English. And then we also see many chapters that are a part of the inner book she is translating, Sound of Water, which is a story of a boy, Kyo, who moves out to the Japanese countryside to live with his grandmother after he fails some exams.

Flo’s having a hard time with her relationship. Kyo is having a hard time with his life. The two are connected, and Flo’s story is partially about her connection to Kyo’s story. When we start talking about the author of Sound of Water, who’s an author in the middle layer - Flo’s perspective - who has based his book on personal experiences in his (fictional, to us, the reader) past, it’s all got a lot of layers.

But it doesn’t get caught up in any of that in an elaborate sense. It tells the story of its characters at the various layers and you can choose to just enjoy them for what they are. Flo is a remarkable self-sabotaging person, in a quiet way that makes you root for her (she can’t bring herself to ask for the help she needs) and it’s heartbreaking to see her internal dialogue that the other characters (understandably) never really grasp.

Kyo is similar, and it makes sense that Flo connects to him while reading his story, because he also can’t find the right way to reach out to people. (I don’t get the impression that she realizes this though.) He also makes some pretty dumb decisions, but you can see why he makes them, and he’s never malicious about it and often understands where he went wrong afterwards.

However, that does bring me to Ayako. Ayako is Kyo’s grandmother. Internally, you can see from her internal dialogue that she’s a warm and reasonable, if flawed, person. But externally, she is infuriating. Like Kyo, she makes a series of dumb decisions throughout the nested book. But the thing that sets me off about her decisions versus his is intent. She chooses these things intentionally, instead of doing things accidentally. And she insists. She wields the authority of her social station to paper over her mistakes.

Honestly, you can see that Ayako has a redemption arc. And there is a lot to like about her (and a lot of very good and powerful reasons why she acts like she does). I was ready for the redemption. It was all coming together toward the end. But then she gave away the frog. I actually couldn’t quite believe it. It’s exactly the same kind of “I run your life for you” mistake she kept making throughout the book. Kyo got over it, and it looks like it turned out well between them, but honestly I would not have abided that final straw.

There’s another bit of a mystery towards the end, where Ayako is climbing the mountain to reconcile with Kyo. The way that chapter is structured, I get the impression that she doesn’t make it. There are conflicting messages in it. The chapter’s structure, the way it explains to the reader her intent in advance, but lingers on the short, flickering passages that mirror her struggling with the climb (which she has made many times before), suggest she’s not going to make it. It’s set up to pull on the heartstrings - that she finally saw how she really wanted to help Kyo and that we the reader knew that was what he needed, but she doesn’t get a chance to do it. Then again, her final few lines are reminiscent of her climb up the snowy mountain, where she lost her fingers, that we learned about earlier. There’s a direct callout to how she handled that previous situation. And she did return from that mountain. Which suggests the same thing would happen here. Clearly that interpretation is left to the reader. So I hope she made it.

Flo’s story is less ambiguous in its resolution. I’m glad she got the permission she needed to translate Sound of Water. And that the story of the real author, while clearly an inspiration for Kyo, did overall work out very well. Flo clearly understands more about herself at the end. And she finally reaches out to her friends to get the help she needs to deal with her emotional traumas.

There is some Japanese scattered throughout the book: in vocabulary for cultural terms, in several poems and old sayings that are embedded in the text, and in the chapter markers. この日本語は難しいけどよむのをがんばりました。このさいしょの話（フローさんと）は翻訳者のノートがあります。これはフローさんの翻訳者のノートですでもこれも著者から読者にメッセージです。だから面白いです。

It all comes together to make a deep and enjoyable story (or stories). A big risk is that one would be significantly more interesting than the other, and it would be a slog to get through the lesser of the two. But both shine for different reasons and I was glad to reach the varying resolutions for them.

Four Seasons in Japan

By Nick Bradley

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スバサはこの本に友達を危険にさらします。それを読むのは難しいけどそれは彼女の物語です。彼女はこの話前にたくさん危ない事件がありました。その危ない事件はおわりましたないです。スバサのお兄さんはその事件を話すのスバサを悲しませます。この本の後半はダフニーについてです。ダフニーの物語は本当に悲しいです。私は前の記事に「この大人のテーマと易しい言語は私をびっくりさせます」と言いました。これ本のダフニーの話は他の例えのそれににてします。

And I’m serious about that (assuming I’ve got it right and you can understand it), that the flashbacks to Daphne’s past from before the series are genuinely sad. Both sets of emotions here, Subasa’s feelings of inadequacy and her frustration with not earning the approval of her (abusive) family and Daphne’s insecurity after being exploited as an orphan, are remarkably difficult subjects to cover with such simple language. The language has certainly gained complexity since book 1, but it’s still rudimentary compared to, say, this paragraph I’m writing here.

Crystal Hunters has continued to boost my Japanese reading confidence and has definitely helped me internalize more grammar through repeated example. (Though I’m pretty sure I’ve learned the casual form of “must do something” better than the formal one now, which will inevitably trip me up.) The decision to continue layering on more complex language but slowly, so that it doesn’t bog down the story, is a difficult balance to strike, but Crystal Hunters does it very well.

And the language learning is great, but it’s only effective because it tells a story that’s engaging to read as well.

Crystal Hunters #8

By Nathaniel French

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もう次のクリスタルハンターズの本を読みました。kindleの他の店を買えるのが欲しいです。（私のkindleの問題はGoodreadsに似ています。） でもこの本はもう素晴らしい。話は面白くて思いです。私は前の記述に「ダフニーの悲しみは明らかです」と言いました。でもあの感じはこの本を説明します。私はあの時にもうこの本を初め読んでいました。

Phew, that’s more Japanese than I usually write for these reviews. I’m trying to improve - hopefully that’s at least semi understandable.

On to the book! Crystal Hunters continues to be a joy to read, and continues to become easier for me to make progress with on my own language journey. I’m rapidly approaching the time when I catch up with the series and have to read something more challenging, but for now, I’m loving what I’ve got. Again, the contrast between the simple language and the not-for-children story is quite striking. Daphne is not in a good place for most of this book, and even through the “resolution” of her problems, I see a deeper threat that’s lying in wait for future entries in the series.

Irwin’s redemption continues, but there’s still an element of doubt there. And Cal and Knites’s slow reconnection is also underway, though glimpses of some upcoming promotional art tell me that we haven’t seen the last of that mind control helmet.

It’s a fun story and plays an extremely helpful role in making the earlier, study-focused part of language learning much more enjoyable.

Crystal Hunters #7

By Nathaniel French

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I’m on a roll with this series now. It’s a great measure of my own language progress how much easier it is to read these mangas. On this one I only needed to look up a couple of words, and I still remember struggling through the first issue, constantly looking things up. And the things I check now are also different - grammar rules for repeated patterns in addition to the expected “what is this kanji?”.

As always with this series, if you’re early on in learning Japanese (or any of the languages the series is published in) then I cannot recommend it enough.

This issue also covers an interesting quirk of English to Japanese translation which came up in my own studies just a couple of weeks ago. The distinction between 手伝う and 助ける, where in English both are under the umbrella of “helping” someone. The former though, is more everyday “help” - where someone needs support with something and the helper is joining in to aid them in doing something. The latter is more like “rescue” where the helper is getting someone out of a bad/dangerous situation. English does have the specifics (as I’ve just demonstrated with “rescue”) but it’s interesting that the broader English coverage of “help” doesn’t port directly to Japanese.

As for the story itself, the internal redemption of Irwin is interesting, and I’m looking forward to finding out if it sticks or if he goes back to his scheming ways when the crisis passes. Daphne’s distress is palpable on the page, in both the dialogue and the art.

もうすぐに次のクリスタルハンターズのまんがを読みます

Crystal Hunters #6

By Nathaniel French

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I often think that to truly enjoy something, it has to line up with where you are in your life at that time. Not in a profound way (though that works too), but in a more mundane “this is the kind of thing I want to read/watch/play right now”. Unfortunately I think I picked this book up at the wrong time. Because it does seem that it’s very good, and something I would very much enjoy at the right time, but it didn’t grab me like it should’ve.

The tale of Phosyne, Voyne, and Treila is strange in a good way. It twists and turns outside reality, defying explanation but also not begging for it. The mystical world they live in is one that they don’t understand. And since we see it through their eyes, we don’t get to understand it either.

The blurb about the book talks about the Saints right away, but the book itself lingers in the time before that for longer than I expected. Everyone spends a significant amount of time starving, which does set the scene for the gluttonous outcomes the Saints bring with them. It also sets the downtrodden tone for the reader. Starting at desperate, the book’s characters soon find themselves cast adrift beyond mortal capability. And then non-mortal comes knocking.

This book is labeled as a horror. And I suppose I can see why. There’s a fair amount of cannibalism. There are teeth in the darkness that are more and less than human. But it’s not horror in the way that puts me off things. The dread, the strangeness, the desperate circumstances, all feel like a part of the story and never a threat to the reader. It doesn’t keep me up at night.

Overall I do think this book was very good. But I wasn’t in quite the right frame of mind to appreciate it to its fullest.

The Starving Saints

By Caitlin Starling

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