Review: Crystal Hunters #6, by Nathaniel French
by
Stuart Holland
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
