Oh gosh!!! I didn't know about their Book Depository! Thanks for the info~! I was so concerned about the shipping fees!
It took me a few months to be able to read Japanese mangas decently, with a little help from the dictionary when words got too complex xD. You don't really need to be all fluent to enjoy it if you ask me, it'll actually get better the more mangas you read.
But I guess it depends on how fast you are generally about learning new languages. It just happens to be something I excel at, like for my mother language I suck at grammar tests where you have to explain what the rules are or tell what is the type of word or whatnot, but I write without making a single error :X. My head just gets the rules without being told and just by reading lots.
And "Read Japanese Today: The Easy Way to Learn 400 Practical Kanji" is just the greatest book ever, getting to know why kanjis were drawn a certain way makes them so much easier to learn than just trying to memorise a bunch of lines that have no logical link :L. After memorizing what's in the book, as well as katakanas and hiraganas (took me about 8 hours each, Dr Moku is a great app for that, mnemonic learning is just great), then just looking up the grammar a bit, it's where you have a great start. Well that and being used to watch subbed anime, as it what it helped me get if a sentence made sense or not just by instinct (just like my writing with my mother tongue xD).
Anyway, if anyone feels the same way, I wouldn't say forget about learning Japanese :3. If not then yeah Sublime's books are for you, unless you just like learning languages no matter how long it'll be.
I think ppl are really worrying about the Junjou series which is no longer being published in English and was also translated by itsdaletos. I'm ok because Chinese is my 2nd language but I agree it's important to support sublime
yeah, manga might be relatively easier to read compared to literary novels. And it does depend on how fast you learn a language e.g Chinese people will have lighter burden in learning Kanji characters but for people whose native languages use latin characters, the duration of studying will increase by 0.5 times.
I'll try that 400 Kanji book you recommended. Thank you. I'm a beginner in Japanese with hiragana/katakana knowledge.
By "forget about learning Japanese", I don't discourage those who loves Nihongo or Nippon in general. But if you just want to jump from reading scanlated manga to original scans without prior knowledge whatsoever, Ten Count might be completed before you can do that. Now I realize manga is easier way to learn Japanese since you have incentive to try harder. But it takes 6450 hrs to 10,900 hrs in order to pass N5 to N1 of JLPT. Which basically means 3-4 years minimum.
So ultimately, I'm just saying it doesn't worth it cause you still have to buy original japanese manga books instead of english version ones. Whether you read it in japanese text or english text, buying a legally published book means supporting the mangaka. I do sympathize with those who cannot even buy their favorite books since I'm also one of them. That's why I'm on this website, sharing ways to read them.
Yep, I hope this cleared your doubt about I discouraging the pursuit of new languages. On the site note, english is not my native language either. I'm actually fond of new languages. ヾ(❀╹◡╹)ﾉ~
ahh...Junjou series huh... *sigh*
I so want to buy them in complete set!
Shungiku Nakamura is the only mangaka who can make me buy printed books when I don't have anymore space in my room （￣へ￣）
I'm thinking about buying all the volumes released by Blu. But I can't stand not having a complete set T_T
(I have a mild OCD and I can't stand books in the same series not having same design layout or publisher lol. *pathetic I know*)
I would really love to learn Japanese and also would like to buy the mangas in Japanese. But right now, I don't know where to buy them. And scanlated raws just won't do because of my terrible eyesight.
I agree that it really helps when you try reading the raws though. I can somehow understand what the scene wants to portray using my amature Japanese vocabulary. Japanese or English, either languages are okay with me as long as I have my copy of SH. :3
Amazon.co.jp (the website has an English option to help you navigate) or CDJapan.co.jp. Whichever costs less with the shipping I guess, but the good news is that the mangas themselves in Japan are quite cheap, a bit less than 5 US$. Just make sure to buy multiple at the same time so that the shipping costs less, you could even end up saving more than you would if you were buying English mangas.
Oh yeah, basically if you only want to learn Japanese to read this manga, it's probably not a good idea xD.
Though if we're talking about other alternatives, I'm pretty sure bl-now were still posting summaries, have they recently stopped doing anything? Their last post was on November 30, I wonder what has happened, maybe they're on a break...
it's quite agonizing to rely on online scanlators/translators since they're doing this totally out of pure hobby or whim. They have real lives to deal with and scanlations get delayed. And they get pissed when people share them irresponsibly and stop doing it. I personally feel spoiled when I read a summary or scanlation which is not up to original quality. Those translators are all fans and some people can't translate well even though they do try. And some readers would complain about it even though all they do is mooching off of those armature scanlators. So yeah, I'm tired of online dramas and I don't really want to blame fellow fans for bad scanlations, etc.
Since SH is now available in singapore, why not just support the mangaka by buying the quality stuff?
On the side note, I wish SuBLime will continue the JR series in the near future. T_T
About JR, they said they couldn't make it work because people could still buy Blu's edition. They're indeed still in sale in many stores on Rightstuff!
Oh thank you!
I'll look into that.
But as I mentioned above, I prefer to have same books by one publisher due to my OCD haha
Completely ignoring the issues between scanlators and fans online, I'm just here to promote Sublime's releases where the money will go back to Nakamura sensei.
Of course it's not available to all the readers here but why not go to their website and make sure about it? Here -
https://www.sublimemanga.com/reader/688
Sublime is in US and I was wondering if I can get the books from Singapore and apparently, I can.
If you choose Book Depository, it is shipping worldwide with NO SHIPPING COST whatsoever. Which means you only need to pay the amount necessary to support the mangaka without any further rip-offs.
Nakamura sensei specifically requested that only physical books to be sold with no digital content available for sale (wahh, talk about being smart).
On the side note, I already have first 3 volumes of this manga and the 4th volume is on it's way already shipped.
Forget about learning Japanese. You will still have to read illegal scans and it takes years to get to the level of being able to read fluently.
Except for not being up to date, SuBLime's releases are SLOWLY catching up with the latest chapters so I just pray they will be able to translate them till the series end. (no...I just want Ritsu to confess and I'll be ready to die T_T )