Manga on Japanese?

[kwecky]

As I realise after two months of japanese, I need some sort of a reference to how far I've gotten.
To do this, I want to buy some mangas in japanese. Any ideas where to get some? (Rather legally)
And of course I want it digitally so I don't have to import everything? Anyone know about something like that?
Comixology for manga basically
(Btw I'm new here,so... はじめまして私わけびんです)

[Murius]

Hi Kevin,

Don't know how much you will be able to read after two months, though to tell the truth I did much the same. Then I put the books away to do some more learning and checked regularly to see whether things had improved. From my own experience, I went from having a hard time reading three pages a day for two years to my 300-400 pages a week without knowing what happened to explain the change so hang in there, all things come to those who wait!

A good way to get mangas is to get them from amazon.co.jp, it used to be a hassle but things improved recently; it gets home fast and not too much on delivery. A good way to get a lot for your money is to go the magazine way. I am getting Jump Square, Comic Alive and Shonen Ace for 30€, delivery included. That's a cool 2500 pages. Also a good deal on amazon is to look for sets, I got a heap of 40 Detective Conan for 40€, delivery included! (by the way those are a real easy read so you may want to get a few volumes anyway).

If you're dead set on the digital thing, recently I have found: http://bookwalker.jp/
I have created an account but not bought anything yet although I went up to payment and it did not look like it meant to stop me from buying (unlike many japanese sites...) and it takes paypal. Only downside I have found is that it is plain image scan without any character recognition. Not so much a problem if you want manga but novels would have been so much more accessible if one could highlight words and look for a definition...
A definite problem from my point of view concerning digital manga is that furigana, which can be hard to read on printed matter gets ultra pixelated on digital copies when you zoom in and that is a definite drawback.

Also from (bitter) personal experience, I would advise you to steer clear from JBOX/J-LIST. I had a very bad experience with lost parcels and reclamations on paypal, so they are on my personal black list.

[kwecky]

Thanks for the reply!
So now it just boils down to digital vs physical argument I've had for years, as the clear advantage for digital is that it takes up less space so I won't blow up my shelf, and is easier to bring around a tablet on the buss, rather than a pocket that might be wrecked in my bag(Not that I will be reading much on the buss now in the close future as I will probably need every recourse availible to be able to figure anything out at all.) But the advantage of the physical verision is that it won't become pixelated if the images is low quality, and it feels more real.
Choises, choises, choises...

[Murius]

Don't worry, it's not physical vs digital, in fact it's physical AND digital all the way. Anki has been a life saver to learn JLPT and now JED (if you have android) has become my weapon of choice when I am reading. Which is one reason I wouldn't go digital on my purchases yet, I need the dictionary all the time, each page I can expect a word I never encountered yet (I am at that stage where I get this pleasant feeling of surprise when I've read 3 pages without looking up anything) and that can really trip you up. And for the dictionary digital is the way to go (at least as long as you have furigana).

As for the "feeling more real" aspect, I would not be too concerned, manga reads as well on a screen as on paper (but in english...). And don't be too happy about paper furigana, at time they can be barely legible. It just gets worst when digitalized, and I can't see them up the quality, nobody wants a 120mo epub.

Then again that is just one guy's opinion, I hope others contribute, there may be sites I do not know about etc. Also if you want first hand experience of digital manga, bookwalker has excerpts. Here is a common exemple of the way furigana gets unreadable when you zoom in: http://bookwalker.jp/de98b6c10f-d76a-4c2a-b42e-224075f91611/?sample=1

[Murius]

Just a quick update to tell you - and anyone interested - that bookwalker works, and moreover that novels have adjustable font size and clear-cut furigana, so that's one less cause for concern. Got the app on a 10" tablet and it looks great. Haven't tried any manga yet but will soon!

[Murius]

Also contrary to what I said earlier there is character recognition. I think the excerpts are plain "image pdf" while the real thing is OCR epub. So, lots of possibilities, maybe soon it will be possible to check a kanji's reading directly from the app, add dictionaries etc.

[Trinitywarrior1]

You could also try Viz.com.

[Murius]

You could also try Viz.com.

Thanks for the link! However I can't seem to find anything in japanese?

[Trinitywarrior1]

Thanks for the link! However I can't seem to find anything in japanese?[/quote]

Sorry I thought they had some stuff in Japanese. I did some looking around and it seems most of the site that have manga that is in Japanese look illegal. I would recommend that you go to Youtube and search stuff in Japanese and then when you click a video you could try to read the description box or the comments. You can check my Youtube channel, just click my profile and it should be there, or at least the name anyway. I have a hand full of Japanese channels I found. If you want to practice writing in Japanese I would be happy to chat with you. Good luck.

[Murius]

What does youtube have to do with manga?! We aren't talking about anime or whatever, I do not understand your point?

About legality we were not speaking about online reading but ebooks, bookwalker is more than legit, the only restriction is that part of the store is available only to japanese residents. Also the hundreds of mangas and novels I got from amazon.co.jp don't look counterfeit to me (but sadly no kindle)!
I'm sure there are other stores but those are the ones I use.

Also if you want to watch videos in japanese, why youtube when there is niconico?

[ma.97_506258]

EVER HEARD OF GOOGLE OR SCIFY book stores?..wow there are mangas on the internet ya know, you can buy them on the internet so they deliver them as books ya know (I'm not a fan just that my friends are ya know.)

[Murius]

EVER HEARD OF GOOGLE OR SCIFY book stores?..wow there are mangas on the internet ya know, you can buy them on the internet so they deliver them as books ya know (I'm not a fan just that my friends are ya know.)

This is a topic on manga written in japanese ya know? like, there aren't any on google books ya know? (and what is a scify book store? coz I've never heard of one ya know)