Manga reading club for japanese learners

[michan00_517508]

Hi!! I came across this today and was wondering if anybody here has more information about it: www.mangareadingclub.com
The idea seems pretty neat for those who are learning japanese and enjoy mangas: monthly manga delivery, help with the hardest sections, online discussions, etc. It sounds interesting to me, but I had never heard about it before, wondering whether it's worth it. What do you guys think??
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

[luckydaikon2698]

Hmm, it seems like a neat idea, but I don't know about that price. It seems like the only instruction provided is the 'cheat sheet', which doesn't sound too comprehensive. That and discussion on the forum.

I've been reading manga in Japanese since about the time I took the N3, (around three years of study for me) and it doesn't hurt to start earlier than that. It can be very frustrating at first, but I found it very motivating to enjoy material for native speakers.

Having not used this service, this is just my opinion but... I think you could do better on your own. Especially since they require you to already have some grammar/vocab. http://www.anime-manga.jp/index_english.html is a fun resource for words and speach patterns you're likely to see in manga, and there are some short interactive manga to read and play around with too.

It's easy to get manga through kinokunia if you're in the US, they're usually 9 USD or so with free shipping on orders over 50, plus you can pick what you want to read. Before taking the plunge of buying manga, you can also read some for free, legally. http://www.comico.jp has many original manga formatted for reading on your phone (also serialized novels, which I like.) https://comic.pixiv.net has some original manga, as well as older chapters of some popular titles. If you know the company who publishes your favorite manga, they will often have sample chapters (usually the first two, and the latest one) for you to try out. This can also help you judge the difficulty level.

Most Japanese learner's forums will help you if you get stuck. I've even seen people do their own book club threads for manga or light novels before.

TL;DR- a neat idea, but maybe not at 30 dollars a month