Pretty low level I’d say. I got level 20 in Genki II about 7-8 years ago. Trying to re-go through all of the Genki chapters again, but I’d say maybe N5? I need a heavy brush up on grammar though.
In terms of what I like… I don’t think I’m at the level to be picky about it since I probably won’t be reading any Japanese philosophy books anytime soon haha. Genre’s probably fantasy? I am honestly quite open to anything.
Here are a few recommendation on the easier side, then. All slightly harder than Tamamo no Koi, all throughly enjoyable, and all of them have WK book clubs if you have questions:
And a bonus recommendation if you want something really easy to read, even if it’s mostly just cute and not especially deep. Also has a WK book club:
Huh. Can’t find it in the US site at all, even with the same search terms I used on the Australian site. You could still try e-mailing them directly - sometimes it’s who you know, not what you know, and Kinokinuya definitely know people - but I’m not sure I’d bet on it.
Ordered mine forn Manga-republic 2nd hand was $16 with free shipping.
Never used them before however so no idea how it will work out but didnt see anything negative about them online so fingers crossed 
lots of people here have used them, they’re great. You might have to pay an import customs fee depending on your country, but other than that no surprises except the beautiful way they pack everything up!
Yep I ordered that way too. I’m in UK and got an order dispatched email, it said 2-3 weeks shipping
Mines 5.42% handeled hopefully ships soon.
And occasionally a seasonally appropriate candy or a set of book protectors!
The shipping can be a little slow, but it’s really great if you don’t want to pay a massive amount for shipping of just one or two items.
Never used Manga-republic but wanted to see how much it’d cost. Seems like clicking the link from this thread and searching it directly from the website gives 2 different results, with one costing half as much (when searching directly through the site). I’m not sure how the site works, but it seems weird to me.
The $11 one has a lower quality thumbnail, for all that’s worth. Do you guys think it’s still okay?
Since you’re not buying the thumbnail, I’d say: Go for it!
I’ll change the buying link in the OP to the search so anybody can find the most current (and hopefully cheapest?) one. Sorry to anyone who bought it more expensively than necessary. I had no idea there are multiple pages with different prices.
Those are the two links in question:
What’s even more confusing is that I can’t even find the $20 version anymore via the page search. It just doesn’t show up, even though it seems to be in stock.
Anybody have an idea what’s up with that?
…and now the old $20 link appears in the search again, and the new link costs $20 too.
I don’t really understand Manga Republic.
First 2 weeks are free from Amazon Kindle, as you get ~20 pages. If I’m able to keep up with the first few weeks I’ll purchase it digitally! For like 5$ that’s pretty hard to beat!
こんにちは! Checking in, this is my first time having a crack at this. I am super beginner - really only half way through N5 material with Genki and Bunpro, and on WK level 4. So this is a big challenge for me! But I like a challenge, and honestly slogging through Genki/BP/WK gets repetitive so I need other things to break it up and maintain motivation. I do use a grammar reference and online resources to deep dive into various points when I want to learn more about something, but having a crack at actually reading some native material - much more interesting!
I ordered a physical copy from Mangarepublic when the book was announced and it arrived earlier this week (posted to UK). So today I’ve just spent about an hour deciphering the first two pages! Felt like I should try to get ahead when the inspiration arises. Actually did recognise some words which was nice! Making some notes of things to discuss when the club gets going!
Yes!!! Starting native material was absolutely the breakthrough for me in realizing how rewarding language study could be. I was only about halfway through Genki 1 when I started reading with the ABBC, so it’s totally doable.
Me too! Also in UK and my copy arrived yesterday 
I totally agree with you about the monotony of reviews.
Let’s goooooo! 
With three weeks until we start, now’s a good time to review the highest-frequency words in this volume and see if there are any you’d like to pre-learn.
Is there a way to pull that list into Anki?
While I wouldn’t recommend loading a whole frequency list into Anki (unless you don’t mind deleting cards later), there are a couple of options:
There isn’t an easy way to pull the data directly into Anki, as I haven’t found an easy option to implement for this. There are options (for logged in users) to export a word list, which is useful with JPDB, but not so much with Anki.
If you use Anki and a browser program such as Yomitan or Migaku, I recommend creating cards one by one down the line for the first page (100 entries) and maybe the top ten or 20 from the second page.
An alternative is to Yomitan/Migaku is to use Anki Connect:
Ordered a physical copy from MangaRepublic. First club read!
Arrived yesterday (>0<)/
Very well packaged, no extra charges and even included some free book sleves for my first order.
Very happy