Hey guys! I have been learning Japanese for around a year now and have heard that 魔女の宅急便 is a good starting point for getting into reading novels in Japanese. I know I would definitely have to struggle through to read it but I have native speakers that could help as well and I just started on Genki II. I was just curious if anyone had an idea of around what level I should be in WaniKani to realistically be able to start reading the book? よろしくお願いします。
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In your year of studying is level 5 on wanikani the totality of your kanji and vocab knowledge or have you done other stuff? If you read through the english version first and had plenty of drive, I’d say level 20 is around the point where I’d start considering doing it with an ebook and yomichan. I read content of a significantly higher difficulty with much less knowledge than that and I was still able to learn a lot, but it would have been migraine inducing levels of frustration for most people. It just depends on your personality and draw towards the content a lot. I’m a bit doubtful because you seem to be choosing it because you have heard “its good for learners” and not because you really want to read that book more than anything else.
On jpdb.io, vol 1 only has 2000 words that aren’t used only once. You probably already know a good chunk of those. Honestly you could just start learning the most common of those now and start reading today if you wanted to. Would probably have an easier time than waiting till lv 25 too since all the vocab would be targeted to what you’re reading.
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I do still have other vocab and kanji knowledge as well, I just finished Genki I and know the kanji and vocab from the textbook and some other vocab from core 2000 anki decks. Part of my reason for picking it comes from hearing it’s a good starting point but I also am very interested in the story 
Kiki’s Delivery Service might be my favorite anime movie of all time and I’ve heard the novels are even better! I think I have a pretty good tolerance for the pains of learning lol. I have also been told you can find anki decks for vocab specific to a certain book and I was planning on doing that before I started as well Sounds like I should have my friend snag it for me while she’s in Japan and just get grinding!
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If you’re going to learn words targeted to what you’re reading (and just to be clear, I think thats a good idea too), you have high mental resilience, and its your favorite movie of all time, then yeah my answer is you can start now if you get the ebook and read on ttsu with yomichan. I would highly advise against a physical copy.
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There was a (second) book club for this a while back, which has several vocabulary lists in the home post. Biggest hurdle will probably be grammar, Natively grades it about N3 level. Keep in mind that’s community based and not set in stone though.
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From a grammar point of view you’ll find that you want a lot of the things you’re going to learn in Genki II. You can look this kind of thing up as you go along, but if you want a smoother start then already knowing them will make life a bit easier.
Reviews for the book on Natively 魔女の宅急便 1 | L25 highlight that it’s fairly kanji light (being a children’s book) so pure kanji knowledge is probably less important than grammar and vocab.
There was a WaniKani book club for this a few years back: the threads will likely have some useful resources as well and discussion and questions/answers that might be helpful:
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I am reading it now and I’d put it at “advanced beginner.” As others have noted, it doesn’t have a lot of kanji, but it still has a lot of vocabulary words (that are just written in hiragana). And I’d also say a tad of grammar that is above a beginner level. If you’re familiar with the story, though, it’s overall easy to follow! I have really really enjoyed reading it