The possibly irritating thing about SKM books is that they’re fairly dense, and separating things into sections may mean that you’re going to have to look quite a few things up yourself (e.g. if you’re using the grammar volume and there’s a word or expression you don’t know, you’re going to have to look it up, because it’s not explained by the book). In essence, SKM books are workbooks with explanations, not textbooks. That aside, while I’m not sure what the SKM books below the N1 level are like, let’s just say that they give off a bit of a ‘hardcore’ feel – even with all the furigana, the N1 volumes are 100% in Japanese. All that being said, SKM is very detailed and well-designed: for example, the exercises in the N1 grammar volume target the differences between grammar points highlighted in the lesson section, and similar grammar points are taught together, meaning that you’ll only get those exercises right if you’ve fully understood the lesson. It’s very good reinforcement. I will say though, that ‘hardcore’ feel can be slightly tiring – there are just so many exercises – and if the 2009 sample N1 questions are anything to go by, I think SKM questions are definitely harder than what’s on the actual test.
The Try! series N1 book is much more friendly, and is more like a textbook that’s centred around grammar: there are Japanese explanations, and there are English translations as well. You get to see and hear grammar and words used in passages and dialogues (or so I believe), along with example sentences. However, the explanations in Try! are generally less detailed than those in SKM, with fewer nuances mentioned. That might just reflect the possibility that actual usage is less restrictive than what SKM suggests, but if I were facing very difficult test questions, I would rather have what SKM says in my head than the relatively loose explanations from Try!.
To sum things up, I think that Try!'s material is honestly easier to absorb because there’s more context, and given my learning style and history with language learning, I should probably use Try!, particularly since it’s just one book versus SKM’s five, and I don’t have a lot of time. On the other hand, all that context (especially the passages) can feel like fluff, which SKM has none of, and SKM’s explanations are just soooo precise, and the exercises are so well designed, that I don’t want to give them up, even if they can be tiring.
That’s my experience, basically: I own all six books. I think what works best really depends on you. In my opinion, SKM is a much more comprehensive test prep series (truly 完全), but there’s no point using something like that if you don’t get through a good chunk of it, in which case something like Try! might be better.
What did you dislike about them, actually? My impression of them from a quick search is that they feel like Try!, just broken into test sections. I’m not sure which series provides better explanations and more realistic questions though.
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