I was wondering if you have any manga recomendations for upper-intermediate level readers.
I just passed the N3 test and decided it is finally time for me to face my fears and start reading manga.
The problem is that all the interesting manga that I find are Seinen, which means a bunch of hard vocabulary that, with time, end up making the whole experience very tiresome…
You say upper intermediate but that you’ve never read manga before. Do you have a lot of reading experience from newspapers or other sources?
Anyway, the first (and currently only) series I read completely was 放浪息子 (discussion thread) and I quite enjoyed it. Mostly has no furigana, so if you don’t know many kanji beyond your WaniKani level would indicate it might not be the best choice to start with. The language overall isn’t too difficult though. Definitely worth reading at some point if you like good character-driven dramas.
A good manga to start with is Aria the Masterpiece. It has furigana for everything if that helps. While it has sci-fi elements, it’s more slice of life iyashikei than anything else.
Other than that, perhaps join one of the current or upcoming book clubs so you can ask for help if needed. By reading with others you can also try material at a bit of a higher level since there’s a support system of people helping each other out.
If you want more aside from the current and past book club manga, I imagine that most of the nominations for the beginner book wouldn’t be too difficult either (+they have difficulty scores people voted for so you can see which ones people think seem harder/easier). Other than that, seconding Aria being a good first manga because it was the first one I read.
I also read the first volume of Orange not too long after Aria and it didn’t feel too much harder(probably easier vocab but slightly harder grammar).
I also personally like the manga 不可解なぼくのすべてを a lot and it’s not super difficult, but it doesn’t have furigana and I don’t know if it’s something most people would like or not so just mentioning it because, well, I like it(and there’s a free preview of the first two chapters available online on this page)
The first manga I ever read was Flying Witch. I thought I’d mention it as a possible option not because it’s like, the best manga ever to read first, but because we just voted to read it next (starting 19th October) in the Beginners’ Book Club, so no harm in giving it a try with us
I managed to struggle my way through it on my own, and you’re definitely at a higher level of Japanese than I was then.