I just finished Akiko, and so at long last I decided to write reviews for everything I’ve read on Satori so far. It turns out to be a lot…
General notes
- I love the voice acting and most of the sound effects.
- It normally takes me about 5-10 episodes to get properly hooked onto a series. I’ll make a note of the series that have a quicker pace, as I know some people prefer that. For me personally, I don’t mind a slower pace from the start, because I find in the end I have a much stronger connection to the story that keeps me going. I’ll put the episodes where the story really picks up pace (if that is relevant) behind spoilers.
- These are all non-spoiler reviews, and I’ve tried to focus on my overall impressions. I gave stars (of 5) for entertainment value, and grouped them a bit
Best starter series:
Kiki Mimi Radio
“A chance discovery of a curious radio leads to unexpected consequences”
5 stars
At 27 episodes, this is an achievable story for a first read and has a good pace right from the start. There is a lot of daily life and especially outdoors vocabulary. This is mostly lighthearted and fun, although there is a central drama as you go on an adventure of discovery with the MC. This is based on a fairy tale with a bit of fantasy (it’s quite different, though), and in the last Satori episode there is a link to an animated version which you’ll probably be able to enjoy after all the vocab you learn through this story. I haven’t tried the harder edition yet, so can’t comment on how much of a jump that is from the easier version. This series was a big part of getting me able to read longer prose sentences (enabling me to start reading books for children).
Sakura and Suzuki's Long Distance Relationship
“When Suzuki’s work suddenly takes him to Okinawa, his budding relationship with Sakura is tested.”
3-4 stars
43 episodes. Where it shines: this is a series of text messages between Sakura and Suzuki, so I found this absolutely fantastic for getting to grips with short forms and casual speech, dropped particles, etc. This series enabled me to get into reading native manga, which was a pretty big breakthrough for me. The pace was a bit slow throughout, I thought, and you’ll like it best if you enjoy the romance genre (which I’m not a big fan of). To be completely honest, I wasn’t wild about it, although after about 20 episodes - I did get into it and want to figure out how it would end, lol. It was my first finished series on Satori and won my heart.
Other easier stories
The Jam Maker
“Satoko lives a quiet life, enjoying her garden and boutique jam-making operation. […] But an encounter with a neighbor boy one day begins to change both of their lives in ways big and small.”
5 stars
60 episodes. This is a lovely story and had a good balance between character development and story. Very much daily life vocabulary. Although the story does move forward a bit at the start, much of the first 15 episodes is scene setting. It’s after this that the story moves forward at a good pace. So if that bothers you, perhaps go at those first episodes more extensively and then slow down from #16 or so. From there, it’s a fantastic story and well worth the read.
Akiko's American Foreign Exchange
“When fresh-faced Akiko arrives in Seattle on a foreign exchange, she has no idea the twists and turns that await her.”
4 stars
133 episodes. 100% daily life vocabulary. These are diary entries, so a bit more conversational, but due to quoting and story telling, it has a broad range of speech patterns, from casual to polite. It really is like reading someone’s diary, so that means the pacing is necessarily a bit slow/uneven. And being very grounded in the real world and mimicing real life events, isn’t a thriller. BUT - if you love Satori you will love this story, or if you want to see American exchange experience through the eyes of a Japanese person. Therefore, in my opinion, read the stories you’re most interested in on Satori first, if it’s not this. And if after that you want more, then definitely read this story while your subscription is active - by then you’ll be able to read it at a quicker pace of 2-3 episodes a day, and at that pace it’s enjoyable. There are some cool surprises, and there were some events that I really identified with the author and it was nice to process those emotions with this story. I stuck with it because others spoke well of it - and am glad I did.
The easier version is very approachable/easy. The harder version is much harder - I’d say it even rivals the difficulty of the “harder” series on Satori.
Intermediate stories
Oku Nikkou (**My favourite**)
“What secrets await deep in the beautiful and mysterious mountains of Inner Nikkou? Yuuta spends his summers at a hot spring hotel run by his grandparents in an idyllic mountain setting. But an emergency early one summer reveals a truth that Yuuta could have never imagined.”
5 stars
62 episodes. This is my absolute favourite on Satori! It’s an amazing story, very well written and from the heart. It gives an excellent feeling of being deep in the mountains somewhere in Japan. Despite the fantasy elements, it’s all daily life vocabulary and settings. I found it very easy to get wrapped up in the story. Although the first 10-15 episodes cover a lot of background, that is offset by the window it opens to a great setting and some fascinating cultural elements. The pace of the story picks up between episodes 15-20 to where I didn’t want to put it down, but I also never wanted it to end.
Kona's Big Adventure I
What happens when a house cat goes on the adventure of a lifetime outside of the borders of his home?
5 stars
45 episodes. Great adventure story with incredible voice acting. It must be said that Satori has wonderful professional voice acting. The newest series have multiple actors and sound effects. This series is unique - you can see what one actor can accomplish, and it is breathtaking. It wasn’t until halfway through that I was like, wait! This is just one guy! Thank you Shun Eguchi (江口 瞬)
The introduction/first episodes didn’t capture my attention much - but again, because some people I know on WK highly recommended this story I stuck with it. Once Kona’s Big Adventure starts in earnest from episodes 15-20, I was hooked. I loved it!
I felt like the difficulty was variable, with some episodes on the easier end of Satori content, and others just a bit tougher. It sits well in their intermediate range, but is among the easier ones there.
The River Sanzu
“A woman’s ordinary life is turned upside down by an unexpected event. As she stands at a precipice between two worlds, she contemplates family, love, and roads not taken.”
3 stars
20 episodes. It’s well written, I just didn’t really like the central drama/premise because that was a bit raw. I put a content warning in the home post, although to be fair, I never read those myself as I don’t want to spoil something. I still finished it and appreciated the story. But there wasn’t much I could identify with the MC, and given I didn’t enjoy the premise, it was a bit of a struggle. I think given the title, the story description, and the foreshadowing in the first episodes, it’s easy to predict where the story is headed, so decide for yourself if that’s for you or not. If you want to skip the most unpleasant episode, then at least skip or choose the version without sound effects for episode 6.
Harder stories
Fujiki Consulting Services
Added 25 Feb 2024
I got almost halfway and then didn’t finish. The story gets quite dark. If you like fantasy horror vibes, maybe then it’s OK? Just not for me and from the description on the series and other series I read I was totally not expecting this. That was disappointing because there were several aspects I loved: great intro, definitely harder than the easier/ intermediate content by a margin, and use of more complex story telling devices that I’ve seen in the wild but not yet on Satori.
Other
Grammar Series: Human Japanese Extra Credit, Intermediate, and Nutshell Grammar
My foundation was Genki I (I did all exercises). In an ideal world, I wanted to do all the Genki II exercises but I just couldn’t motivate myself to do that for Genki II.
These lessons on Satori are great and filled in that gap and more for me. I’ve learned most of the N4-N3+ grammar I know through Satori simply because of how easy it is to keep going! I don’t have any ambitions to do the JLPT, so I can’t speak to coverage, but in terms of understanding native material, Satori’s grammar glosses and these formal lessons were more than sufficient to get me reading. I went from difficulty parsing sentences to just needing vocab lookups. Grammar and sentence parsing isn’t a stumbling block for me at all and I can definitely thank Satori for that.
I think Satori’s grammar explanations are probably best when you’re reading daily alongside it (both in and out of Satori) and getting exposed to grammar a lot. This is because the style of grammar on Satori (at least past the very beginner grammar) is often to compare and contrast. For example, for a given grammar point - what are similar grammar points? Like comparing そう, らしい, and ような. Or the different grammar points that use そう. Genki doesn’t take that approach for the most part, because it is genuinely confusing to learn similar lexical sets at the same time. On the other hand, if you have already encountered these points in reading, then Satori’s groupings are a godsend.
Meditation
Wonderful!!! I’ve done the first 3. I find it’s similar to an MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) style, in that it guides very simple breath awareness techniques that often lead to stimulating relaxation responses. Before I had more effective SRS strategies, I SRSed all unknown words in the first 1-2 meditation episodes and my domain knowledge was so good even before I could read comfortably I could follow random Japanese meditation videos on YouTube. So I’d say this series gives you excellent coverage of vocab needed to branch further into this in Japanese.
Dialogs series
These are great, just not as engaging as the narrative stories. I plan to read/listen intensively before an eventual trip to Japan. From what little I’ve done, though, I would say it was really really helpful to understand some of the keigo that you’ll hear and read in situations like restaurants, etc. It’s good vocabulary to be aware of, so early on it’s worth fighting through a few just to pick up some of those basics.
Streetside Interviews and News
I didn’t particularly enjoy these. I think it’s worth flicking through if there is a topic you might want to have some targeted vocab for and reading those. But otherwise, it’s not very engaging. I’d rather read NHK News Easy. I think Satori realised this as well and they moved away from this format of article. That being said, if you struggle with reading easy news then maybe start here.