How to Draw Manga -- Manga University Kanji de Manga

Master Japanese reading and writing with Kanji de Manga!

So you've gotten down the basics of reading and writing Japanese by learning hiragana and katakana. Perhaps you've even bought Kana de Manga and are already familiar with how fun it can be to learn Japanese with a little help from Manga University. But what about all those complicated kanji characters Japanese is known for? It may seem like reading a real manga in Japanese is still out of reach... but not so with Kanji de Manga!

Kanji de Manga is an award-winning series from Manga University that uses original comics to teach readers how to identify and write the most common Japanese kanji ideographs. Armed with only the most basic knowledge from Kana de Manga, you can start reading manga written entirely in Japanese right away with Kanji de Manga

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Volume One, and you'll learn a new character with each comic. Since the series' launch in 2004, we've published five volumes, each containing 80 characters. Volume six is due for a fall 2008 release!

"A brilliant idea!" says Professor Ronald A. Morse of the Japan Studies Department at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. "Japanese kanji—the written symbols adapted from Chinese—were originally drawings of images from real life. Japanese comic books and cartoons now provide fresh images to help us learn. Kanji de Manga uses today's manga images to make the kanji learning process fun and easy for otaku of all ages. This is a brilliant approach to learning the language."

Kanji de What?

the kanji for "rest"

Kanji are characters of Chinese origin that are used in reading and writing Japanese language. At first, these characters may look difficult, mysterious, and even a little intimidating, but Kanji de Manga is here to help sort it all out for you in a simple, fun way.

the kanji for "day"

You may remember that hiragana and katakana can be used to write any word in Japanese, so you may be wondering what kanji is for. Well, one major reason is as a contraction: A word written with one kanji can represent many kana characters. Another reason is because kanji make it easier to differentiate between words (remember, no spaces in Japanese!). Finally, because kanji all have inherent meanings of their own, they help you understand what a word means, even if you've never seen it before!

Take the word "kyuujitsu," which means "holiday," or "day off." The word is made up of only two kanji characters instead of four kana, and if you learn the meaning of each character ("rest" and "day") you can understand what the word means even if you've never seen it before! That's the power of kanji.

There are nearly 50,000 kanji characters, enough to spend a lifetime studying them, but don't worry –– even a Japanese student is only required to learn about 3,000.

Master Japanese reading and writing with Kanji de Manga!

Each page in a Kanji de Manga book teaches one character by using a full, 100% Japanese manga that is written entirely in the hiragana and katakana you already know except for the kanji that you are learning on that page. That means as long as you've read Kana de Manga, you can start reading real Japanese manga right away with Kanji de Manga.

Kanji de Manga has five volumes and one special edition, and each volume teaches 80 new kanji characters and up to 210 vocabulary words per edition. That means with just these five books you can learn up to 400 kanji characters!

Kanji de Manga Special Edition: Yojijukugo features 80 Japanese idioms, each accompanied by a full English explanation, kanji breakdown, example sentence, and a charming and original manga drawing by Chihiro Hattori.