I finished my first Japanese comic (manga) last week. Most Japanese learners jump into manga pretty early, but I didn’t because comics aren’t that interesting to me. Everyone says they are good study aids though, so I finally gave in and bought the first book of Doraemon. To be honest, I wanted to get a cool samurai one but my wife suggested I start with something easy. That was good advice, because Doraemon wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Doraemon is one of the most popular manga in Japan. Approximately 100% of Japanese children read it in elementary school. It’s been around for 30 years or more. Big readership. It was turned into a cartoon long ago and you can find Doraemon paraphenalia all over Japan. The comic is about a young boy (Nobita) and his friend Doraemon, a robotic cat from the future. Doraemon has a lot of cool gadgets from the future, which Nobita uses to get in trouble.

For example, in one episode Nobita’s dad wants him to do the yard work. Nobita would rather sit in his room all day than do yard work, so he asks Doraemon for help. Doraemon produces some magic scissors that can separate you from your shadow. Doraemon cuts Nobita’s shadow off and they order the shadow to do the yard work while Nobita sits in his room relaxing. (Note: look at the pictures right-to-left)

Pretty sweet right? Not quite. All of Doraemon’s gadgets have some dangerous caveat that he fails to mention to Nobita. In the case of the shadow scissors, if you are not reconnected to your shadow within 30 minutes of separation, you switch places - ie you become a shadow and your shadow becomes real. Nobita and Doraemon spend the rest of the episode chasing Nobita’s mischievious shadow.
Anyway, I wish I had jumped on the manga bandwagon earlier. Even though Doraemon is aimed at elementary school children, it had hundreds of words I didn’t know. And they were good natural kun-yomi native Japanese words (NJW) too!

Reading Doraemon was quick. A worthwhile endeavor. Here’s why:

• Every sentence is dialogue. That means that you can (theoretically) take everything you learn from reading and use it in conversation. This isn’t always the case with other reading materials which can be formal or written in language unsuitable for speaking.
• The pictures are great context clues for guessing the meanings of words.
• The stories are silly and entertaining.
• Lots of onomatopoeia words. Japanese has a million of these and its hard to learn them from a dictionary. Seeing a picture of the action and then the words is extremely helpful. Scissors cutting is “choki-choki” (ちょきちょき). The sound for working tirelessly without resting is “sesse-sesse” (せっせせっせ). The Japanese sound for getting hit by a truck is “dokan” (ドカン).
• Shared experience. I am now one of the millions in Japan who have read Doraemon. It’s almost the same as being Japanese myself.

I added Doraemon Book 2 to my Christmas wishlist.

Sidenote: the new Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda looks like Nobita.

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