Review by RebirthZero for Kanji De Manga Volume 1: The Comic Book That Teaches You How To Read And Write Japanese!
Rating:
Ok to start off this book is simply awesome. It teaches you about 80 kanji (almost enough for JLPT 4 [see back of the book])

and gives you about 2 or 3 compunds per page. Now like many people i was turned off by the slightly kiddy way this book is laid out (this and kana de manga get you strange looks in 8th grade). But nonetheless it is a great book. It teaches you some interesting ways of using the language, it’s less like the phrase book for a trip and more like something to help you read overpriced untranslated manga. It’s odd look gives it a feel not quite unlike less serious anime (cough FLCL cough). As many people will tell you this book is for the purists (no romaji , just an english translation) This book uses entirely Kana, which is good if you want to improve your vocabualary and reading skills. Which brings us to one flaw i must simply adress: NO GLOSSARY! there is nothing to help people who don’t have a dictionary (you should but then again this book should have a glossary or atleast an appendix of translated words). Also without a dictionary you won’t get some of the compunds. For example on page 77 there is no indication that ki o tsukeru would mean be careful, Since ki is the Kanji (spirit/gas) most people would be confused since there is nothing about this in the compund section. Still those are only minor gripes wich can be soulved with the purchase of a fairly inexpensive dictionary.

Review by Kirt Senser for Kanji De Manga Volume 1: The Comic Book That Teaches You How To Read And Write Japanese!
Rating:
While I do like these books, and I have found them to be useful in my and my families learning of kanji, they are organized in a completely non-sensical way. At the back of each book, they proclaim that they are useful in studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficieny Test) exams. They are useful.. just not comprehensive.

For example, Volume 1, which has 80 kanji in it to learn, (despite what the paragraph at the back of the book says) is NOT the full list of kanji you would need to learn to pass the first level exam (JLPT4). The JLPT4 test requires 103 kanji at the current time, as well as like 700 vocab words, and basic grammar and listening skills. If you were to just study this book, and nothing else, you would surely fail.

At first I thought maybe the authors had just made an error and meant to say that the books were organized loosely based on the elementary school grade level. However, this is also not true. An example of this is 花　(はな　”hana”) which is a grade level 1 kanji taught to first graders, but is in fact in Volume 2.

The only other glaring problem I’ve found with these books is the lack of any sort of English definition lookup or table of contents. While you can look the kanji up if you know the spelling in kana, being able to look it up in English would’ve been really nice. However, the books are cheap and fun and pretty easy to use.

Review by squiggyflop for Kanji De Manga Volume 1: The Comic Book That Teaches You How To Read And Write Japanese!
Rating:
well i bought this book because it was 4$ including shipping brand new..

pros:

1)kanji de manga uses 2 different fonts to show the kanji.

*this is useful because sometimes a kanji can be mistake

you have only ever see it in one font.

2)has a huge picture of each kanji.

*this is rather nice because i remember thiings better if they

are big

CONS:

1)book only gives 2-3 compounds..

*if you only know a couple of compounds it is going to be difficult

for you to apply your knowledge of kanji and actually read.

2)half of the book is blank practice pages.

*this is a waste of space in my opinion. they are not labled as to

what you should work on for the blank pages. i would have rather

they packed in 80 more kanji into the book. i would rather use my

own paper to prectice writing than pay for them to print some in

the back of the book.

3)does not cement kanji from previous pages in example sentences

*i feel that if you have already gone through and learned some

kanji that if a word comes up that ordinarily uses that kanji it

should be used and have furigana over it. this would cement the

kanji in the readers memory and make the student feel like they

are making great progress.

4) annoying kanji organization

*i would prefer it to be organized in an order that makes more

sense to the western mind