????! 1 (電撃?????)

Fantastic book for building up vocabulary once you reach an intermediate Japanese level. Probably not the best resource for beginners unless you have the patience to search word translations often.Illustrations are very lively and the humor is very light and enjoyable.Arrived much sooner that I thought.Strongly recommend!

I’m not really a fan of manga or anime in general but with my Japanese tests coming up soon I wanted to practice my reading skills outside of an educational textbook. After search for the right one I decided to give this one a try.First I would like to say the book is suitable for all ages and contains no material unsuitable for young readers. Although it might give them some ideas on how to misbehave!The book follows a plucky and excitable young girl called Yotsuba (same as the books name) and several others as they move to a new town. Yotsuba gets into many hijinks as she learns about not just herself but the world around her.The drawings are excellently done and really expressive with the character animation. The young girl has a huge range of facial animations from over excited to angry all of which are hilarious to look at. It is almost impossible not to like her.One point I’d like to make is the description states, ‘perfect for beginners’. However, I’d disagree with that slightly and say that you will still need a decant understanding of the subject. Of course it goes without saying that you will need to know Hiragana and Katakana as the whole book is written in it but there are many words that even I had to look up and I’m working towards N3 level. (N5 is beginners, N1 is masters)Another point is the book does use Kanji however fear not, as next to them are the hiragana translations. However, this is my second point, sometimes it’s hard to see the letters as they are very small and also hard to see the dakuten and handakuten symbols. (The two small lines or the circle above the letter)However, neither of those two points takes away from the experience and practice you will gain from reading this book. They flow and read more naturally then in any textbook so it helps to get a better understanding of natural Japanese speech rather then the perfect textbook version.The book is well manufactured; feels strong and also quite durable so if well looked after should maintain its quality. My version did have a sleeve around it but I cant say if they all will.I ordered this direct from Japan and once dispatched took around a week and a half to arrive.If you are learning Japanese then this is a good practice book to start with. Just don’t expect to be able to read and understand all of it straight away!

As a slice of life story there's nothing too plot heavy here, the story follows the everyday exploits of an amusing girl called Yotsuba. She's genuinely likable and often very amusing. Whilst this is obviously manga aimed at Japanese natives the language used is pretty simple, and this is certainly why it's a hit with learners of Japanese.There's kanji galore of course and most are common enough to not require high level WaniKani or similar, but a word of warning- the type face used can be very small at times and if you're looking to read the furigana then you'll be pressing your face to the page to decipher them such is their atom level size.One more thing, this is super expensive here on Amazon UK. If you scoot over to Amazon JP they're 600 yen a book (£3.60), and you can buy the entire series with shipping for about £70.

I love this. Great for keeping up my language and kanji. The story is really cute too. I'll definitely be collecting the rest of the series

Easy to read, helps improve my Japanese!Great for beginners also as it has furigana!

It’s even more than I have expected.The packaging was well done but the foil and overall design of the book is magnificent. I’m studying Japanese at university and this a great book for beginners.

Art is cute.Comment below says it's good for Japanese beginners, but I find it very challenging!Still a fun way to practice reading hiragana and katakana and I get very excited whenever I understand a sentence hahah

It's a brand new book just received from Japan and I think it'll help with my Japanese. The pictures are very cute! I think I'll probably buy more from this series when I've finished this one.