I Bought My First Japanese Book & Manga Directly From Japan!

[@Livakivi]

Sign up using this link and you will get 10% (up to 5,000 yen) off your first purchase on Buyee! bit.ly/buyee-livakivi10off Hopefully a video in this style was enjoyable! It was essentially a combination of the elements I had been experimenting with recently lol. From now I'll be slowly easing into reading the stuff I bought in this video, and I'll share my thoughts on how it went in the 5 year update!

[@FutureSoap]

Gee i love mangos

[@andresmadriv1000]

Me too!!

[@FutureSoap]

@@quasispace2990 I just really like a certain type of fruit!

[@twanoligschlaeger]

i really like these kinds of "real life" videos. enjoy your new books!

[@jKazej]

On Jisho's handwriting recognition. It is very sensitive to stroke-order because it's not like OCR - it is not looking for the actual shape of what you drew. It becomes actually quite usable when you reach that point where you know how all of the radicals are supposed to be drawn. On the other note I've been studying Japanese for nearly two years now without anything like the diligence you show and I'm finding playing games in Japanese very rewarding. Most Japanese-made games you buy on Steam will have a language option and I find just playing games much more rewarding than grinding Anki or the like because being invested in the story makes you want to look things up and make sense of it.

[@killian2971]

Never really learned stroke order so I never got Jisho's kanji recognition to work. I use Google Translate to draw a kanji and that works very very well.

[@Samuel-ko9uv]

There another dictionary called Kanji Map, it almost always recognizes my handwriting like no joke prbly 99% of the time

[@exponentzero]

@@killian2971 I just watched a video on another JLang YT channel, and as the vlogger was demonstrating something, he too used incorrect stroke order. It's catching! :) All the internet weeb gurus I've come across, (and you can guess whom I'm talking about), say that learning to write is a "total waste of time". Fair enough. From the opportunity cost perspective, a person only has so much time, and something's gotta give, particularly if you want to be "fluent in 12 months". But if you're trying to imitate Japanese people right down to their pitch accent, why not invest a little bit of time learning how they write their radicals? I admit I'm prejudiced; I've always loved kanji, and I totally suck at Japanese. And you are correct, all those character drawing apps and websites will work (usually) if the character is drawn in the correct order..

[@Luigi_Luigi2401]

But even if you know stroke order it will never recognize it correctly. The only Handwriting OCR that is actually amazing is Google's OCR on phones

[@Ripple007]

any game recommendations ?

[@Arctagon]

1:02 Since this is a relatively old video, you may have already figured this out, but this happens because you're doing the stroke order wrong. 😅It uses the stroke order to figure out what you likely are trying to write. I always find the right character when using those drawing pads. 15:42 It has been opened! In Japan, you can buy transparent sleeves (in lack of a better word) like that, and pack things you sell into them for protection against moisture during shipping. I did this all the time when I sold stuff on Mercari. It was very cute and funny seeing you discover Japanese books and their 文庫版 format, haha.

[@Jellyfish.pancake]

I've been waiting for you to upload a video about reading a book in Japanese!!

[@oxleygreive6003]

Congrats on another sponsorship! Really cool to see some of the Japanese internet, makes me interested to learn about other parts of everyday Japanese life. Great vid :)

[@Dragoninstar]

Wooow I was thinking of getting something from buyee (also Japanese books/manga) the other day & now you suddenly have the discount code! Nice!

[@KenanTCG]

I think the game came like this to prevent it getting scratches inside the case. Happenend to me 3 times with sealed games.

[@kihei1]

everything seems so new and clean hope you can enjoy your purchases!

[@Vincent89297]

Glad I'm not the only one who was surprised at how small most Japanese books are...

[@cammacfan9964]

Everytime I see a new Livakivi upload I get so happy, awesome vid dude!

[@Consum98]

Awesome, love it! I myself have been learning for 17 months now, with about 1650 hours total. I took the JLPT N3 last week! I read a fair bit, but my favourite medium so far has been listening to the audiobook whilst following the text. Japanese audiobooks tend to have absolutely awesome voice acting, and often have multiple voice actors at the same time (and sometimes even sound effects) so definitely try that if you feel like you're struggling with some of the fluffy kanji and vocab! (having it read to you can make stuff stick really easily). I'm currently reading through やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている and the 2 voice actors just completely make the series. Either way, good shit. P.s I started learning as a result of your 600 days video (the first one) so Thank you a million! really gave me the confidence to give it a go and it's ****ing worked!

[@exponentzero]

I totally agree with you about audio books with professional voice actors and reading along with the text. As a newb, however, I need to find a curated list of recommended listening. Audible Japan has a huge assortment of recordings, but which to choose from for language learners? And where can I find the text to read along, if the book doesn't come with the audio? I'd really like this to be discussed! :)

[@Tobikaboom1]

Pretty sure you can get some baargains on fountain pens over there, japanese pens need really fine tips for writing really complicated symbols, and usually those pens cost more in the USA / Europe.

[@AniGrannyOG]

Just today, I was shopping around for manga and books and coming up empty. Thanks for this very helpful video! I can't wait to shop around that website 🤩

[@ltsMeNoodle]

0:54 It does work, but you have to use the correct stroke order.

[@zakuraiyadesu]

I’ve been recently burned out from learning Japanese, but this video has got me interested. Hopefully this cures my Japanese burnout.

[@tuiretuinen]

your uploads unironically make my day better, it seems we have very common interests and I love the way you make your videos. keep going dude

[@faythesk8r]

Seeing u pull out these broken and blunt scissors and just ripping the fucking package kinda reminded me of dankpods, so I was super suprised when u referenced him just like 20 sec later or whatev. Always great seeing another nuggeteer!!! Edit: also wanted to mention WWOAAA Chris Vrenna from Nine Inch Nails made the BG??, got really into their music lately so I deffo gotta check that game out now!!!!

[@Awkward-]

It’s been really epic watching your journey learning Japanese and your editing is super enjoyable too! Happy reading :) !!

[@elude3808]

Hi Liva, I'm a big fan! It has drawn my attention that you said the Alice game is impossible to find on the internet, maybe you could upload it for preservation purposes. Great video!

[@d33pblu3]

Love the selection. Two mangas, McGee’s Alice. And Mishima…

[@magnumdong1744]

The Mishima book you got is a so called 文庫本, they are all around this size. Compared to most western books these are pretty awesome acutally. They always have a removable jacket and the paper is top tier. If there is ever some advertisment or movie adaptation thing on it, it will be printed on an extra little jacket-slip that you can remove; it's really cool when you don't want a "NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX ORIGINAL" or whatever on your books. Most publishers also put in collectible bookmarks in , others will have one of those string things attached to the book for use as a bookmark. Some cut the top of the pages of cleanly other publishers leave the top side of the book uneven for an "old" look. I also like reading physical books a lot more than e-books, even though, in the case of Japanese especially, it does get a little bit expensive. I don't know if they ship to Estonia but I buy all my books at a store valled Verasia, they are based in Spain or Portugal and they do ship to Germany at least. With the handwriting recognition you really have to watch out for the stroke order-and count of the kanji otherwise you will not find anything. Anyway, Mishima Yukio is going to be quite the challenge so be prepared... Thank you for making these videos I really like them. You are literally the reason why I (re-)started learning Japanese and got to the point where I can comfortably read literature without breaking immersion every 5 seconds. I think you will quickly find reading in Japanese really enjoyable. I recommend "このあたりのひとたち" by 川上弘美.

[@not_meシ]

1:40 Idk is it same in Estonia, but japanese amazon in 90% of situations ships things to Latvia. Sometimes price of it is absurdly high (i saw shipping that costed about 400 euro, like, who in the world would pay that much for shipping), but usually something about 10 euro... And if you order more than a few books from at once - it's pretty normal price, yea. Sorry for my English, I'm not very good at speaking (and writing, obviously)😅

[@uglyluffy7815]

I recently bought a paper-back collection of ココロコネクト with all 11 of them. My favorite romance anime so I can’t wait to be able to read them

[@Zach-rt9kg]

The reason why the jisho drawing lookup doesn’t work is cause of stroke order. It bases it off of the proper stroke order as opposed to if it matches the shape

[@eli_chaps]

Welcome to the group 💪

[@bobbober7851]

Another great video

[@Mr_Life_Man]

I was in Japan when this released and thought I had a scavenger hunt on my hands when you said the Alice game was hard to find. Love the videos, you're doing great work!

[@vinhill1456]

I understand that you've not practiced output writing based on your previous videos, but Kanji lookup via drawing is heavily dependant on stroke order. If you draw the overall shape all connect like you did for the "Concave" Kanji, you'll get little back.

[@Livakivi]

It would be good if they used OCR as well, because if you're trying to look up a kanji that you don't know a stroke order for, which is probably most of the time the case, its not going to be very useful.

[@vinhill1456]

@@Livakivi yeah I agree, but generally once you learn the radicals the stroke order never changes, so once you start writing you get a sense and instinct for the stroke orders even if you've never seen the kanji before so if its a lookup tool for Japanese natives, OCR would be kind of over-kill. I learnt RTK via writing and I probably got to around 350/2200 and I could predict the stroke order for the remaining kanji without many issues.

[@vilitias]

Ooh, that’s really cool - congrats with you first japanese books (and game)!🎉

[@noneofyourbusiness3096]

I typically use CDJapan for buying manga in Japanese. I'm working on completing my One Piece manga collection (including the databooks and light novels), but I've also been really interested in the One Piece OST CDs, which are unavailable even through CDJapan. I'll definitely give Buyee a shot, since it looks like they've got quite the spread! Oh, and I had the same reaction when I got my first Japanese novel... they're so small! But it's definitely a plus for me. They fit perfectly on my bookshelves, which were designed specifically for the height of mass market paperback books.

[@SmartJapanHacks]

What a great site! Back in the day, I used to buy a lot from Amazon Japan directly, but they don't seem to ship everything worldwide nowadays. Reading real Japanese is so much fun, although it does take a while to reach the necessary level to read without a dictionary.

[@strymoon]

13:08 this has gotta be the most unexpected reference but it's so true lol

[@ShadowCero]

Def agree with manga feeling better in print. I somehow have a lot more motivation reading physical manga and just dictionary'ing the words over reading on a computer with stuff like yomichan and mokuro for it.

[@ismael9514]

Really enjoyed this!

[@fedorkochemasov4533]

Nagabe is an awesome mangaka, i really recommend their "とつくにの少女"

[@Hiandbye95]

11:35 thank you! I had the exact same reaction when I bought my first Japanese book! Why are they *so small*!?

[@aa898246]

really cool might use them in the future

[@indigoemir]

this video has a lot more of your personality in it, i like that.

[@ryuox]

oo monotone blue, a really pleasant read

[@akambatu]

Did I just got baited to watch an unboxing video? I'm not complaining, good vid my guy.

[@saucy_tunes]

Great video. Buyee is an excellent service, I order stuff from them all the time. I am excited to see your experience reading that Yukio Mishima book. His writing is complex translated into English so I think the Japanese version will be quite a challenge.

[@exponentzero]

I was thinking the same thing. According to the biography I read by John Nathan, Mishima's one-time translator, the author possessed an incredibly wide vocabulary and loved to use obscure kanji. On the other hand, The Sound Of Waves was a different kind of novel for Mishima; it had great popular popular appeal and was not intended to be an obscure, critical masterpiece. It will be interesting to get this channel's thoughts about it.

[@brandmasis]

Yo thank you, I was about to buy a single volume of manga in japanese for 16$ in my country. And for that price I got like 3 + shipping from buyee

[@Livakivi]

I'm not sure how much the shipping is to the US, but its probably better to buy a bit more than 3 when buying from buyee in case the shipping cost is about as much as the manga themselves.

[@G1itch35]

lol I couldn't even figure out what to do when playing opoona in my native language, cool game though. also for 部長はオネエ when you were like "idk if I can show this" I was wait it's one of thoooooose mangas? Nice vid though, as someone who's started learning jp a bit after you, it's cool seeing you engage in this kind of stuff. I can't really do 20 new words a day but I'll get to this point eventually!

[@Livakivi]

I got to admit I got some help whilst playing that game because I most definitely got stuck a lot of the time as well lmao, I can definitely imagine getting stuck even on the English version as well.

[@tanmaysharma6968]

1:02 NEVER EVER WORKS!

[@kappa5809]

Hey Livakivi, do you still practice drawing? I just started with drawabox, hence would love to see some more art content if you still into it. :)

[@Livakivi]

I occasionally still do yeah, thought I often have weeks or months long breaks in between when I'm focusing on other stuff.

[@icehound6763]

Hey man, I don't know if you already talked about this already but did you ever make the monolingual transition? Love the vids, they're good inspirations for me.

[@beastbum]

0:53 >Draws it in one go Jisho tracks number of strokes and stroke order, you can't just etch-a-sketch it lol

[@LivTa]

Another video 🔥

[@Driven-Arc]

FIRST ON THE BEST KZbinR IN THE WORLD RN

[@kirbyrox2]

What device are you using at 0:20 ?

[@Livakivi]

Its an android based e-reader, called BOOX Poke3. Its pretty expensive, but well built, feels quality. Though I got to admit that despite having it for 2 years, I've barely used it, as is visible from the video. Originally I bought it for doing Anki with a digital ink type screen so Id receive less blue light, but I ended up almost never doing it lol.

[@kirbyrox2]

​@@Livakivi Thanks! I immerse a lot with manga and I've been looking for a device like this and this seems like a good fit.

[@nachosucker2014]

I think the reaosn the person shipped the disc and the case separately is because they were afraid that the disc will fall out of the disc holding place inside the case, shake around violently while being shipped and get scratches Specially some old cases have damaged buttons that hold the disc in place, guess they didnt wanna risk anything

[@flamestoyershadowkill]

When you get really good can you scanlate manga that have stopped getting official translations like pumpkin scissors. Berserk like release schedule with dead English fandom

[@superskyman6418]

seeing dankpods in a livakivi video feels about the same as seeing geowizard in a japanalysis video

[@tinywest]

Cool video. Makes me want to buy more manga 😜

[@Hassan-zw9tb]

good this see another ambient music enjoyer

[@raniabagagnan2428]

Whats the name of the timer that he uses in the beginning of the video to track his immersion ?

[@edmundironside9435]

14:24 Nine Inch Nails are one of those bands that I can imagine having quite a passionate cult following in Japan

[@Castrolseca]

another great video and 1 question is it normal that in the beginning of learning Japanese that I know a lot of words the first day but i forget everything the next day, should i try learning less words

[@Livakivi]

That's totally normal, that's essentially how Anki works, shows you words you presumably are about to forget or have forgotten

[@Castrolseca]

​@@LivakiviHow many new words do you recommend if i may ask

[@Livakivi]

@@Castrolseca Check my series on how to learn Japanese

[@fleischer444]

They ship the dvd separate because they always come lose and get scratched in the case.

[@fisslimen]

I live in Tallinn. Maybe have you check keskraamatukogu võõrkeelse kirjanduse osakond for Japanese books? It will probably be a really small collection.

[@Livakivi]

That might be interesting to check out one day!

[@kingwuf4420]

do you have any plans to learn any other languages after japanese?

[@Livakivi]

Not anymore, still planning on learning Japanese for years to come.

[@pastelshoal]

Mishima !! Good taste

[@guywhoasked903]

Bhahahaha I go to Kinokuniya so frequently that I'm used to seeing how small Japanese books are, so seeing how surprised u are of how small it is takes me back. But I really dig that book size tho, it's very easy to bring it anywhere I go.

[@Leck400]

Weird that I haven't been receiving notifications from your channel.

[@tonytonystache]

A giant ad. Gotta respect the hustle

[@seherling207]

1:01 yeah the recognition on Jisho sucks. I always use Renshuu now instead because even if my kanji is completely unrecognizable the AI somehow still gets it 98% of the time I had the same reaction when I held my first Japanese "soft cover" book in my hands haha "Hard cover" books are usually bigger and I definitely prefer those even though the "soft cover" are more convenient for on the go Re 1:44 There is a Japanese online bookstore called verasia which ships to all European countries. They don't have that many novels unfortunately but a good selection of manga imo. You can also shoot them an email and order a book if they don't have it in the catalogue according to their FAQ (haven't tried it though) Have fun with your new things!

[@ltsMeNoodle]

No, kanji recognition works fine on Jisho but you have to use the correct stroke order.

[@taigaaisaka6305]

@@ltsMeNoodle Yeah, but stroke order is something 99.9% of Japanese people don't care about. Telling people who are learning Japanese that they need to learn the stoke order of Kanji is probably the biggest lie ever. Not only Japanese people rarely write by hand, but when they do, they take shortcuts to write kanji, like writing the 口 in 問 as a circle rather than a square. People do the exact same in every language, there is a specific stroke order to write A, B, 1, 2, etc yet people write them however feels more natural to them, and as long as it is readable, no one gives a f. So that Jisho uses stroke order rather than visual recognition makes that function useless. Specially because it is a function meant to be used when the person DOESN'T know the kanji, but knows how it looks. If the person doesn't know the kanji, they obviously won't know the stroke order, ergo, the writing function serves nor helps anyone. People who already know the kanji will be able to look it up a thousand times faster by just typing than drawing it. People who don't know the kanji can't draw it in the correct order so they won't be able to find it like that.

[@ltsMeNoodle]

@@taigaaisaka6305 most often the stroke order is straightforward. Also, saying that if you don't know the kanji you can't draw it is a lie, because there's a limited number of primitives you have to learn and after that you can literally draw any kanji. Nobody is forcing you to learn the stroke order, but that's the correct way to draw the characters and you can't complain Jisho uses it.

[@seherling207]

@@ltsMeNoodle I guess I need to work on my stroke order more even though I thought I had a good grasp of it. Thanks!

[@ltsMeNoodle]

@@seherling207 no problem. I haven't lived in Japan so I wouldn't know how important the stroke order actually is. But from what I've read, most dictionaries that have kanji recognition require you to follow it. Also it's something that's taught at Japanese schools and the characters might just look odd when you don't follow the right stroke order. In any case, it's up to you whether you want to learn to write kanji, and if you do, whether you want to do it the textbook way. Good luck with your studies!

[@4nyNoob]

the CD is outside the box because it may scratch if it gets loose inside the case, you are welcome

[@heathc148]

Love the memes in this one!

[@cakes1831]

Now that you are reading manga, please try reading a silent voice. Just my favorite ever

[@ReavGames]

Anyone know the name of the extension that lets you see the transcript of JP yt videos, from this video?

[@Livakivi]

Migaku? It's paid though. You can check this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKmplpKgqrOgnM0 As well as this one for my previous free method: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3PGgn17iKyErMU Theres also asbplayer if you just want the transcript.

[@ReavGames]

@@Livakivi Thanks for the reply! I ended up just using Yomitan in conjunction with absplayer.

[@fatalnyl655]

yo bro great video what apps do you use to edit

[@Livakivi]

DaVinci Resolve + occasionally After Effects, but before the video I made on DaVinci Resolve I used Sony Vegas 13.0 + occasionally After Effects

[@nickm3694]

0:55 yeah, jisho character drawing sucks. I always used the drawing feature on Google translate and then just copy pasted the character into drawing dictionary I'm using

[@nickm3694]

Into *whatever dictionary I'm using

[@cylian8422]

Didn't expect Dank Pods reference here

[@MyLittleMagneton]

I wonder if they only had the CD for the game, and just got an empty DVD case and printed a cover.

[@rhyoku7965]

this is one of livakivi's most human-like videos of all time

[@Cocoabytes]

I wonder if they sent the CD separate to not be damaged?

[@maxlinsse8670]

Great video and 1 question should i dirst do duolingo to start learning japanese or should i skip duolingo and go straight learning from the core 2k/6k or both and should i do the core 2k or 6k

[@Livakivi]

You need to somehow learn hiragana first before starting the core 2k/6k deck

[@lifelikellama6324]

In the dictionary to draw characters you have to get the stroke order right

[@newmuun4014]

Any fountain pen gang?

[@Mobik_]

You need the correct strokes in Jisho and 凹 has different strokes than those 😅 ah... and the drawing also counts the total of correct strokes and that Kanji has 5

[@shenhya]

makes sense why that recognition never worked out for me, i never followed the traditional stroke order

[@simp-]

I'm feeling like i'm abnormal. I bought 21 volumes of Assassination Classroom in japanese and first volume Toradora LN and i'm not even on level N5... But I didn't pay that much tho, only 50$ for everything.

[@Hiandbye95]

Sounds pretty normal, a good deal is a good deal. However... "Tsundoku (積ん読) refers to the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them."

[@simp-]

@@Hiandbye95 Seems to refer to me (and interesting word, didn't know it before)...

[@kaffii]

I was 6 minutes into the video then I realized I'm just watching a guy go shopping

[@d3kAy_]

0:56 you should write the kanji in the right stroke order not just drawing it

[@Livakivi]

Issue is that I don't know the stroke order of a kanji I'm trying to look up, so its not very useful that way

[@d3kAy_]

@@Livakivi There are some basic rules to follow and you can guess how to write almost every kanji

[@ltsMeNoodle]

@@Livakivi that is why people study kanji

[@GrO0v6]

which grammar resources did u used throughout this journey & when did u stopped manually learning grammar?

[@Livakivi]

Check out my yearly update videos from the beginning, especially the first one, I don't think I touched on grammar after that video.

[@GrO0v6]

@@Livakivi wait .. so u completed tae Kim's & never studied more grammar? how much grammar does it cover? I saw u passed N1 as well. Was it enough to understand japanese?

[@Livakivi]

@@GrO0v6 Watch the first video for more details but I just read through it and then referred back to it from time to time and did an Anki deck with sentences made from the book, that has now disappeared but prolly similar or the same deck can be found by searching for tae kim on ankiweb.

[@Deibi078]

have you been to Japan? will you go someday?

[@77coast]

Will you ever try practicing writing?

[@Livakivi]

Not sure yet, maybe in the future

[@tomppeli.]

How were the shipping costs for the entire order? I realise buying from Japan isn't the cheapest activity, but how was it compared to others?

[@Livakivi]

It cost about as much as all the items themselves, so its probably better to buy lots of stuff at once

[@killian2971]

Bought a good amount of stuff from Japan. Shipping for me has generally been around 40-50$ through Fedex or UPS. I bought around 22 volumes of manga recently at 50$ for shipping, arrived in like 3 days. Ends up being cheaper than buying manga in America, but the exchange rate is also really good right now.

[@symetz2082]

Did you ever learn katagana Or Just Hirigana?

[@noelvermillia]

Congrats on sponsorship.

[@logui113]

oh god finally a place where I can buy Japanese books/manga instead of begging my local libraries to export them for me

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Amazon still delivers

[@lakshaysiwach3652]

which youtube channels do you watch?

[@alexme6521]

do you read manga online if you do where do you read it, I've been trying to read manga online in Japanese but haven't found a place to read manga

[@Livakivi]

I personally dont, I've only read wikipedia and old blogposts online in Japanese

[@alexme6521]

@@Livakivi Tnks, love your vids

[@TheGamerfreak125]

Man, there's so much stuff from Japan I wanna get, but being in the EU the import fees are always so expensive! Does proxy shipping make it any cheaper?

[@Livakivi]

I'm not sure, I had to pay a bit in import fees, but the shipping fees were most expensive.

[@Luigi_Luigi2401]

I really wish i could go to japan and buy all one piece and jojo manga

[@alexjustalexyt1144]

Jisho's drawing thing absolutely sucks. The samsung tablet I use has a feature where I can just write a Kanji and it will know which one you write and will give you some other suggested kanji just in case if they got it wrong, that is WAY better than Jisho. using Jisho's writing thing always feels like I am doing surgery to get it exactly right but with the feature the tablet has, I can have the worst handwriting imaginable, do incorrect stroke order, have radicals ontop of each other and it will still somehow correctly guess which Kanji I was writing.

[@brandmasis]

Did you paid for the bubble wrap? or was it included?

[@Livakivi]

It was included

[@deathdoor]

For buying mangá, I think there's manga-republic.

[@stackz115]

another banger