I’ve written before that, while anime and manga can be useful tools for studying Japanese, it’s important to avoid relying on them too much. When anime creators go to design a new character, they work hard to differentiate them in various ways, adding visual features like the iconic yellow hair ribbon Haruhi wears, or Yotsuba’s prehensile pigtails, which move in response her mood. Increasingly, animators use language to make their characters stand out, giving their creations unique speech patterns that can be as separate from natural Japanese as Yoda’s speech is from Galactic Standard English. Nowhere is this more common than in A Certain Scientific Railgun, a series in which virtually every character has a unique way of talking, for example “rich girl” Mitsuko, who speaks in a parody of how aristocrats talk, often using the phrase ごきげんよう go-kigen-yoh, an archaic way of saying “good luck.” Then there’s the “super” girl Saiai, a level 4 esper who has to show you how “super” her powers are by inserting the word 超 cho (meaning “super”) into every “super” sentence. Another show that uses language that’s quite far removed from “real” Japanese is Bakemonogatari, in which characters speak in a way that’s overly formal yet very elegant-sounding to the ear. So while using anime and manga to study Japanese is okay, you should balance things with a more formal study program at the same time.
Some (super) Railgun side characters.
