Out of those, Conan is likely the easiest to read so its probably a good starting point. If you want one even easier, Yotsuba is a fairly popular choice as a ‘first manga’ for reading as it has a very low unique word / Kanji count and uses pretty simple language.
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Mmmm having read some of Conan myself, I think it might be a bit trickier than Haikyuu! or Dandadan - although I haven’t read those in Japanese myself so take this with a grain of salt - because of the crime scene related vocabulary and the sheer density of text. It’s very dialogue heavy.
I typed up some fantasy /supernatural/fantasy-adjacent recs over here a little while back, but if none of those tickle your fancy I can toss out some other recommendations! I have…a substantial collection, lol, as my criminal behavior in this thread is evidence to.
I am literally always down to wall-of-text about the cool things I’ve read. Just say the word.
Edit: immediately thought of it after posting, but if you like supernatural/fantasy school settings - 地縛少年花子くん! It isn’t on the above list because I hadn’t tried it at the time, but I’ve read the first 5 volumes since then and it’s been a lot of fun! Natively puts it at level 25.
There’s also 黄泉のツガイ by the same author as Fullmetal Alchemist, which natively puts at level 23.
According to natively, Haikyuu! is level 24 and Dandadan is level 25, so these are similar or a liiiiiitle bit easier. (Frieren is listed as 26 and Conan as 27, for reference).
I know a high school setting manga at L20 but it’s a romance so I’m not sure if that’s up your alley or not.
There’s also the ゼロの日常 (L20) spin-off series, if you’re familiar with Conan’s setting/premise and want some silly slice of life centered around Amuro Tooru.
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The main thing I suppose is that most series will have a fair amount of unique words/language depending on the subject. For me it was easier since it happened to align more with what I know, but that’s a bit of a personal bias I guess.
Anyway, I think the most important thing is simply reading something you enjoy anyway. Its always best to have something you like and spend more time learning words, than to understand a bit more but be completely uninterested. Plus it helps build a foundation for enjoying more complicated works in a similar genre with time.
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all native books will start out hard even if theyre easy because you have to get used to a v different form of Japanese, esp in manga where characters speech is a lot more stylised. Not saying “yolo just go for the hardest” but that you might not find something much easier
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yeah I think this is a good way to look at it. As long as your first read isn’t the 幼女戦記 Light Novel or some other relatively difficult work, its probably fine. And even then, if you really want to read a difficult work, you might as well just go for it tbh.
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Yeah, I agree. I wish someone had told me that like 2 years ago when I was like “immersing is impossible” cause I might have started earlier lol
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I spent silver week in Tokyo reading lots of signs! I had brought Yuru camp with me under the impression I would read it and then just didnt.
My students had to write reports about their school trip and Ive been reading through those which has been fun. Havnt been in the mood to read(or study) recently.
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Oh for sure. Any given series/genre is going to have it’s own bundle of niche vocabulary to tackle. I just think Conan’s might overlap a bit less with other “high school” protagonists because it’s like…“blood spatter” and “time of death” 
1000000000% agreed! I say Conan might be a bit harder, but Conan is in fact the first manga I chose to tackle when I finally started native material because I love it and was super psyched to read it in Japanese! Interest is a powerful motivator.
I’ve said it before, but I’m happy to be a broken record: the best studying is the studying you’ll do (and enjoy)!
@Special_Guest that’s gonna be me in like two weeks when they start turning in their current project scripts. They have to do a tour-style presentation about someplace their group has chosen, and some of them have picked some interesting places!
…I do expect to read a lot of presentations about Korea, Australia, and maybe Canada or France, though.
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I fell off a little bit on my reading as I got busier. I’m also trying to work through my backlog of Bunpro reading (just finished N3!). Still working ever so slowly on 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった. Finally finished the first chapter (30 pages). Now that I have a lot of the setting specific vocabulary, that saves quite a bit of time on lookups. The story also tends to repeat whole phrases frequently. That said, it’s still slow going, and I’m looking up at least a few words every page. If I can’t get myself to progress, I might take up some easier Manga instead until I can catch up on Bunpro. I have some ドラえもん、スパイファミリー、and an interesting book that uses manga to differentiate between synonyms, homophones (both kunyomi and onyomi), and antonyms, told through chapters with a continuous story.
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I thought I would have finished more manga before my trip to Japan but I didn’t. But now I’m here for the next two weeks without access to my owned things…but access to any book I want to buy in Japanese!
AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!!!
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Jail for 1000 years
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I’m officially back in the land of ファミチキ! Jet lag is kicking my butt, but trying to use it to my advantage. Woke up two hours before my alarm today, so had plenty of time before work today to finally go through my reviews and started reading vol 6 of ヤニ吸う
So, shortly before going back to Canada I may have discovered an extremely dangerous website that sells the overstock of newer/popular books at ridiculously low prices. I ended up buying 27 novels in total from that website + some local bookstores. However, I plead not guilty, as these need to last me at least another year and I usually read 30-70 English novels a year so if anything I’m going to run out. Will this mean I’ll have more time to work through my Japanese book backlog? We’ll see.
Anyway, hoping to get back on the bandwagon and work through more of my Japanese backlog now that I’m back.
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Spy family miiiight be trickier than you’re expecting - lots of political/governmental language, iirc.
Yessssss join me in jail!!! I’ll put the kettle on 
I am completely off the bandwagon right now - I picked up a new game over the weekend (The Blood of Dawnwalker) and it has both eaten my brain and ruined my sleep schedule 
Hope everyone else’s efforts are going well! Or at the very least, going!
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I’ve been in 2 bookstores so far while in Japan and I’ve walked out empty-handed…for now.
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I caved and bought more books from CD Japan. Some to complete series, some because they were recommended or sounded interest. I do not need more books 
In the mean time I’ve been continuing to slowly read through the next story in ごんぎつね手ぶくろを買いに which I think is about a lamp
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Welp. I found a Bookoff.
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…and then I went to Tsutaya in the evening…
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I have NOT bought Frieren but i did start reqding it online. Anyone else read it? While extremely pretty, the anime did clean up the eye expressions of the first few chapters lol
I have the first volume, but haven’t read it yet. Really liked the anime though, so hoping to get to it soon!
Also I am so in love with your new profile pic!