A big question I had before I started was which one do I start with?
But now that I’ve read both, I can try to differentiate the main points I noticed specifically.
君のなは
- Very long build-up to action
- Can be confusing between the guy/girl/dream state or inner monologue
- Less dialogue overall
- Dialect makes it a bit harder to understand the dialogue
- Less vocabulary repetition
- More descriptions of places
- Lots of inner thoughts throughout every chapter
- Longer chapters, so it’s hard to read by chapter
- Less pictures
- Shorter book by page number
天気の子
- more difficult kanji overall (lots of specific water/rain/flooding words
- More vocab repetition
- More straightforward
- Gets to the action quicker
- More dialogue and more characters
- More modern day casual talk
- Inner thoughts are generally located at the end or beginning of the chapter
- Shorter chapters, so it’s easier to read by chapter
- More pictures
- Longer book by page number
Overall Thoughts
This is my personal opinion, but I actually enjoyed 天気の子 more as a book.
But without furigana, I think 天気の子 would be overall harder to get through based on kanji or vocabulary difficulty, but 君の名は is more difficult based on pacing and many more in-detail descriptions of places. 君の名は has some words related to natural disasters and space, but it’s not nearly as many. So I wouldn’t say one is necessarily harder than the other, they are about the same difficulty when you compare everything in total. It just depends on what your strength lies in.
All that being said, I would really recommend starting with 天気の子 for first time to Shinkai Makoto. There’s more dialogue, so you can go at a faster pace. To me, it felt more fun, whereas 君の名は is actually very serious most of the time.
Let me know your thoughts and if you agree or disagree.
framed in beige 