For those learning Japanese, manga can often be a good text. With the help of pictures and rather short sentences we can read along without much effort and perhaps enjoy the studying process a little more.

Well it turns out a member of the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo thought the exact same thing. While out on a stroll last Sunday he picked up a particular manga that he thought would help him learn both the Japanese language and what Japanese people think about religion.

Having picked up the manga the embassy member tweeted about it:

“So, today I bought a book on religion in Japan. Since my kanji isn’t great, I thought it would be a good way to enjoy studying and learn what Japanese people think about religion. The book is called ‘Saint Onīsan’. It’s really more of a cartoon than an essay though.”

It would appear that the embassy worker has gotten into the popular serialized misadventures of Jesus and Buddha as they share an apartment in Tokyo called Saint Onīsan (lit. Saint Young Men).

The tweet scored around 5,000 retweets and drew comments from a few concerned Japanese people. One recommended a more academic text on the subject of religion in Japan. Another warned the Afghani national that this was simply a work of comedy and, while popular, may have some scenes that could be considered crude.

On the other hand, someone else tweeted to the embassy, “As for Japanese people’s religious views this is more or less the idea, so please go ahead.” It doesn’t seem as if the Afghani Embassy minds however as they simply continued tweeting about learning Japanese.

Actually, for those studying Japanese, the Embassy of Afghanistan – Tokyo Twitter feed is surprisingly fun. We can watch the workers ask Japanese people questions about grammar and follow along with him as he learns the language and culture.

Source: Twitter – @AfgEmbTokyo via My Game News Flash (Japanese)
Image: Amazon