This is a very nicely illustrated upbeat guide to travel in Japan including each of the prefectures (with maps) along with short dialogue practice examples. I liked that they didn't just include the standard things but also included several examples of interacting with emergency personnel and police/rescue type situations.
For beginners to Japanese language study, it's important to understand that more than 90% of the text in the book is in Japanese. There are no translations included. The publisher information states that each chapter is supported with a QR code linked to videos, online resources, and other support materials. I found several QR codes in the book but none of them functioned for me. Note: I received an eARC for review purposes, not the full physical edition of the book. It could be that the actual book will have functional codes.
This is a nice book in what looks like a fun series. It didn't function well for me because my understanding of Japanese is much (MUCH) lower than needed to use the book. My kid, who's studying linguistics, helped me by translating some of the text for me and said that they didn't see any glaring errors in the parts we looked at together.
Final thoughts: readers need a fairly advanced degree of facility with written Japanese to utilize this book. It is very well illustrated in an appealing cartoon chibi style and covers a wide variety of situations, from seeing local tourist attractions, ordering and eating food, social situations, emergency services, and useful things like that. The QR codes and support materials did not work for me at all.
Three stars, likely 4 for people who can utilize the online resources.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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