Japanese graded readers: levels, series and free ones

Japanese graded readers are the first real books most learners can finish. Every one is written inside a fixed vocabulary and grammar list, every kanji has furigana, the pages are full of pictures, and the whole book comes with audio.

Almost all of them trace back to one place: NPO Tadoku Supporters (NPO多言語多読) in Tokyo. They set the level system and supervise five series from five publishers. Everything below comes from their site, checked in October 2026.

What the levels mean

Tadoku uses seven levels, from Start to 5. Here's how they line up:

Level	Roughly JLPT	Vocabulary	Characters per story
Start	Absolute beginner	200	0 to 200
0	Before N5	350	200 to 400
1	N5	350	400 to 1,500
2	N4	500	1,500 to 3,000
3	N3	800	2,500 to 6,000
4	N3 to N2	1,300	5,000 to 15,000
5	N2 to N1	2,000	8,000 to 25,000

A few details that matter when you pick up a book. Level 0 is printed left to right, like a textbook. From Level 1 the text runs top to bottom, the way real Japanese books do. Level 4 stops printing readings next to katakana. Level 5 drops furigana on kanji Japanese children learn by the end of second grade.

Start lower than you think. Tadoku's own advice: if you've never finished a whole book in Japanese, start at the easiest level even if you're intermediate. Finishing ten easy books does more than abandoning one hard one.

The three main series

Japanese Graded Readers (レベル別日本語多読ライブラリー にほんご よむよむ文庫), from Ask Publishing. The oldest, first published in 2006, and the biggest, at more than 120 books. It has the popular Ryo-san at the Nishimachi Koban and The Kimura Family stories, plus shortened Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai. It's sold in boxed packs of five to eight books, ¥2,300 a pack before tax. PDF editions can be bought one at a time.

Taishukan Japanese Readers (にほんご多読ブックス), from Taishukan. Started in 2016, with fairy tales, novels, biographies and Japanese culture. It's the only series with Level 5 books. Fifty-five books in ten packs, ¥2,400 to ¥2,500 a pack before tax.

Nihongo Tadoku Books, from the NPO itself. Nine books at Levels 0 to 3, including Aesop's fables. They're sold one at a time for ¥450 to ¥600 before tax, which makes them the cheapest way to see if graded readers suit you. White Rabbit Press sells the same nine as an app, from ¥350.

Prices are the ones Tadoku Supporters lists, as of October 2026.

Free Japanese graded readers

Before buying anything, read the free ones. Web Tadoku Books (tadoku.org) is a free library written by NPO members, teachers and students. Every level from Start to 5 is there. You can read in the browser, download a PDF and print it as a little book, and some have a YouTube read-along.

You can filter by level and by things like "hiragana only", "with furigana" or "audio available". The range runs from Aesop's The Fox and the Crane to a Sherlock Holmes story and Sōseki's Ten Nights of Dreams.

For other free reading at this stage, like folk tales with furigana and easy news, see the Japanese reading practice sites list.

How to read them

Tadoku has four rules for the early stage, and they're the opposite of how most people study:

1. Start easy. Pick books you can enjoy without translating in your head.
2. Don't use a dictionary. Let the pictures carry the story.
3. Skip what you don't get. If the overall story makes sense, the details can go.
4. Quit books that bore you. It's the wrong level or the wrong topic. Pick another.

The no-dictionary rule only works because these books are built for it. Every word you need is in the level's list, and the pictures fill the gaps. So with graded readers, really don't look things up. Read a lot of them fast. Listen to the audio while you read, then read again without it.

When to move on

You're ready when a Level 3 book feels easy and you finish it in one sitting without leaning on the pictures. After that, the books get long, and real Japanese gets more interesting than rewritten Japanese.

The usual next steps are easy news like NHK News Web Easy, then light novels or manga. If you want something graded but on the web, Satori Reader and its alternatives sit in between. The whole path, step by step, is in learning Japanese by reading.

Once you leave graded readers, the vocabulary stops being controlled, and lookups come back. Mossglen (full disclosure: I build it) is a free Chrome extension for that stage. Open an NHK Easy article or a web novel chapter, tap a word, and you get the meaning in your language with the kana reading. It's saved with its sentence and comes back for review before you forget it.

The short version

• Graded readers come in seven Tadoku levels, Start to 5, from before N5 up to N1.
• Three main series: Ask (biggest), Taishukan (only one with Level 5), and the NPO's own nine books (cheapest).
• Web Tadoku Books is free at every level. Start there.
• Read without a dictionary, quit boring books, and move on when Level 3 feels easy.