[N4] ヴィトリアレジア

In this indigenous story from Brazil the moon goddess chooses the most beautiful girls on earth to make them into stars. This version for readers about N4 was rewritten in easy Japanese by an exchange student named Antonio for the NPO Tagengo Tadoku’s free graded readers.

The title of this story is the katakana transcription of victoria regia which is the name of a water lily in South America. Why it was chosen as a title for this story about a moon goddess becomes clear at the end of the story 😉

I really enjoyed the tale! It was fantastical like a fairy tale, but also a bit ominous with the dark art work by Sakuta Nanae in only black, grey and white. It reminded me of a shadow play. The ending was sad with a beautiful twist.

There are furigana on all kanji and very simple grammar. With pictures on each page, unknown vocabulary can be understood through context.

You can read this story for free here: https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/5494/#bd-look-inside. It is downloadable as a pdf and also has audio options for shadow reading.

Length: 9 pages