Good Morning Call: Season 2

    Because I don't want to spoil the show, above is the trailer for the first season of Good Morning Call, the live action adaptation of a manga from the late 90s. It has everything a high school manga from that time should have: a cute, clumsy teen protagonist, a standoffish but handsome love interest, and tons of ridiculous romance. I hadn't watched the first season until the second came out this month and I got completely hooked.

    Another feature makes this show extra study-friendly: an audio track option called "Japanese – Audio Description." It adds a neutral male voice explaining, in Japanese, the events of each scene.

    Story quality aside, this show is great for a few language-related reasons. The main character speaks slowly (unless she's excited) and everyone speaks in the standard Tokyo dialect. Topics usually stay focused on school, renting apartments, part-time jobs, sickness, and dating. These are all important when it comes to learning a language and because the story doesn't stray too far from these themes, you'll hear the same words enough to learn them without needing too much outside practice.

    There are English and Japanese subtitles, as usual, but another feature makes this show extra study-friendly: an audio track option called "Japanese – Audio Description." It adds a neutral male voice explaining, in Japanese, the events of each scene.

    While it might seem jarring at first, this is a fantastic way to deepen your study while watching Good Morning Call. You can hear everything in Japanese. Literally everything. The only issue with this is the Audio Description is not included in the subtitles, so you can't double check if you heard the voice correctly. But it's meant to be an explanation, so it's usually clear and easy to understand even without help.

    This option exists for many other Japanese shows on Netflix, so keep an eye out! I mentioned it for this show specifically because I think it's simple enough that adding them will help your studies.

    Video
    Netflix