I looked into learning Mandarin - because it is a good financial decision. I started to learn some of the basic Japanese fonts because it seemed doable and fun.

I could get around with a single alphabet vs 2500 signs.
And don’t even start me on the tonal part. I’m considering if I really want to learn Chinese I actually have to think about it as singing and not as a language.

Lastly: I waste my life reading online magas - the Japanese and Korean ones are just higher quality, and I found less than a dozen readable Chinese ones.
Their storyboard is just that foreign - spending panels on things that doesn’t make sense translated to English, then skipping important details and just leave me hanging with the story.
And they just span like 400 episodes for no good reason.

But if you have a great adventure /romance / fantasy recommendation that has a good female lead with male characters actually having a personality I am all up for it! Ohh and the story also not just the Palace and harem and eperor bs…