Manga "difficulty" levels?

[tonberry1]

Hello.
I'm studying Japanese and I have come to a point where I think I could be able to read manga written in Japanese. I was reading the Yesasia.com (http://global.yesasia.com/en/Japanese/Comics.aspx) and noticed that the mangas have been divided to

Primary/Middle school
Middle/High school
Children
Teens
(and some other groups)

So what differences there are? Are children's manga written more with kana and less kanji? How about what class I should check out to find a lots of furigana with kanji? Anything else a studen of Japanese language should know?
And also, what does "tanbi" mean? Thats one of the classes on that site, but I've never heard of it (and Google neither :/)

[Gaijinian]

I think it rates the content, like G, PG, PG-13, R... not the difficulty.

[tonberry1]

Yea, I guess it is about the content, but there must be some differences in language too. Atleast in the amount of kanji?

[Mike Cash]

"Tanbi" is perhaps the common colloquial pronunciation of "tabi".

The different classifications probably indicate the age range of the target audience the publishers had in mind. Differences would include things like subject matter, level of violent/sexual content, assumptions of things known, kanji usage, and furigana usage.

[Elizabeth]

Tanbi manga refers to a category that is strongly aesthetic or particularly artistically rendered (beautiful or tasteful would be a matter best left to individual judgment...) :blush:

[tonberry1]

Thanks for the answers.

If no one says that there is some section of manga which is way more easier/harder, I guess I could take a look at multiple section. Those are cheap enough to just try and see anyway :)

[JimmySeal]

Lower grade levels will generally be considerably easier than higher ones. Children manga will be easier than teen manga, etc. They'll be loaded with slang at any rate, so brace yourself.

[Damicci]

I would suggested starting with manga that has furigana. It makes a crap load easier to read. then as you get to points where you don't use the furigana move up to non furigana manga.

[Mike Cash]

Personally, I can't stand manga that have furigana, with the exceptions of Sazae-san and Kobo-chan. Those two have them because they are meant to appeal to a wide range of ages. For some reason, I also can't stand manga in which the writing isn't hand-lettered.

Recommended artists:

植田まさし
平ひさし
田中しょ