Written Japanese consists of three scripts: the phonetic hiragana and katakana syllabaries, each comprised of 46 characters (collectively known as kana); and kanji, a complex set of characters based on Chinese ideographs. Hiragana and katakana are the true "ABCs of Japanese," as they can be used to write complete sentences.

Kana de Manga, the first book in Manga University's award-winning Kanji de Manga series, makes learning kana easy and fun for students who already enjoy Japanese comics. Each page has a humorous manga illustration representing a word that begins with the hiragana or katakana character featured prominently at the top. A brief explanation accompanies each drawing; the English equivalent of the word is given; and there is a work area where students can practice writing the characters.