Review: The Manga Guide To Statistics
If that title makes sense to you, you probably know if you want to read this. It is a Japanese comic from Shin Takahashi (of Trend-Pro Co., Ltd.) designed to teach basic statistics. To me it is 200 pages of pure awesome. The plot concerns a young girl who wants to learn statistics so she can impress a young man working at her father’s marketing firm. She winds up with an eccentric tutor who teaches her statistics and love blossoms.
The drawings are all clear, evocative, and are excessively expressive. The translation is often hilariously formal – kind of the visual equivalent of bad dubbing, and the characters are fairly broad stereotypes.
But it’s all just trying to be diverting enough to get someone to learn the basics of statistics, including how to carry out and understand basic calculations and hypothesis testing. It’s a delightful way to get a bird’s-eye view of the basics of the field, and I thoroughly recommend it.
Recommended.