
This was a story that began and ended with tears. Yakumo Saegusa, a boy who lost his mother to a strange disease, the “Chloride Blight,” in which the whole body slowly turns into salt and crumbles, met a girl in the music room. She was a beautiful and gifted piano player named Yuzuki Igarashi. Her delicate fingers were capable of both piano and wring bullies. She struggled to live up to her mother’s excessive expectations in the dark while presenting a strong front. Yakumo, who had seen Yuzuki in all her various forms from a distance closer than anyone else, was unknowingly drawn to her. Graduating from elementary school, Yuzuki grew more beautiful and charming, and by then, became the object of people’s love and admiration. By the time she entered high school, Yuzuki, already a professional pianist, left for Italy to learn her craft. Yakumo, acutely aware of the overwhelming difference between him, a nobody, and Yuzuki, an international pianist. Eventually, he began to write a novel. His reunion with her came suddenly one day—and that reunion would come to change his destiny forever. This was a story that began and ended with tears.
Watashi wa Anata no Namida ni Naritai is a Japanese novel of 124,096 characters, with 7,890 unique words and 1,760 different kanji. Its difficulty rating on Jiten is average, 2.9 out of 5. The full vocabulary list ranks all 7,890 words by how often they appear, and you can study them on Jiten or download them as an Anki deck.
Here are some of the words that appear most often in this media, as well as a sample of its rarer vocabulary.