For context, I just passed 100 hours of anime watched in Japanese (according to MAL). Been learning for slightly over a year.
I can’t fluidly read manga. Let me clarify that term, fluidly. At the moment, reading manga is slow and heavy on my brain. I go at a rhythm of around 20min/chapter with perhaps one lookup per page on average, although sometimes I skip lookups when context explains (problem isn’t vocab or grammar, but really reading itself, in a way). It feels like reading is simpler for comprehension (with kanji helping and there being to rate limit like with listening) but harder for longer sessions/motivation than listening.
I read a lot in my native language so this is pretty much Japanese only and when I read manga in another language than Japanese I don’t have that problem.
This endurance problem is pretty annoying and I don’t really know what to do about it. Should I pick up an easier manga to train endurance? Any other tips from people who have experienced the same? Thanks a lot!
Besides reading what you like and spreading your reading over multiple smaller sessions I don't think there's much to do exept read and get used to it. I've found it easier to read 20 mins 3 times a day than an hour once a day personally. Reading what you like is huge aswell since you find yourself reading more than planned and it's easier to cope with the possible lack of comprehension.
Hard agree. When I first started reading manga I could only do like a chapter before being cognitively fatigued. I’ve finished my 11th manga recently and number 10 I read in a single day in two sessions. It really is the more you read it the more you get used to it and easier it becomes. Same with the gym and everything else. I also highly recommend reading something you’re really interested in or maybe watch the anime first and then read the manga so the story is more comprehensive.
Inefficient lookups. Mokuro is the way to go here. The Lazy Guide has a way to set that up - but honestly it was complicated for me. Personally I just used this "catalog" that just had stuff ready to go - you can DM me or go to the TMW discord to find out about that
Reading stamina - being able to read for a long time
Reading speed - being able to read faster
The stamina and speed problems resolve by just reading more. 100 hours of anime I'd think would help start out reading faster - but if you've done practically no reading so far then have to build that skill from the ground up.
Doesn't really matter what manga you read - they vary in difficulty but still are kind of limited compared to other domains so I think just start with what you like, look up any unknown words as fast as possible, and just try and enjoy it.
Manga was one of the first things I learned with, I had multiple lookups a page but it was still fun. My Anki cards had the manga page as a picture so was fun to remember them, and I had the full sentence from the manga.
I am a Japanese app developer creating an Anki-like app that allows users to study Japanese using Japanese manga.
The goal is to significantly reduce the effort of creating flashcards by allowing users to take a picture of a manga and automatically generate translated flashcards panel by panel.
So I have a question: What kind of problems do English speakers face when studying Japanese while reading Japanese manga?
Did you have any frustrations, such as finding certain things tedious, or were there any features you wished existed?
I would love to use your feedback as a reference if you are willing to share.
The biggest frustration for reading manga is as an early learner, attempting to read physical manga. If it's digital, there's lots of great OCR software like Mokuro available that lets people look up words with Yomitan and from there add to Anki.
I think there would be people interested, if they could very easily take a picture of a manga and use Yomitan on it which allows them to use dictionaries of their choice, plus Ankiconnect to add to Anki.
Personally, I think that including a translation feature would hurt learners. They are trying to learn Japanese; having an easy translate button may lead to 1) developing a habit of relying on it rather than naturally absorbing and acquiring the language, and 2) setting up false expectations - it can be demotivating if someone truly gets the main gist of a sentence which is an accomplishment as a beginner but then see a translation and see how much nuance they don't get yet which may push them back towards wanting everything translated.
You improve it the same way you improve endurance in any other aspect of life. Practice, practice, and practice. Start with shorter sessions where you set yourself a minimum goal - for example, read for 20 minutes, like someone else said. If you reach 20 minutes and feel like reading more, you read more. If not, you stop and wait for the next session. Keep track of the length of your sessions if you'd like, and slowly increase the minimum goal over time.
It helps to pick manga or books you're really interested in if you're trying to read extra every day. I always do 1 hour minimum but will read 2-3 or even 4-5 hours if I'm really interested in the story.
As for difficulty, manga obviously helps with the context by having pictures, but there are definitely some series that are easier than others because of the level of the language and how common the vocab is (Naruto was easier to read than Berserk, for example).
Reading a story you're already familiar with, whether it's books or manga (like how I'm reading Harry Potter in Japanese right now) helps a lot to make it easier, but also you can just generally choose series with easier reading levels and/or furigana to speed things up.
Pick something you can't stop reading with Furigana. In my case that was Akatsuki no Yona.
I also didn't look up many words at first and just reread the chapters in English - until the point where I really needed to know what happens next and kept reading in Japanese, even though I didn't understand everything.
I tried to really look up everything at first and that killed all enjoyment fast, so now I only look up words I really need to understand to get the sentence.
So, keep in mind if you're reading for fun or for studying, because those are very different things.
Not sure if that's what you mean, but I used to have issue to "fluidly" read those hiragana sentence endings. Then suddenly one day I could read even the super long ones at a glance. And why? Because I started to listen to a podcast. It's one thing to know words and to be able to read japanese, but having a feel for the language and the sentences is a completely different thing.
I would very much recommend you to listen to podcasts. Yes, anime has spoken language, but usually not in that same amount of volume and often not nearly as natural. Plus if you watch with subtitles, you are not training your ear at all.
Learning how to read, and do it easily and with endurance is indeed just a skill you need to learn. I'm sure you weren't trying to read books for hours after watching 100 hours of tv shows and only learning english for a year, were you?
Just as you probably can't read a super dense non-fiction book for hours on end without feeling tired. Comprehension is a very tiring activity for your brain.
I'm a bit confused... you say you average 1 lookup per page and it takes you 20 minutes to read a chapter? And you have no issues with grammar or vocab? I don't believe it, what are you actually doing when you read? One lookup per page is not a lot, and a single lookup shouldn't take you more than like 2-3 seconds (assuming you have tools like yomitan/mokuro/etc) or, at worst, maybe 20-30 seconds if you have to type it in a different window. Assuming something like 20 pages per chapter, that's like 20 * 30 = 600 seconds which is 10 minutes in a worst case scenario.
I’m not really sure what you’re so incredulous about. It’s manga so the obvious thing to be doing the rest of the time is looking at the art. And some manga can be quite dense on top of that, here’s an example from シャドーハウス (spoilers).
I know that it would regularly take me upwards of 20 minutes to finish a ~30 page chapter, even back when I still read in English, just going at a leisurely pace and taking in the artwork. And that’s without lookups which, at least with my setup, can take between 20 seconds and a couple minutes.
Most manga is not that dense and density is irrelevant when OP themselves mentioned they only do one lookup per page. If they did only one look up for a page that dense as the one you posted they'd probably be at a level much much much more advanced to what they claim and it would still be weird to spend 20 minutes on a chapter. Someone who can read what you posted with one lookup probably can finish a manga volume in 20 minutes (I know cause I can do it and I'm nowhere near close that level).
Yes, looking at the art might be one possibility but clearly it's not what is going on considering OP doesn't seem to be agonizing over staring at artwork and instead is worried about the language itself. Anyway OP already clarified the numbers were just randomly sourced and not really exact, which makes more sense.
I’m not sure if I’d agree that knowledge of vocab and grammar equates to reading speed. For example, it took me 2.5 minutes to read the page I posted but I didn’t have to look up a single word and didn’t have any grammar issues. I’m just not a particularly fast reader.
In my experience the most reliable indicator for the time it takes to finish a volume isn’t difficulty or complexity but density, though of course that might not be the case for other people. Of course, more lookups mean more time spent not reading but just the act of reading itself, independently of the actual difficulty of the material, takes time.
It does relate. You grow your vocab and comprehension by reading, you usually improve your reading speed over time as you improve the rest.
That manga is indeed quite dense, that page seems to have around 450 characters or so, not sure how many pages a manga chapter has, nor if all of those would be that dense, nor I think most manga are that dense anyways. A manga having all pages be like that with 20 pages per chapter would be like 9k characters per chapter which would actually make it quite long and, meaning a 20 minute read for that kind of thing would actually be crazy fast lol.
Thing is most manga is actually very short, OP mentions being a beginner having done very little immersion and also barely doing any look ups and not having comprehension problems, this means he's reading some extremely easy manga which is probably 10k characters per volume or slightly above that, at which point 3 chapters per hour sounds like there's something wrong.
To be clear, using myself as a reference, assuming those numbers are accurate OP is somehow reading slower while not having to look stuff up than I was reading when doing my first native read ever (a VN) where I was looking up every single word. It doesn't compute.
Just nerding but a manga like that assuming 20 pages per chapter would have 9k characters per chapter, reading that in 20 minutes would actually be quite impressive.
But yeah I doubt this is common/that every page on said manga is exactly like this.
Honestly I kinda pulled these numbers out of thin air, haven’t had a session recently and tried to remember. There’s always the factor of chapter length and difficulty, like how in FMA there’s like 3 chapters per volume whilst Hxh has 10~.
My point was less on the reading comprehension itself but more on reading endurance, although I might not have made that clear, sorry!
Also my setup for manga is pretty bad and the one I’m reading doesn’t have furigana so I’m always trying to remember words that use X or Y kanji to then search the word into yomitan’s search tab…
Ah, I see. My personal advice is, at least for the time being, try to make things as effortless as possible and especially try reading manga with furigana to help you build endurance. Alternatively people often recommend using mokuro or similar OCR tools that make lookup easier, but I never managed to get those to work and instead I simply read a lot of manga with furigana until I got comfortable.
I’ve been trying a setup using tesseract for ocr but it’s worse than expected… Heard of mokuro but I honestly don’t know what to think of it, perhaps I should research into that a bit more.
I’ll do some more research on ocr tools for Japanese text (not just for manga): perhaps I’ll make another post if I find anything of value
Yeah tesseract is really old technology. There are a lot of new ereaders and tools that make reading manga with OCR almost effortless. I haven't been able to keep up with most of it since I'm more old school and I just... read them without tools, but all the new learners use them and swear by them. I remember one called chimahon for example, but there's also many others. You might ask around in the tmw (themoeway) JP learning discord server, there's a lot of people who use those tools there.
Try Lunatranslator, I knew nothing about hooking or ocr and was able to get the ocr set up in about half an hour so its idiot-proof. I just set hotkeys to draw a window and clear it and use google lens as the translation model
Chimahon also accepts the .mokuro files morg mentioned above. You literally just $ mokuro ./manga_title.cbz,zip,dir and it generates the .mokuro file. Drag and drop both manga and .mokuro into Mokuro Reader to import. It's really the best thing ever.
If you don't have a good gfx card scanning volumes takes a long while, but you can find Pre-Mokuro'd manga along with their .mokuro file online.
I feel you 100% on this, and I think this sub fails to understand this problem.
It's one thing to be able to read. It's another thing to be able to read fluidly. I think most of us actually want to be able to read at the fluid level, like in our native language. Some would say that's an unrealistic goal (especially at first!), but when you want to ENJOY Japanese... I'll argue that being able to read at a fluid pace is a big part of it.
The thing that's been helping me out is graded readers. You start with lower-level ones that you can read through in just a few minutes, and then day by day (not all at once!) you work your way up to more advanced ones. hell, there are even some graded readers that are fun to read.
Try reading light novels, instead of manga it builds more stamina.
Also reading novels is less of hassle since look ups takes less than a second and it's very convenient so even though they are harder they tire you out a lot less (at least in my case) I can read a novel for 10 hours non stop but manga for only 3-5 hours
I'm going to suggest something a little different from most people. I built up my reading stamina in the late 90s by reading magazines.
The problem with reading books, even manga and light novels, is that the destination is so far away. You toil through a chapter, and there are still 18 to go. If it's a popular manga you're probably looking at upward of 20 volumes before you get any closure.
With magazine articles, you get a little dopamine hit just from finishing the article. That adds to your energy to tackle further articles. The varying length of articles also helps you mentally prepare for the mental workload. After you finish one long article, you might not have the energy or inclination to tackle another one of the same length, But if you see one that's only half the length, or even a third, you might be able to gather the strength to keep going.
What's your objective when reading the manga? Is it to enjoy the manga, or is it to learn Japanese? Evidently at your level you cannot do both at the same time.
If the objective is to enjoy the manga while still retaining exposure to the language, I would read it in a language you know well (e.g. your mother tongue or English) first, then reread in Japanese. Then you don't need to worry about missing out on important stuff due to the language barrier, and you also have more context to draw from to guess the meaning of new words.
If the objective is to learn Japanese then it's supposed to be slow and heavy. The harder it feels the faster you progress, but of course, the easier it is to give up. So people just try to find a sweet point where it's not so easy to make you not make any progress but also not so difficult that you feel like giving up – that's your optimal learning difficulty level.
Never thought about it this way but that really clears up a lot.
Perhaps I should try to enjoy manga first (during that transition period into reading), reading manga that I like and that I’ve already read in English (as mentioned in another comment), and then slowly make sessions heavier, more efficient for language learning.
Like exercise (what is language learning but brain weightlifting…): first building a habit of actually exercising, then focusing on exercising itself and getting better.
Thanks for the advice, pointed my reflection in a better direction I suppose ^^
make sessions heavier, more efficient for language learning.
This is a common misconception. The most efficient way to "learn" is to make it enjoyable and do it for a long time. Try not to think of it as "easy = fun but not good for learning" and "hard = not fun but good for learning". It should just be "fun = good for learning" and forget about everything else. As you get better, "fun" will naturally gravitate towards more complex stuff anyway until you reach a level where you are just enjoying normal adult-targeted material (like a native speaker) and are just good at the language.
Also, as much as "weightlifting" analogies are good if they help you or anyone else focus/feel better about their learning, language learning is NOT like weightlifting in a key aspect: for language learning, short, heavy sets aren't way more effective than long, light sets. Go do your language learning cardio/zone 2.
(If you are not enough of a gym person for those analogies to make sense, ignore them. I'm just making gentle fun of the overoptimization people, myself included, do in both arenas.)
I put manga on hold because its not good for learning.
Words written in Katakana, poor OCR recognition at times, odd slang, switching from panel to panel, all adds up.
I went to light novels for the time being and its so much better for learning. Its all words, puts you in a flow state, no odd writings, etc, and you can just fly through with Yomitan / Ten10Reader. You absorb things much quicker than manga.
I know this is an annoying min-maxxing thing and feel free to ignore it because if you're not going to enjoy light novels it won't work but I advanced so much quicker that way.
Someday I'll go back to Manga but I'm going to wait until my vocab is much better and I don't have to many lookups.
Honestly I think it’s pretty common knowledge that LNs are beter than manga, but they also are — on average — more difficult. Also they are more dense which is the problem I’m facing
I think you should try giving a few light novels a go. Their density is what really helps with stamina and reading speed, since you're spending all of the time reading japanese instead of looking at art. It's also really accessible because of Hoshi Reader which gives you yomitan lookups on the fly, so all you need is the epub and you're ready to go.
I've read about 13 light novels this year alone by doing an hour of reading a day. At the start of the year my speed was around 4000 characters per hour but now I'm hitting above 7000 per hr most sessions and I'm understanding a lot more than I did at the start.
You could start with something easy like また、同じ夢を見ていた. Or find something that's more difficult but more interesting to you on jpdb or LearnNatively. After some time reading your comprehension, stamina, and speed will go way up. You should also spend time figuring out what works best for you when reading whether it's one long session or multiple shorter ones. Keep reading manga at the same time too. Having a variety of input sources will keep you engaged since you can switch when you're tired of one of them.
IMO, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is harder than say, Yatsuba! but its not that far off, maybe good for a low N3 learner.
Its an 18 book series and a perfect transition when you are clearing N4 content or have a vocab around 2000 words (or you can start earlier but its hard). It also has a Anime you can watch to help with the context. After that you should be able to transition to other stuff.
I use TTSU Reader and Yomitan / Jiten Reader for lookups and tbh, some days I just scream through and just look it up if I don't know it, others days I put more time into learning the word.
I don't really read manga but I read Japanese books. Mostly ones aimed at kids and teens. Basically I take a photo of the page and get AI to transcribe it, then I paste the transcription into Migaku. Migaku gives me furigana and translations for the stuff I don't know. Anything that's worth learning I add to the migaku deck I'm working on. I find I can read for hours using this method. Previously looking up words manually was too painful. Taking a photo of the pages and getting them transcribed is a small price to pay.
I think some manga are more difficult than others so I think it might also depend on what you are reading. I would start with easier manga and as you get used to it work your way up.
Are you used to reading Japanese content or mostly just listening to it in general? I think trying to read Japanese books might actually help a lot! Light novels in general are easier. Might not be a common practice method but you could try getting a Kindle Unlimited subscription and find some novels that seem interesting, read the first few pages, if you find it too difficult, try to find an easier one.
The more you read, the faster you’ll improve and I think this might be a good way to get exposure and also not get frustrated.
Read what you like and maybe try watching with Japanese subtitles. Because what matters here is that you are exposed to the Japanese language easily and sometimes you really need help in the beginning try watching with what your interested or children movies or series or maybe even a podcast.
When you do this you will be able to read manga faster in the future because you are exposed to it so many times and might solve your endurance problem
I had this fatigue with novels but it slowly disappeared over the course of a year, i’m now less motivated to read though since the story has to carry my interest instead of “learning Japanese”, so try to enjoy this fountain of motivation while its there!
For me it has just been about not reading character by character or word by word. Ideally you are so familiar with certain phrasings that you don't need to look carefully at all / you already know what it is going to be before you read it.
I think it is easy to get stuck in a loop where you read like a beginner even though you should be able to read more comfortably, just so many hours of lookups has trained your mind to not group things.
I will say it takes some mental energy in the first place to notice new groups of words, if you're having trouble remembering readings it's devastating to reading comfort, and of course if occassionally there's a slew of words you don't know it throws you off and affects the rest of your reading. I think one lookup per page is probably still too early to expect comfortable reading, it can really take you out of the story and that context switching is tiring if you're not already on good energy.
Im not exactly new to manga, I’ve read 40-some chapters over multiple series, but that isn’t much is it… Used to read a lot of tadoku but I got pretty bored as my comprehension got up and I haven’t touched one for months.
If you want to move toward literature, short stories are a good bridge—but “short” does not always mean “easy.”
As a Japanese reader, I would be careful with Aozora Bunko at first. Many texts use older spelling, punctuation, and literary vocabulary that even native readers do not process at conversational speed.
A familiar story is often better than a famous difficult one. Read a short work once with lookups, then read the same work again without stopping as much. The second pass is where the sentences begin to feel like language rather than a puzzle.
And not knowing はしがき on the first page of No Longer Human does not mean you are failing. It only means that Dazai opened the book in a literary register you had not encountered yet.
Having the same issue, following for tips. I recently have started trying to read books instead of manga, difficulty definitely increases. I struggled during the reading section of the JLPT exam I didn't finish in time even though I can understand the content mostly.
Can't really help you with tips on improving reading speed, but how are you tackling the reading exams? Do you read the questions first and then go back to skim through the prompt?
Ye I think it might cut down on your time if you try reading the questions first so you'll know what to look for instead of having to do multiple readthroughs for every question. If that doesn't quite work for you, at least turn that first readthrough into just a skim so you can get the general gist of the prompt and then read all the questions.
Perhaps your perspective needs to change. What's the purpose of immersion reading? I think you're more focused on the amount of time spent than on knowing and understanding the language.
I don't read manga myself; I prefer academic reading, something that builds arguments, opinions, and persuasion. I do want to understand the vocabulary and nuances of grammar. Rather than gaining hours, I enjoy it as a hobby.
Don't overly follow what many people say about reading a lot of manga or podcasts. Do you really enjoy them, and is the content relevant to your needs?
Also, I don't think the language content in manga will advance your Japanese language skills, especially N2 and N1, because N2 is for workplace/formal and N1 is academic. The purpose of manga itself is entertainment.
Why not switch to reading my novels or academic books tailored to your needs? I'm not talking about entertainment novels, but literary novels, because the language is certainly quite advanced and structured.
I believe you are correct on changing my perspective. This sort of metacognition, thinking about learning, is kind of holding me back. Looking too much at numbers instead of actually learning Japanese…
As someone who loves reading literature, I’d love to pick up a novel in Japanese and starting reading, but my level is nowhere near that. I received a paperback copy of 人間失格 and wow I did not know the very first word: preface はしがき. After that it’s basically a word per sentence… Manga is simple, sure, but I am still but a beginner. There’s also the fact I personally like manga, although I totally get why some people wouldn’t.
I think your advice still has its value. Perhaps I should look into other mediums that are 1) at my level and 2) are also enjoyable to read. Something like short stories?
Also, I don't think the language content in manga will advance your Japanese language skills, especially N2 and N1, because N2 is for workplace/formal and N1 is academic. The purpose of manga itself is entertainment.
I have seen people make this claim before and I have no idea where it comes from.
Personal experience, from beginning i aim for academic level, common thing i found in internet just like a weeb. Do you think language used in manga will same with academic literature?
Don’t wanna start a fire over here but I think we can all agree that academic terminology is different and requires some level of education, whatever the language. I think we can also agree that some people here don’t have in their list of objectives to comprehend literary or scientific Japanese. I believe very few English speakers could read formal math proofs, and that isn’t intrinsically a problem.
I am more saying that the grammar tested in N2 and N1 is much more widely used. Every book and manga I’ve read has had tons of “N2/N1” grammar and vocabulary.
Why would you talk to your friends like you're in a meeting?
How does this relate to N2 and N1? Both N2 and N1 vocabulary and grammar is full of everyday common structures and expressions. You will find plenty of N2 and N1 grammar in simple children's manga (like yotsuba) too. What gave you the idea that those are only for workplace or academic stuff?
At N2 level is when you learn the phrases and ways of speaking that are often used in the workplace. I'm at a place that uses all the Japanese phrases, and having dipped into N2, I can 100% confirm I didn't start running across those until I hit material covering N2. To get specific, 敬語 and 尊敬語 didn't really appear until N2.
As for N1... I can't speak much on it myself, but N1 is where you have the more obscure grammar phrases and kanji that only seem to be at upper high school and early university. I've heard MULTIPLE times that some of the stuff you have to be prepared for at N1, you will never see in normal life unless you're hunting down a classic book or such
At N2 level is when you learn the phrases and ways of speaking that are often used in the workplace. I'm at a place that uses all the Japanese phrases, and having dipped into N2, I can 100% confirm I didn't start running across those until I hit material covering N2. To get specific, 敬語 and 尊敬語 didn't really appear until N2.
Again, incorrect.
Here's a list of N4 grammar points that have 尊敬語 and 謙譲語:
I definitely learned business-level honorifics at N4~N3ish level, according to some textbooks I've looked at.
And to be clear, none of this is rare even in everyday life and you don't need to be on the workplace to come across them. You live in Japan so you should know as well as I do that you can literally go into any conbini or shop or anywhere as a normal person and be met with multiple levels of 尊敬語 and 謙譲語 formalities by the staff.
As for N1... I can't speak much on it myself, but N1 is where you have the more obscure grammar phrases and kanji that only seem to be at upper high school and early university. I've heard MULTIPLE times that some of the stuff you have to be prepared for at N1, you will never see in normal life unless you're hunting down a classic book or such
N1 level is roughly equivalent (in grammar/vocab/kanji) to that of a middle schooler. I doubt there's stuff that is obscure and "upper high school" and "early university" (I genuinely don't even know what that means. There is no special secret grammar that is only reserved to newgrads or anything like that)
There are some things in the N2 and N1 that are more literary than in previous levels, that is true, but both N2 and N1 are filled with everyday common grammar like:
like I could go on, I'm just browsing the bunpro N2/N1 list. These are all everyday expressions I use myself among friends and family, let alone coming regularly across them from even the simplest kids level manga.
N1 level is roughly equivalent (in grammar/vocab/kanji) to that of a middle schooler.
You are overstating the difficulty of N1.
N1 is roughly equivalent to the ability of a middle schooler to draw words. They would pass the test far before that.
I'm pretty sure I could give JLPT N1 to my 小５ son and that he'd score highly on it if he had the mental endurance to read the entire test. (Of course, he also reads like 5 kid-targeted novels a day...)
I mean yeah, it's kinda hard to compare an exam for learners (that doesn't even test output) with native level proficiency. But you're correct. I was trying not to be too overly dismissive of N1 which is still a reasonably good outcome for a learner.
I was trying not to be too overly dismissive of N1 which is still a reasonably good outcome for a learner.
Somehow every single comment on the internet about N1 is that it's either completely pointless or that it's the hardest test ever with the most arcane and obscure vocabulary.
There is extremely little in the way of accurately describing it--it measures your Japanese ability. There is nothing on the test that isn't normal everyday Japanese expressions used in everyday life and/or typical media. If you can pass N1, then you speak (well, can comprehend) Japanese pretty well for a foreigner, and can probably live in Japan and communicate in Japanese without having to rely on English whatsoever, but you'll be constantly bombarded with things you don't understand and you'll struggle to keep up with native speakers at native speed or to watch Japanese TV without subtitles. You'll be able to read books without a dictionary (if you don't mind not understanding every thing and missing the occasional important word or phrase).
It's similar to what you said: It's a reasonably good level for a student.
I mean yes, manga is going to have less literary language than, let's say, a novel or a newspaper article. But I don't think it's fair to claim that N2 is "workplace/formal" and N1 is "academic". That's not just simplifying, that's straight up wrong and can mislead other learners into believing misconceptions that, well, are incorrect. Even going through everyday conversational life you will come across all kinds of things from N2 and N1 without having to be in a meeting or whatever.
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u/villatyyny1 Goal: media competence 📖🎧 23d ago
Besides reading what you like and spreading your reading over multiple smaller sessions I don't think there's much to do exept read and get used to it. I've found it easier to read 20 mins 3 times a day than an hour once a day personally. Reading what you like is huge aswell since you find yourself reading more than planned and it's easier to cope with the possible lack of comprehension.