I was mostly following the anime being around 20-30 episodes behind the broadcast and was on the way to reach episode 800. Through some spoilers I was aware that there will be an emotional fight between Luffy and Sanji soon and checked that volume 84 will cover exactly that.
And with my will to take my Japanese skills to the next level I decided the following step:
- watch the One Piece anime that far that I can continue with reading volume 84... in Japanese!
While being in Tokyo I bought this very volume and caught up with the anime that I could start reading in it's original form.
To explain, it's not my first Japanese manga, but mostly I bought manga where I already knew the story like some Dragon Ball or Detective Conan volumes. And of course I had to look up lots of kanji and vocabulary. But the important ones ended up in my Anki deck.
But the situation now is different: I'm now reading a manga story (where I know what happened up until now), but need to understand the upcoming development of the Whole Cake Island arc in Japanese.
It's a challenge, I need to read the chapter twice and more to get the meanings. And I wouldn't say I get every line. Sometimes I'm happy with understanding the just some words in a sentence. The furigana are helping a lot, but sometimes the kanji itself are helping more to get the meaning than the furigana.
Often used words I look up in Jisho.org and add them in my Anki deck. Generally I realized: Once I dived in reading it all in Japanese, having the time to focus on it really works. I see progress in my understanding and reading skills.
By now I already continued with volume 85 and will keep on going this path.
