/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>16835937
But YA fiction and other light reading has the same lack of focus on prose as VNs. There's a dichotomy in both physical novels and visual novels (pic related) between prose-focused works, neither style is unique to either.
I would say VNs solidly win out in immersion, though, no content.

>>16512776
The trick, as asinine as this sounds, is to know Japanese. To read a ton before you read Mareni. If you know Japanese well - can thoughtlessly parse grammar with ease - then Mareni's not so hard, as his main challenge is overcoming the lengthy sentences that will fall apart in your mind if you have to stop a single time for grammar.
His vocabulary is enormous, too, he had a "old Japanese" vocab textbook in college he read cover to cover, and he frequently references historical figures like 神倭伊波礼毘古命 which will seem like strings of kanji if you don't know who it is. The only way to prepare for this is to know every word around the unknown word, so it's easy to look up and figure out the sentence. It's easy to figure out "And then the great ____ betrayed his loyal retainers out of greed" as opposed to "And then the ___ ____ ____ his loyal ____ out of ____".
So basically - read a lot and know Japanese well before trying him. He's not that hard if you know Japanese.