I used to live in Japan and, while living there, passed N2 and read a few books. Then I moved back to the US and stopped actively working on Japanese, although (pre-covid) I could go back for visits often enough that I didn’t forget too much. In early 2021 I suddenly had to read a story, and realized that reading might help me maintain Japanese while the borders were closed. Since then I’ve been trying to read every day, even if it’s only a little.
My gateway interest into Japanese was visual kei music, back when it was popular, and my earliest attempts to read material in Japanese for native speakers were rock magazine interviews.
