I definitely agree. ^^
Reading stuff above my level is making me look up common and very useful grammar constructs, but reading characters talk about the intricacies of a murder case and evidence and testimony doesn’t make me feel like I know a whole lot.
Not know most things in that game ≠ Not knowing anything. It’s good to remind myself of that. Not that I’m demotivated with the game. At this point, at least.
So vast on my part. XD But that’s why it’s so encouraging to see the improvements.
(Mine too 
Looking on the bright side, there’s still so much to learn 
)
I think that’s also why re-reading feels so good - stuff that I had to look up previously now almost feels like I know it. xD
Hope you continue to have fun with it!
Good example of reading what interests you though. I played 逆転裁判 when I still suuuucked. And still now, I can read things well above my level when it’s crime based because I just… like those words? Even when I read Japanese news articles I tend to drift toward crime over anything else because at this point I know more of the vocabulary. Where if I was reading about economics or hard-science terms or feudalism things it’d be harder to care… I think just because ‘crime drama’ is such a popular American genre in the first place. And it’s easier to be okay with picking up specialized vocabulary when you know you’re going to keep encountering that specialized vocabulary in genres you enjoy.
時をかける少女 was a good example of that for me. When I read the supposedly hard chapter towards the end, it was actually relatively easy since I either knew or had no trouble figuring out most the sci-fi words.
A lot of those words also get easier as you know more kanji cuz you can pretty much deduce the meaning based on the kanji meanings + context. And most of the words that aren’t jukugo are katakana so as long as you know (usually)English…
That’s one of the things that I quite like about Aria, that quite a lot of katakana words are Italian instead. It adds a lot to the atmosphere, I think (although it does make it a bit harder to decipher).
Recently I’ve started to (try to) read 1Q84 together with my Favourite Japanese Guru™ whenever I get the opportunity. Today we finished the third page 
We usually read a page or so in Japanese first and later read the same passage in the German version of the book (which I happen to own as well) to check our understanding. Overall I think the translator did a very good job, keeping close to the original while at the same time using a very nice and natural language in the translation.
But today we discovered a major blunder in the translation which really amazes me. The expression 父方の祖父 was translated as the grandfather of the father while in fact it means the grandfather on the father’s side.
Further reading in case you’re interested:
I just started reading 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 and I realized that this is the first time I’ve ever read a book that’s set in the same city that I live in. (The closest I ever got was playing Persona 5 while I was staying in a hotel in Tokyo.)
I’m pretty excited and this also makes reading the Kanji for the places so much easier, since I already know them by heart!
ヴァーチャル・インタフェースセットのヘッド・マウント・ディスプレイとグローブを装着。
A-am I reading Japanese right now?
It sure is ironic how one of the most difficult things to read in Japanese is the English
I actually don’t have trouble reading it, but I often feel terrible for people learning Japanese who don’t also know English!
It takes me quite some effort, but I can feel the improvement sometimes. Katakana just seems so hard to skim compared to hiragana or kanji 
Definitely agree with that.
The katakana I’m encountering is 50% 外来語 and 50% Japanese words said with emphasis.
In my reading session yesterday, they were talking about リーダーシップ, but also about ハクダツ (剥奪).
It definitely slows me down while I read.
1Q84 was the first book(s) I managed to enjoy in Japanese. Still, one thing that confused me and made me reread parts of the first chapter a few times is that I really didn’t expect her to be an assassin 
If you have the translation as well, though, I guess you won’t have such doubts 
Indeed, I read the book in German already so I know that bit 
But I remember being really surprised as well.
Something similar is happening to me now. The characters are going to the same university I did, so the whole description of the campus/buildings, all the way to the on campus kombini is super familiar. Except that the descriptions are very positive while I’m like “mhyeah it was ok” 
Me, as a beginner, encountering katakana: Oh good, unlike hiragana or kanji, this must be English and I’ll understand it! トーマート。。。Omg tomato! This is so easy.
Me, now, encountering katakana: This could either be English, Japanese, a name, French food, Italian places, or something else…Let’s slowly read over it approximately 50 times to find out.
Proceed to look it up in 5 different dictionaries, on Google and ask your mother only to find out it was a made-up word all along.
「彼は私を揺さぶりながら私のお乳をも揺さぶっているらしいのです」
。。。
「彼の立場を慮、たかがお乳の一つや二つ、まあ、お乳は二つしかございませんが、ともかくもそれぐらい平気で受け流しておくだけの器の大きさをなぜ私は持てないのでしょう。」
。。。
「でも良い人生論を語って下さいました。きっと、悪い人ではないと思うのです」
I gave 森見登美彦 a pass with Penguin Highway because it was about a young boy and even though the constant breast references made me roll my eyes, the rest was fine. But now he writes a female protagonist that’s just naively fine with being felt up because the molester was good at “discussing about life”. Eff that.
Between him and what I read about Murakami, I think I’m gonna stick with female Japanese authors for a while…