May 9th original post, My Amazon JP account was locked because I bought some Nintendo gift certificates. I had to call them to unlock it–nice was of practicing Japanese… I had also to reassure my USA bank that I had done the purchased, they did not allow the transaction to go thru when I first tried…
Updated, June 15th: Amazon JP is now cracking down on gift certificates for the Nintendo store
I wanted to throw in a recommendation for Layton’s Mystery Journey! The catch is, I think you have to buy from the JP eShop to get the JP language option. Some of the puzzles involve Japan-specific stuff like hiragana, so those puzzles had to be reworked and replaced for the English eShop version. レイトン ミステリージャーニー カトリーエイルと大富豪の陰謀 DX+ ダウンロード版 | My Nintendo Store（マイニンテンドーストア）
It’s a puzzle game that requires you to do problem solving in Japanese. You have to read and understand the problem statement in Japanese conceptually as a whole, rather than just translating individual sentences, so it feels like it does a good job of testing comprehension.
Play at your own pace. Take whatever time is needed to read through all the dialogue, which is a good mix of real-world, conversational, and more formal stuff too depending on who the detectives are talking to. Has furigana.
Has some short voice-acted animated scenes too.
The usual $50/￥４９５０ price is a little high, but it usually goes on sale a couple times a year. I think I picked it up for 80% off, $10, and for that price I would totally recommend it. You just need a way to be alerted of Level 5 (the company’s) JP eShop sales. They might do one mid/end summer, and near end of year at least.
I had also to reassure my USA bank that I had done the purchased, they did not allow the transaction to go thru when I first tried…