Everyone has already given good advice but I thought I’d chime in too. There’s kind of specialised vocab for different mediums/genres, so you could do all the textbook study in the world and not ever be ‘ready’ (though of course, it will greatly help you recognise grammar/sentence patterns). Having gone through much of the core deck (newspaper vocab) and quite a few textbooks my initial forays into video games and manga were extremely tedious and I was kind of annoyed that all my preparation hadn’t covered a whole lot of shared vocab. I guess my point is that, sooner or later, you will have to cross that bridge and it will be pretty overwhelming regardless of how much study you’ve done.
Just a suggestion, but maybe you could do like 80% focus on integrated approach textbook and 20% on video game/s. As slow-going as the video game might be at first, if you spend even just 20-30 mins a night slowly working through it you will notice tangible improvements faster than you might imagine and eventually it won’t be so tedious.
All the best in your studies 
I’m not the person you are replying to, but I know jisho has a handwriting search, along with a radical one
I’ve actually been saying that for a long time to my peers who wanted to learn English, other languages, or even other subjects entirely - as long as you enjoy the process, you will have an easy time and very little difficulty.
Poring over textbooks and grinding memory exercises isn’t fun, while games, books, manga, movies, anime usually are; that’s why learning with them is easy and enjoyable. However, you have to remember not to put the cart before the horse - and in this case, perhaps unintuitively, fun is the horse. If your learning effort affects the fun part too much, you might as well be sitting with a textbook.
Warning: Long post ahead - I didn’t mean for it to happen; I just started ranting. 
The honest truth is that the answer to the “should I dive in to material that is clearly way over my head?” dilemma will differ depending on your personality and learning style.
If you are someone who will get frustrated at not being able to 100% perfectly understand something even with a dictionary, or someone who doesn’t have the patience to look up a ton of words, then the answer is that you should probably slow yourself down a little and look for material that is closer to your level.
However, in my experience, “jumping into the deep end” has been tremendously helpful in increasing my vocabulary and overall reading ability. In just under a year of “serious” Japanese study (I’ll hit my one year anniversary in May), I’ve played through an RPG and VN from start to finish, read through 4 or 5 complete manga series, and have started reading light novels about a month ago. Yes, I have to look words up constantly, but I’ve noticed a huge improvement in my ability over the past 4-5 months or so that I’ve been forcing myself to struggle with this level of reading.
I don’t know that any level of study/preparation can really prevent that initial shock and hurdle that comes with reading the native things you really want to read. You kind of have to just accept that it’s going to be difficult, you’re going to be bad at it, and you’re not going to understand everything whether you use a dictionary or not. Be patient and kind to yourself and just keep pushing on and things will start getting easier and better a little bit at a time. Last fall, I was cursing the Japanese language for being so difficult while just trying to read a sentence or two here and there. Now I can sit and read 10+ pages of a light novel in one shot and really enjoy the story. And the exciting part is that I’m only going to continue getting better from there. I have my bad days sometimes and my incredibly humbling moments where I’ll a hit a sentence and just stare dumbfounded at the fact that I can’t understand a word of it. But I take a deep breath, remind myself that this is going to be a lengthy journey no matter what, and jump back in.
No matter what, you can do this if you want it bad enough!
Don’t fool yourself: Playing with Japanese audio and English (or whatever language you like to play in) is NOT learning. It’s fun, you pick up the odd word, but it does not even come CLOSE to actually deciphering the Japanese on your own. These are WORLDS apart.
My strategy recently has been to spend about an hour each day playing a game (Chrono Trigger) in Japanese. I don’t consider it just “playing” the game. It’s study time. I hope to get to where I can just relax with a game, but for now it is definitely a lot of work. I’ve purposely chosen Chrono Trigger as the first game to do this because 1) Yuji Horii rules, 2) I’ve played the game several times which helps my brain sort things into context, 3) It’s not a game I’m “anticipating” playing, it’s a classic, and 4) there are quality retranslations online that can help if I get stuck.
So I guess my advice would be to keep Japanese game playing as “studying” in your mind. If you go in with the expectation that you’re just gonna relax with the game, the effort it requires from you will be frustrating. But that effort results in gains, so hang in there.
I beg to differ. While it’s definitely not enough to learn Japanese by any measure, it’s entirely how I learned English.
My experience with Japanese media is responsible for nearly half my drive on Wanikani - thanks to it I recognize and easily remember a surprisingly large percentage of words and readings. WK as a whole feels to me like an arranging process that puts bits and pieces in my head together and sorts them rather than building a new foundation.
So while I agree that before actually studying Japanese my knowledge of it - mostly picked up subconsciously while watching anime and similar stuff - was entirely negligible, it acted as a multiplier to my learning speed afterwards. So it’s hard not to call it at least a part of the learning process.
No it’s not entirely how you learned English. Before or parallel you had years of formal education of English in school. Tell me if I’m wrong.
Ok you basically say the same thing. I don’t dismiss Japanese dub, English sub, but it’s not really study time, because once the sentences get longer the brain just goes back to the sub.
Sorry but you’re indeed wrong. My school had German course instead of English; my English is 100% self-taught from games, books, forums, anime subtitles, manga and the like.
P.S. And I’m absolutely terrible in German now…
Wow, that’s rare. Congratulations on that, then 
I mean, I only started “learning” English in school by age 14, but by that point I was already as fluent as I am presently. And I did learn English by having English dubs with Dutch subs throughout my childhood, followed by reading English books starting age 10. It was the only exposure I had with the English language and due to the sheer amount it proved sufficient… It’s not the most efficient way to learn a language, but my story is FAR from unique…
I believe you, but good luck getting these YEARS of exposure as an adult.
On another note: As a German I love this, because of our dubbing industry so much potential for English learning is lost:/
Haha, yeah. As I said, far from efficient. Just wanted to point out it IS possible 
Fun story: In my country, most shows on TV are dubbed into native language or are of native origin; knowing English or any other languages at a decent level is fairly rare around here, and vast majority of those who do have a heavy accent (me included).
Meanwhile in Croatia the TV shows are all subbed, and as a result a lot of people speak a decently fluent English with little or no accent. I’m pretty sure those are connected!
This is how my German friend taught herself English. Also a TON of Youtube. She likes horror stories and taught herself English listening to a lot of English media in roughly 2 years. Chatting to me over voice chat has helped her English a lot too.
I once offered to learn German and she said “No! Don’t put yourself through that torture!”
She made me laugh a few months ago, we have a Spanish-speaking friend who also taught herself English. She was saying something to her mother in Spanish and my German friend said “Wow, I wish I could I could speak 2 languages…”
I was like “Wait…what??”
“Well, I only speak English…”
“You are a German girl living in Germany who I regularly hear having conversations in German to her German father…”
“Oh yeah I can speak German, too!!”
@ekuroe @MegaZeroX just an FYI the Jisho one is a lot less forgiving on stroke order than Google Translate So I always used to use the Google one, suffice to say.
Wow, this is insane! I’m putting Monster Hunter in Japanese from now on…
This story is exactly what I was referring to. Every German has to go through through formal English education in school, there is no way around that. So the English is not completely self taught, the foundations were laid elsewhere.
Funnily enough, I learned German almost entirely through media immersion, occasionally looking up a word here and there. I’ve never opened a textbook or had a German lesson in my life, but I can understand pretty much everything I watch on German TV, whether it’s news or a documentary or stand-up comedy.
Yeah, I think it might be good to take a step back from gaming in Japanese for now! If it’s not fun it’s not going to be as effective a learning method for you, and it’ll take away the enjoyment you might have for the game itself.
I had the same kind of experience with a visual novel last year. I could understand what was happening, but the nuance of phrases and new words etc really threw me off and made it a slog. I’ve since tried again after an intense kanji/grammar study block, and it’s a lot better. I think aiming for something just above your level is best for motivation and effectiveness, so maybe don’t push yourself beyond that! 
Do you only look up words while reading (and then move on) and for the last year ‘just’ read and looked up and played and looked up and read and played etc. - or do you look up the words, enter them into e.g. Anki and besides doing a hella lot of reading and playing you also study the words with Anki or similiar?