I’m not 100% on how much reading you’ve done, but I suspect you and I are of a similar level from the forum posts I’ve seen of yours, and I’ve been reading it with very little trouble. Any time Sakuta and Futaba really start talking back and forth about theories seems to be when I’m looking up the most vocabulary, since I’ve studied approximately zero physics in Japanese. Grammar-wise, it’s very straightforward, though. I’ve not seen anything that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
Differentiating between speaking characters hasn’t so far been much of an issue. While they have “similar” relationships to the MC, they also tend to call him different things, so that helps. Kaede - お兄さん/ちゃん, Mai - 咲太 (briefly 咲太くん), Tomoe - 先輩. I believe Futaba uses his last name, and I don’t know if his other friend (Yuuma) really uses his name at all (though I wouldn’t be surprised if he did at some point in these first two volumes and I’m just forgetting).
I expected it to be harder than it’s actually turned out to be. I’m reading about 20-40 pages every day (except for days that I don’t have time to read it, where I’ll read manga or something less committal instead), and that takes me about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on what’s going on and how many lookups I’ve had to do).
It’s the first series I opted for a physical copy of (because I loved the anime so much, so I knew I wanted the physical versions), so I feel that pain in a different way.
The Google image thing doesn’t work very well on smaller text, I find.
I buy digital and physical (I don’t want to use a screen before bed) but trade in the physical once I finish the book (at least that was my rule for the first 3 books). Maybe I’ll change the rule to be if they adapt it properly or it’s the kind of story you can get something new out of it at different points in your life. That’s what コンビニ人間, さよなら絵梨, and ルックバック were for me, so I keep them around.
I don’t have a helpful tip as the others, but just want to say I feel you! I still struggle with this sometimes, but I’ve felt that it’s improved as I read more.
I had a worse problem (for me anyway) when I was just on my first book. I didn’t know the premise, just picked it up. First-person narrative + lack of pronouns + I was a beginner + formal language (so no gender-specific sentence enders, etc.) = all a perfect storm of me reading the first few chapters assigning the wrong genders to everyone. I had to look it up as it got more and more confusing … So something to watch out, too, lol.
Grammar-wise, it’s very straightforward, though. I’ve not seen anything that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
