I doubt I’d join, but I’ll throw in my 2 cents as someone who’s been reading Japanese VNs as study tools.
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Reading something you’re already familiar with is a HUGE help in speed and ease of reading comprehension. Once you have a grasp of the situation, it is easy to not know many of the words but still understand the gist of the lines. This is something to consider in regards to reading something new vs. reading for the sake of learning. Angel beats in particular might be a great choice because it has enough new content to keep good interest but the world and setting/characters are already understood if you’ve watched the anime.
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My first Japanese VN was Mahoutsukai no Yoru. It was/is a TERRIBLE choice because unknown to me at the time, it’s actually a really hard read. But while I struggled a lot, and certainly missed a lot of explanations of the magic and whatnot, I still managed to understand all the major plot points and character motivations and that sort of thing. More importantly, it’s pretty short and if I wasn’t so terrible at Japanese at the time (like bad enough that I shouldn’t have been reading any novel), it wouldn’t have been such a timesink. That said, I enjoyed it a ton and it’s roughly tied as my favorite VN with Rewrite. Arguably I’m just advertising Mahoyo, and I kind of am, but my point is that if you’re having fun, a harder read isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Choose something you all think you will enjoy and even if you won’t understand parts, it’ll be a great experience. Failing is part of the learning experience after all.
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Voices help so much. Assuming you’ve watched more anime than you’ve studied kanji, voices will be a godsend. Right now I’m finishing up Eustia and the protagonist is voiced, which is an uncommon thing, and it has made the read even easier than usual. Basically, since chances are your listening comprehension is better than your reading, this point should be kind of obvious. You may want to consider VNs which have a voiced protagonist. (Sidenote: Mahoyo is completely unvoiced, which obviously just made it even worse for me lol)
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Skipping is fine. Lines I mean. It is very, very, very rare for a single line to be a huge plot twist. Even if you miss the line revealing x plot twist, subsequent lines will go into details. If you are stuck, just skip and future lines may help to fill in the gaps. Don’t feel like you have to figure out every single line. Sometimes a VN will throw a monster sentence at you that is very unreasonable to the beginner. Well, if you can read the other 99%, then you really don’t need to understand that one line. Certainly, give it a try, but don’t get hung up over it.
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Don’t give up. If you are reading, you will be learning. Maybe not at an ideal or great pace. Maybe not at a noticeable rate, but by immersing yourself in Japanese, you will be making progress. I said Mahoyo was a terrible first choice, and it is, but I learned so much by the end of it. Would I have learned more in the same time period if I chose something else? Almost definitely. But it wasn’t wasted time, and I stuck with it and got something worthwhile out of it. It doesn’t matter how much you feel like are failing, you are making progress as long as you keep reading. So go forth, and read your hentai! I mean Japanese novels.
I do need to choose my next Japanese VN though. I’m tempted to do Baldry Sky but it’s so insanely long, I don’t know if I want to commit to it.
