Furigana atop the kanji can help, but interviews and some manga don't have that. Kanji have a lot of different meanings and readings and characters can also talk in different dialects. The thug who tries to harass Sheryl says 'ringo' (=apple) but the word is written with katakana, the Vajra Queen's (aka Mothmonster) words are written in katakana and kanji with katakana used above, and while some words have kanji characters and they get used most of the time, some characters in stories have the words written out in hiragana instead. The things I learn when reading manga.
Not to mention how you use different words in different situations for the same thing, but with different characters... but it's fun to learn and while I am interested in Chinese, I think Japanese is easier. Tak should know best though, being a native speaker.
LMK: I think the scans are chinese scanlations, not scans of a Chinese edition of the manga, because some parts of it have the Japanese text intact, the covers for one.
