When reading manga, I frequently notice that I have no idea what a character says. This is not because I do not know what the kanji is, rather it is very difficult for me to decipher what the kanji looks like. In printed manga, I measured that printed kanji are often times 4mm in width and just 2mm in length. This is exceptionally apparent with kanji that have increased strokes and are more intricate than others (亭 vs. 璽).
Now this is only really apparent to printed kanji (such as newspapers, manga, etc.) as
- a) When ink is involved in printing, intricate characters can appear to run together or strokes can become quite close together.
- b) Characters on things like computer screens are more clear, not as small and can be magnified.
Now I attempted to perform a search on this topic online, and I found nothing. I am hypothesizing that maybe native and experienced speakers just recognize the kanji more easily? Are these problems experienced by others, and how can this be dealt with?
EDIT: Here's an example (however, this is not the same as it is on a computer screen): (blue arrow indicated easy to read kanji, red is more difficult)