I am glad to say my Japanese study is going places. I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to read significant portions of text in some Japanese GBC games and actually understand it. I did get lost fairly often still due to my vocab being comprised of maybe 1200 words that I know with complete confidence, and then however many other words that I'm familiar with but don't really know.

I am also here to say that Game Boy Color games have the absolute worst kana fonts. Worst. I had to simply guess what kana some characters were, and then remember that fact while also trying to read. Painful.