Writing a kanji from memory is the hardest skill and the last one you need. Reading only asks you to recognise it, and recognition is built by seeing a character again and again in real words. Furigana lets you read the word now, so you start recognising the kanji long before you could write it. You also learn the word, the compound, not an isolated character with a list of readings.
A kanji inside a sentence inside a scene is memorable in a way a flashcard never is, you have a hook for it. And manga gives you spaced repetition for free: the high-frequency kanji, exactly the ones worth knowing, recur naturally across a chapter, so you meet them on a schedule no deck has to schedule.
Free, 200 translations a week. Open any Japanese or Korean page, press T, then turn on Study mode in the popup to add furigana and native voice.
Install free for Chrome →A little structured study (radicals, the most common few hundred) speeds things up, but reading is what turns study into recognition. Manga supplies the volume and the context.
No. You still see the kanji every time; the reading just sits above it. This is exactly how Japanese children learn, and you will notice yourself reading the kanji before the furigana more and more.
The frequent ones, which are also the useful ones. High-frequency kanji recur constantly, so they are the first to stick.
