(2016-02-03, 10:34 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: I see. So you mean it's not just your reading ability in general, but more specific/technical stuff and being able to understand the whole thing naturally?
I believe my reading is bound to improve a lot since I'll start reading visual novels soon enough, probably once I'm done with Tobira or maybe after I do a little more of Core 6k. That's going to be more than 6 months of reading "intended for natives". Perhaps some easy news for a while and later on regular news depending on how it goes. But the way you speak makes it sound like you need something more specific than that to prepare.
What kind of advice would you give me if I said I'll still go for it and do my best, even if it's unrealistic? Because I don't think the amount of stuff I've studied so far in less than 5 months is realistic for the vast majority of people either, so I don't care much about that. Worst case scenario, I could take the test 6 months later (which would be a lot more realistic, but whatever). 
I personally wouldn't put the content of a lot of visual novels as difficult or comparable enough for the N1 unless you're reading something more complicated than the average visual novel. You can read those with some (quite a bit of) difficulty starting around N4/N3. Even if you can read them smoothly, visual novels aren't going to really prepare you much for the reading comprehension skills and they definitely won't prepare you for the kind of content you're going to need to know needed for N1. For comparison, some people around here use things such as
newspaper editorials/shasetsu to prep for the reading sections of N1 which consist largely of topics such as Japanese politics and economics and other societal issues. You would seriously need to practice reading speed and reading comprehension to the point that you can read through maybe 3-5 paragraphs from a news article or editorial or a novel (non-fiction), understand it, and then answer up to about 3 questions within a few minutes.
In my opinion, if you were serious about wanting to shoot for N1 then I would say ditch the idea of using visual novels as a (serious) part of the routine and start busting your ass with studying as soon as possible. I can believe that someone can go from nothing to N4/N3 in a half a year to a year, but the jump to N1 is much greater than nothing to N4/N3, so I would be impressed if someone went from N4/N3 to N1 in a year without some intense studying every day, possibly at one of those schools in Japan where you take classes for hours a day and then study for even more hours when you get home. My personal suggestion is the 新完全マスター series for after you finish Tobira. I used that series to study grammar and reading comprehension (vocab/Kanji was done with a custom built Anki deck), and also a book called 合格できる日本語能力試験N2 which contains a ton of practice questions in the same format as the test for when I took N2 last December. I would not hesitate to use either again for N1 since they give a lot of practice for the skills required on the JLPT specifically in addition to general Japanese skills, and the 新完全マスター series in particular gives a lot of test taking tactics specific to the JLPT. In addition, reading lots of news articles and editorials and things of that nature when possible.
Having said all of that, I don't think it's *impossible*, just extremely time consuming and requiring a lot of dedicated, effective studying. Unless you have a specific reason for wanting to pass N1 by the end of this year, I don't think it's worth the amount of time and effort required. I think it'd be much more doable if you were shooting for N2 this year, and then N1 *maybe* next summer or winter (depending on how when they offer the test in your location).
