Yes. It will eventually feel normal and one day you will find yourself putting off your bedtime because you have to read just one more chapter of the novel by that one author you used to struggle with.
My advice to my past self is: put off the pressure to skim. It’s ok to read slowly. It’s ok if you have to sit with every single sentence. Eventually it’ll just click.
I think it’s a matter of rewiring your brain where to expect certain pieces of information. The more you are exposed to it, the more expected it will be. For me, with English as a second language, that did not take too much effort, as English and Dutch are decently close in sentence structure. Comparatively, English and Japanese are a much bigger step, and therefore will take more time to get used to.
If you really just mean when did the symbols start to automatically produce sounds in your head without thinking about it, that took around a year for me (not including kanji, since I only know a few). So reading japanese already feels like reading normally for me. But I still lack lots of vocab, grammar and kanji.
So if this is just about the automatic transformation of symbols into sounds and meaning, this should come quite quickly once you start reading a lot. Maybe 1000 pages or somemthing (kinda depends on text density).
But if this is about actually understanding everything like you’re a native, that takes a few years more I guess. 
Pep95’s point about difference from your native language is important. The Japanese talk about developing and “English Brain” in order to be able to speak English naturally, because the order you expect information in is so different. We need to develop a “Japanese brain”. Also remember it took a long time for reading to become automatic even in your native language, it won’t happen fast with Japanese (or at least it isn’t for me). It should probably be accepted it’ll never seem as natural as it does in your native language just less unnatural.
Yesterday I suddenly started being able to read and comprehend a lot of ヨルシカ’s lyrics, while Suis was singing, I was able to keep up with the reading.
I did start a vocab deck specifically for their songs; since they use some poetic words/phrases. But it has helped a lot to learn vocabulary that is meaningful to me; what do I want to do with my Japanese?
As for the grammar; only speaking and listening made me able to understand grammar easily. Reading doesn’t do much for me to learn actual grammar structures and whatnot to be used practically.
Yes
This is actually the main thing I was getting at, a lot of the other answers, though appreciated, were pretty off base. Thank you! I was talking about straight up kana and kanji and grammar that I definitely already know, and don’t at any point “struggle” to understand.
I’ve been properly reading stuff, but only on and off, for about five years. Clearly I need to read more.
You learned one writing system already. So you already know your brain has the capability 
I don’t think you have to do anything specific other than reading. You can rest assured it will come
Thank you! I felt all weird because I can actually talk at speed with the Japanese that I know (to the point where my brain is doing that thing where it can’t comprehend that English speakers around me don’t understand what I’m saying), and yet the reading, despite doing much more of it, wasn’t getting there. Made me wonder if the “foreign-ness” of the symbols was forever if you don’t learn them young. Glad to know it’s not!
Over time, it does become easier and easier. It did take time for me at least. In a way as my vocabulary and grammar knowledge increased, it did become “easier” but I also really like reading stuff and initially I re-read the manga / light novel volumes. On the second re-read, things felt more “natural” lol. I had already looked up most of the unknown stuff.
Sometimes when reading manga, I basically just read like normal and somehow finish the volume as I am reading in English.
With light novels, it really depends. Over time, I did get used to the feeling that I might not understand everything and that I have to look up stuff in a dictionary which kinda stops the “flow”. There are times where I just read and not check unknown vocab / kanji. There are times where I stop on every page and look up a few things.
Its kinda hard to get fully right but as long as my knowledge is around the level of what I am reading and I really like what I am reading, it can feel natural lol.
Actually this touched on something that made me adjacently remember: my Nan was an absolutely voracious reader of novels, but she kept a dictionary by the couch and would be looking up a word in English she didn’t know all the time, despite English being her only language. Her vocabulary from doing this was enormous.
I think it’s easy to forget with foreign languages that even extremely well read natives don’t know every word they read.
hi, first time commenter
japanese is my second language. i’ll lose myself in manga (sometimes a novel) in japanese, only to be pulled out of it by running across a word i’ve never seen before in my life after 20 straight pages of not even realizing that i’m in the zone haha.
so yes, it will get to that point - after years and years of practice and study (and immersion - i lived in japan for 4 years as a young adult)! but in my opinion, all reading is good reading, whether it feels ‘native’ level or not. and great point you made about your grandma always looking up words she didn’t know even though english was her only language. ^^
I don’t think I’m at a native point, but I’ve read entire books in Japanese. I’m at least at the point where my muscle memory kicks in when I see Japanese text.
What helped me was not only enjoying what I was reading but getting information and learning things I wouldn’t have in English. For me, that’s video game metatext. It felt like a huge W when I learned that Crono’s element in Chrono Trigger wasn’t originally lighting. It was the heavens.
I’ve also found the easiest things to read are technical text, like textbooks. If you know a lot about the subject in English, your brain will fill in missing words and you’ll be certain of what they mean.
You could be me….so take any following ideas with a grain of salt…I am yet to be skimming through Japanese books.
Maybe drop the level. ( No reflection on you…just my current ploy).
As well as the grown up books I’m reading, there is a series of books (paper and ebook s) from Gakken “10歳までに読みたい名昨ミストリー” featuring Sherlock Holmes stories.
Next on the “young list”: ぼくたちはChatGPTをどう使うか” Lots of White Space, fairly short chunks of language, the occasional sketch…and I was curious about the topic.
When you discover / are provided with the Magic Solution….please share
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How about short bursts of Reading Aloud?
my brain is doing that thing where it can’t comprehend that English speakers around me don’t understand what I’m saying
It’s funny you mention this, because I’ve definitely had this with hiragana and katakana where I have a second when showing something to someone when I am appalled that my mother or friend or whoever can’t read it before I realize that of course they can’t they’ve never studied Japanese.
All that to say that it does eventually get internalized to the point that it no longer feels like a second language anymore.
(Grammar, vocab and stuff is another story of course, but that’s already been discussed).
I always read out loud all my review sentences I feel like it helps a lot, especially to get all those typical chunks, word endings, typical word combos into the brain, so it’s probably good for listening comprehension, too. Not sure if it helps with getting hiragana from symbols to automatically understood letters, though.
If you haven’t done so already: learning to handwrite and writing regularily will burn those letters into your brain a bit faster. Not just single letters, but whole sentences.
I would recommend that to everybody who wants to get this intuitive, almost native feel when reading the letters. Even if you don’t care about writing by hand at all.
I recomend watching something with Japanese subs, without pausing.
The forced faster pace will help you stop translating in your head.
And yes, as you read more you will get better.
1 reading Japanese is not like reading my first language
2 The symbols stopped feeling like symbols and now feel like a story or senentce.
Oh
So on my chopsticks wrapper it says
“森林保護のため、
生長の早い竹材を使用しています
[割らずにすぐお使いいただけます]”
I read it. Then thought 森…護 "it says the bamboo is sustainable.
割らずに “it says Don’t have to split the chopsticks”
Then typing it もり that’s a boys name はやし, that one is in かんごし… that one is in save. What’s the word for save? …it is also in ほけん
Immersion helped on the first part. Vocab reviews helped on the second
I’m nowhere close to native level, but I have a lot of moments where I read/understand something as fast as my native language. The more you read, the more you’re gonna encounter the same super common phrases/sentences over and over again until you just understand it instantly. At least that’s been my experience with dialogue/conversation heavy visual novels.
