Ah, lack of clarity on my part. By light reading, I meant that the old Japanese ladies on the trains are less impressed to discover that one is reading serialised novels than Ekuni Kaori.

As for the kanji, it's my favorite thing about Japanese, so it only seems like a chore half the time. There's a bit of a learning curve as I remember, but if you're diligent about looking everything up in the first 50 or so pages, it takes care of itself later on.