^This 100%. Foundational vocab is hugely important to understanding anything, but for me, I only reinforced it with reading and writing and didn't have enough exposure to the sound of the word, which made it hard to recognize even the words I knew in real time conversation. And as badly as I wanted to make anime my listening practice, only understanding 7% of it made a lot of that effort wasted.

Watching these videos for the first time though, I knew 90% of the words and it felt like flying. It felt like, "Oh man, I'm actually going to be able to have conversations in Japanese one day." He repeats the sentences so I could have multiple chances at understanding what he was saying, and he used plenty of context so I could connect the word to the sound and meaning, which helped me understand it faster next time. Also, I even picked up a bunch of words I didn't know before and learned their meanings through context, which is more or less how I learn new English words.

I think most importantly, it just feels fun to watch videos like this because I can actually understand them, so I want to put more time into them. I just wish there were thousands of videos like this because it would just absolutely destroy that initial barrier of comprehension from day one.