How did you get exposed to Japanese media? You lived there? Or just anime? You used English subtitles or Japanese ones?
I know it's a meme for people to claim to know japanese from watching anime, which is why I don't claim to be able to speak it, but over time I did pick up enough that I don't need subtitles anymore. I'm slowly working on reading with practice books, wanikani etc, will eventually figure out some way to practice speaking too.