I use Netscape Communicator and mule with w3 extensions. I use both of the browsers with Japanese-English dictionaries. With Netscape Communicator I keep a small xjdic window open in a kterm to the right of the graphic toolbar and above the text area. This allows me to check the reading and meaning of kanji. I find that the xjdic window only needs about six lines of text to be effective for most kanji checks. The example below shows a cut and paste example of how to check a kanji reading from a web page.
I find that it is faster to read a large block of text like a newspaper article faster inside of mule. Mule allows the use of keystrokes for navigation and selecting kanji for passing to trans / trans.el. In the example below, I am running mule w3 on the same web page and have selected the world chosa for translation.
I use the fvwm pager to open both Netscape Communicator and mule w3 on seperate virtual screens. I usually open Netscape Communicator in a top pager block and mule w3 in a bottom pager block. I then flip between Netscape Communicator and mule w3 with ctrl-arrow.
xjdic provides more extensive searches than trans. However, trans is faster to use within mule than a combination of Netscape and xjdic. I use both.