The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters

First - why this book? Because it has the best mnemonics for associating kanji with meanings that I could find.

There are already 2 good reviews, I'll just add some thoughts on how to use it as a beginner as it's worth being aware this books is conceived for people who already have an intermediate level of Japanese and who are going to move relatively quickly through learning all kanji in the book.

There are two use cases: You're at the intermediate+ level of Japanese but have weak

Solid reference book

It's been a little while since I worked my way through this book; I used it to build up my vocabulary by adding flashcards of each example word given for each kanji as I read through the entries. I remember it being a solid resource with the caveat that I did find the occasional vocab error. I was going to list one or two errors as examples, but flipping through my copy doesn't yield any results, so I either didn't mark them down in the book as I found them (and/) or they're so infrequent that a

The best kanji textbook, hands-down

Despite not being quite perfect, I think KKLC is the closest we've come to an ideal kanji learning method. It combines the best attributes of other systems into one complete system:

• Like Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, it teaches you to look at kanji as combinations of simple components.
• Like Henshall's The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji, it uses vivid image-based mnemonics.
• Like Kanji in Context, it teaches you vocabulary alongside the kanji.
• Like P.G. O'Neill's *Essential