Oooh. I followed yhlee over here - do you mind if I follow along? I have done a sort of patchwork of Japanese (class here, language exchange there, kanji drill on buses) that meant I was able to have very simple conversations on a trip to Japan, but that was over five years ago and I've been pretty slack.

I can't find it now, but when I was learning hiragana & katakana there was an on-line drill that had different fonts/styles of writing, which was very useful in getting me to focus on the important parts of a character and how it might look different but still read the same.