Rating: 
Summary: It's the best book of Japanese Characters
Review: I think that book is the most interesting book tht I've never bought. The book's features are: the explanations are very clear, and explain in the bottom of page a mneumonics to turn the remembering easier and easier to understand. further having such interesting infos about the historic of the characters since the pre-historic eras. this book has thousand characters that turn the chalange of learn by heart things that difficult the japanese students.
Rating:
Summary: Great explanations! Useless mnemonics!
Review: I think that this is a great book to have by your side if you are studying Japanese. The explanations of how the characters were formed are interesting to read but I cannot say that the explanations really helped me learn the character. By extension, the mnemonics given as a learning aid are ridiculous! Ridiculous can be an aid to memory in some cases but I found the mnemonics useless too. The only way to learn is to just sit down and do it. The large characters come in brush form for some reason??? The characters also appear in printed form and, which I believe to be a great strength of this book, they also appear in conjunction with other characters (referenced by number) which can really help the student to learn vocabulary. There are around 3 or 4 such vocabulary entries for each kanji. On the whole, though, I have to say that this book is invaluable as an aid to my study of Japanese. But if you look at the book and think it will make the study of kanji any easier than other books then think again! Whichever way you look at it, kanji learning relies on memory power. The mnemonics I have complained so much about, however, are just an addition to each entry, so don't let that take away from the value of this book! I gave it 5 stars after all!
Rating: 
Summary: 3 stars for no kana readings & poor calligraphy
Review: I think this book will be very helpful to anyone studying Kanji whose first language is English & still has trouble reading hiragana. Anyone who has mastered Japanese beyond level 3 of the proficiency test will probably find the lack of Kana readings and the over-dependence on Roman letters a bit irritating. As it is, most students who learn more than 300 kanji already know kana as well as their own alphabet.
That said, the book is extremely helpful in helping students to analyze the compenent parts of the Jouyou Kanji. Henshall's method is to first present the history of the Kanji & how it came to acquire various meanings in Chinese and Japanese. It may seem to be too much information at first, but the value in this method is apparent when Henshall establishes the PHONETIC component for the Kanji. Since most Kanji follow the Rebus principle--i.e. visual puns based on phonetic values--pointing out the phonetic element will bring the Japanese student a better understanding of how the Kanji is actually meant to be used. Knowing the phonetic makes it a lot easier to remember & use in reading or writing. If students using the book disregard most of Henshall's mnemonic devices by focusing purely on the phonetic element in the Kanji ONLY, the book will be extremely helpful, since the phonetic element in the kanji was used as a pronunciation & memory guide from the very beginning anyway.
In the end, I would have given the book 4 stars, except for the lack of Kana readings (as mentioned above) & the very poor calligraphy. Both of these problems could be solved with a new edition. Until that time, it gets 3 stars.
Rating:
Summary: 3 stars for no kana readings & poor calligraphy
Review: I think this book will be very helpful to anyone studying Kanji whose first language is English & still has trouble reading hiragana. Anyone who has mastered Japanese beyond level 3 of the proficiency test will probably find the lack of Kana readings and the over-dependence on Roman letters a bit irritating. As it is, most students who learn more than 300 kanji already know kana as well as their own alphabet.
That said, the book is extremely helpful in helping students to analyze the compenent parts of the Jouyou Kanji. Henshall's method is to first present the history of the Kanji & how it came to acquire various meanings in Chinese and Japanese. It may seem to be too much information at first, but the value in this method is apparent when Henshall establishes the PHONETIC component for the Kanji. Since most Kanji follow the Rebus principle--i.e. visual puns based on phonetic values--pointing out the phonetic element will bring the Japanese student a better understanding of how the Kanji is actually meant to be used. Knowing the phonetic makes it a lot easier to remember & use in reading or writing. If students using the book disregard most of Henshall's mnemonic devices by focusing purely on the phonetic element in the Kanji ONLY, the book will be extremely helpful, since the phonetic element in the kanji was used as a pronunciation & memory guide from the very beginning anyway.
In the end, I would have given the book 4 stars, except for the lack of Kana readings (as mentioned above) & the very poor calligraphy. Both of these problems could be solved with a new edition. Until that time, it gets 3 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for serious learners
Review: I think your benefit from this book will very much depend on what you're trying to do and the type of memory you have.About 3 years ago I bought this but soon after it began to gather dust - I preferred "Kanji Pict-o-Graphix" as I was impressed with my ability to `learn' 20 kanji a day from just remembering the images. As I was learning Japanese as a hobby, this was fun and very useful for the basic vocab at night school, but last year I moved to Japan and needed to rapidly learn as many kanji as possible. I then realised the worth of this book. As I approached the `useful' minimum of 250 kanji I immediately realised that you can't simply remember any more by rote learning (unless you have 16 years like Japanese children!) and that the only way to fix them in your mind is to actually _understand_ the meaning. This book emphasises the usefulness of the individual kanji components (radicals) and also gives a guide to the broader `sense' - invaluable when an identical kanji is used in very different words. The only criticism of this book is that it's presentation style at first appears too academic, but if you're seriously attempting to be able to write all 2000 kanji then I've found this one most useful. The various `simple methods' of learning kanji in my 5 other books simply didn't work for me and they are now long forgotten. Don't worry about the lack of stroke-order, use a book like "The Basic Kanji Book" by Bonjinsha to learn the order of the first 50 and it becomes natural after that (it's about the only thing that has fairly well-kept rules in kanji). There is no English->Kanji section - but this would just perpetuate the myth that Japanese can be translated word-to-word from Latin languages. I just used a dictionary, then looked up the kanji in the book's Japanese index (thankfully in roman text). If you get tired of this, then some of the free computer-dictionaries (e.g. JWPce) have cross-references to the order in this book.
Rating:
Summary: 24 hours = 15 more kanji known.
Review: I've owned this book for just one day and I already know 15 more kanji. This is everything I could have hoped for! I saw a few of Henshall's kanji etymologies on Joyo96.org, and I had to get the book. I find etymology not only fascinating but very useful in remembering new words and where they came from and what they relate to. The same goes for kanji; knowing why a kanji is written the way it is helps me remember it. Each part of each kanji is explained. Having the kanji written in brushstroke and typed for also helps in recognizing them and writing them. If anyone has any interest in the origins of kanji, this is the book to buy.
Rating: 
Summary: A Big Help Learning Kanji
Review: If you are learning Japanese, you probably already know that one of the most challenging elements is learning Kanji, the ideographic characters that make up a large portion of the written language. This book helps a lot with the Joyo Kanji, the nearly 2000 glyphs that are mandated by the Education Ministry for basic competence.
This book presents the characters in the order they are introduced to Japanese school children, so there's no risk of getting a complex, obscure Kanji until you are ready for them. Each character is introduced with its possible pronunciations and meaning, just like most other Kanji dictionaries.
The two things that make this book unique are the detailed "etymological" explanations of the formation of each character, and the suggested mnemonic devices for each glyph. The mnemonics are not always useful, and often you can come up with better ones yourself, but the explanation of the formations of the characters is outstanding. By understanding how the character was formed, you learn the various elements that make up all kanji, making them easier to learn as you go along. An additional benefit is that by knowing the origins of the character, you won't be thrown off when you happen upon kanji written using the old style, which depending on where you live and what you do, may be fairly often.
The only thing that I found disappointing about this book is that is doesn't give stroke-by-stroke instructions on writing most kanji. Granted, that would make the book a MUCH larger volume, but when faced with a 23-stroke monster, some idea of where to start writing it would be helpful. Of course, if you use a word-processor exclusively, you'll never need to know.
Rating:
Summary: Simply The Best!
Review: My bookshelves are bent with Kanji learning books, disctionaries, computer software, word-tanks, electronic dictionaries, but this is the best! Some people criticise it for not having stroke orders or enough compounds. I think this is (mis)judging it as a dictionarywhich it is not. This book is a memory aid. I've found it a very powerful one. By all means buy a dictionary as well (I've loads of them!), when it comes to memorizing this is tops. Buy a copy. I'm on to my second copy it is so good. Good luck with your studies.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Is What It Says It Is!
Review: Reviewers have critized this book for not being a Kanji dictionary (it's not) or for not providing needed stroke order. (The excellent Tuttle Guides to Writing Kanji provide workbook pages so that you can learn stroke order by guided practice.) If there could be a book that would provide all that you need to learn Japanese, it would come with a forklift. I find Henshall's guide to be tremendously valuable in providing just enough insight into where each character came from to make it stick in the mind. If we were to learn the basic Kanji the way Japanese school children do (as has been suggested) we should be prepared to spend 9 years. A Guide to Remembering has a place in the library of any student of Japanese.
Rating: 
Summary: Fair...not great
Review: There certainly is a lot of information in this book, and I found it occasionally useful, but as a study aid it failed me. It was easier to copy Japanese from textbooks onto notecards than study this book, and for looking up Japanese, a real dictionary is far superior.
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