Rating: 
Summary: Only for the curious learners of Japanese Kanji
Review: If you are interested in learning how to read Kanji through Japanese and not through English this is not the book for you. I remember buying this book when I first arrived in Japan on a friend's recommendation and using it for about one month. No pronuciation or readings of the Kanji are given. I remember some of the first kanji introduced were conclave and convex. Why? A total waste of time. Get Henshall's book Remembering the Kanji - it is far superior!
Rating: 
Summary: Heisig delivers what he promises
Review: In order to become literate in Japanese, it is necessary to know approximately 2,000 Sino-Japanese ideographic characters (The so-called "joyo" kanji). Kanji literacy requires knowledge of the meaning of the Kanji and the pronounciation of the kanji. By necessity, the memorization of 2,000 of any item requires devious mnemonic and other mental tricks. In "Remembering the Kanji," Heisig shares his strategy in which each character is broken down into constituent parts (which Heisig dubs "primitives) and unified with a story or mnemonic device. The characters themselves are introduced in a sequence that is consistent with the number of "primitives" that have been introduced. Heisig also recommends some simple review methods intended to simultaneously reinforce the writing and memorization of the kanji.
Advantage of this technique include extremely rapid memorizaton of the meaning and writing techniques of the 2,000 joyo kanji. The acknowledged limitation of the method is that knowing the meanings of the kanji is only half the battle of being literate. Further, this is not intended to be a piecemeal learning effort... the strong implication is that the meanings of all 2,000 joyo kanji should be memborized first.
Although the Heisig course can be done in only a few months, some students question whether they should stop all their other Japanese studies while concentrating on this single facet of learning Japanese. This is complicated by the fact that the kanji are introduced in an order determined by their writing, not by practical meaning. Thus, the accessible kanji for "one" is followed in short succession by the somewhat obscure kanji for "gallbladder."
Additionally, the limitation of deferring pronounciation study rapidly becomes apparent when one encounters kanji compounds where the constituents are taken only for their sound values.
Additionally, it must be conceded that the English keywords in some cases are contrived to maintain consistency within the system, and in some cases do not precisely match the Japanese readings. I have noticed this in certain situations, and readers are advised to double check the meanings when the keywords seem ambiguous and contrived. For the most part, they are correct and useful. Further, there are complaints regarding the consistency of the mnemonic stories and whether they all make sense. My response would be that it is impossible to create mnemonics that will be equally meaningful to all readers, but Heisig has advanced a very solid foundation for readers to build their own devices.
In this reviewer's opinion, the limitations of the Heisig method are greatly outweighed by the advantages of speed and utility. On balance, knowing the meaning of the kanji is itself another building block for memorization of the readings. Limitations aside, it is quite an accomplishment to understand at least the meanings of the 2,000 joyo kanji in as few as 4 weeks.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding the incomprehensible
Review: James Heisig is a man that has done something that I think that no one else has. He has come up with a way to remember 2,000 characters with only a minute amount of studying.The book is designed with only the definitions and recognition of the character in mind, with pronunciation and compounds to be taught in his later books. After buying this book, I was a bit suprised to find no japanese pronunciation. I looked at the cover, and noticed that I had read it wrong. Let me tell you all, this is NOT A PRONUNCIATION GUIDE!!! it is only a method of remembering characters. The pronunciation comes with time and instruction. Unless you have the privilege of living in japan, no pronunciation instruction is given. However, his second and third books, which I own, are excellent guides to the pronunciation of the kanji. This book is designed to be bought and learned with the other two books that he wrote. All in all, however, this book has been invaluable to me as a student. I would reccomend it to anyone. Just don't expect a book on the pronunciation.
Rating:
Summary: Good system
Review: Reading this book will change how you see Kanji.
Large complex kanji will become simple in your eyes.
I have worked about 800 kanji into this book, and have enjoyed it.
It is true you will not learn the on-yomi or kun-yomi, but you will learn the more important part, the meaning. Moreover, have no problem writing these kanji from memory.
This book system is not designed to be used alone, after finishing this book; start studying other ways. The second book is not as ground breaking as this first, but is still rather handy. The first time I used this book, I devoured 100 kanji. Still to this day, I can draw those 100 kanji from memory.
Rating: 
Summary: Does what the cover say's... If only that much.
Review: Teaching myself Japanese is an on-and-off kind of habbit (sometimes I'm pushing myself, other times I'm taking breaks from it), so with a book which promotes good memory (and all the user reviews at the time were 5 stars), I thought this book would be just the thing for me. I would have given this book 4 stars, but what the cover said about learning the "meaning" of Japanese characters proved to be deceptive. Now don't get me wrong, Heisig's way of teaching the kanji's step-by-step is a great one, but there are some major flaws in this book. While you *WILL* learn the meaning, you won't always be taught the right denotation of various kanji's. Sometimes, the definition could be just a little off (fig. 236 is "Peach Tree," but is really "Peach"). And "but of course," Mr. Heisig, I've looked high and low in an online Kanji dictionary for the symbol that's presented as "but of course" (fig. 145), and I'm still unable to find out what it truly means! Another problem I had with this book, is that only the English definition is given (but words with no real translation (fig. 173; "ri") are given in Japanese)... I think it's safe to presume that anyone who buys this book, wants to learn Japanese! (And could use as much help with the vocabulary as possible.) It doesn't end there. Another you won't find out from the book alone, is that many kanji meanings are changed depending on the letter that follows (could be another kanji, but can also be a kana symbol in many cases). Fig. 1741 is defined as "England." While the symbol is used in writing "England" in kanji, mind you, that's only one part of writing "England" (and also appears in English Language, among others). Having memorized 300 kanji's on an inconsistant study basis, I feel that I could have memorized all 2,000+ in the book, and still be just as illiterate in my Japanese if all I had was this book to go on (and including how I know all of the kana). If you buy this book, make sure you've got an outside source to help you with the "true" denotation of the kanji (I've long since lost count of the number of pages I've made corrections to), as this book alone is very far from being a complete study guide. (But is great in the sphere of memory retention, and teaching the kanji out-of-order as to use a "building block" pattern.) In the meantime, I think I should have given "the traditional way" of learning kanji a chance before I bought this book.
Rating:
Summary: Snake Oil
Review: The author and most of the reviewers are making false claims. Claiming to have learnt hundreds of kanji in a matter of months is wrong. They haven't learnt the kanji, they have only learnt one aspect of the kanji. Yes the book makes this it clear that this is the approach used, but it is a waste of time. It is telling that none of the postive reviewers have reached even intermediate level Japanese. The three important parts of kanji are the meanings, the sounds and the words they form. Being able to recognise the meanings of individual kanji in isolation is practically useless. Some kanji have obvious meaning like sun or tree. But for most the meanings are not concrete but rather suggestions or ideas. Most words *cannot* be deduced just by knowing their component kanji. For example the kanji for "hand" and "mouth" combine to form the word "trick/deception." Plus many kanji have multiple meanings that change based on their sounds, eg IKU (to go) and OKONAU (to perform) are the same kanji. This could possibly work for Chinese but not Japanese. You will not save time using this method. You have to go back and learn the sounds and then build your vocabulary. You are better off setting a more modest total of 500 kanji and learning them properly. With just 500 kanji your reading level will be far ahead of anyone who has finished all three of these books. Brett
New Hotel,
East Capital,
Source of the Sun
(Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan)
Rating:
Summary: Terrible Book
Review: The book doesn't tell you HOW TO PRONOUNCE the kanji. So if you see a new kanji, you know that it (might) mean exit....but there are multiple readings for each Kanji.
If I weren't living in Japan, I'd return this book immediately. Unfortunately, I already paid for shipping out to Japan and I'd have to pay for shipping back to the States, so it's easier for me to just keep this book and use it as a paperweight or something.
Rating: 
Summary: good intentions gone wrong.
Review: The fundamental idea that this book is based upon -- namely, breaking up the kanji into simple pictographs and understanding how the meanings of complex characters relate to their primitive elements -- is a fairly good one. But I'm afraid the book is not worth its price. The author's introduction makes it sound as if he had innovated a groundbreaking new method of memorization which typical university courses are too out-of-touch to pick up on and utilize. Really, all he's done is compile a series of notes detailing how he personally committed each character to memory. No pronunciations or common usages are provided; to the author's mind, this will simply stunt the memorization process, I guess. You only get the image of the kanji with *one* of the major definitions and a little story to help you remember it. When referenced in a Japanese kanji guide, many of his definitions proved to be misleading, at least to *my* way of remembering things; and of course, all supplementary definitions are omitted. I mean, at the very least he should include a common pronunciation and a simple sample sentence. The problem I've just detailed would be big points against the book by itself, but what makes it all the worse is that some of his explanations of how to remember particular kanji make almost no sense at all. I'm sure *he* understands what he's talking about, but he frequently does not make himself clear. I can't tell you how often I've read his memorization technique, then looked at the kanji, and thought: "Whaa....? Where's he get THAT?" Then proceeded to commit the kanji to memory in a way that better suited my own brain. (After, mind you, looking up a more thorough definition in an ulterior book.) Which brings me to my conclusion: given that to actually pronounce or understand the common usages of any given character (or to clarify his frequently flakey explanations), I was forced to turn to an entirely separate guide anyway, the book is, in the end, practically worthless. I think the intentions were good, and the basic idea of breaking down kanji and remembering them by associating them with related pictures in your imagination is useful -- but it's hardly a major innovation, and the author's pride in his own method prevents this book from being helpful. I can't recommend this book at all, especially given its price. (The book could easily have been printed in a small and more cost-effective form.) Disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Yeah, it works
Review: The people who complain about the definitions being "wrong" or the lack of readings missed the point. If you're looking for a one-shot course that will give you a natural progression though a vocabulary of complete words then you picked the wrong book. But focusing on a goal such as that will only drive you insane (trust me, I tried). The point of this book is to do exactly what is says in the introduction, to give you an equal footing with litterate Chineese native speakers in learning the Japanese writing system. In other words, you will learn an "English reading" for each character. This is helpful, but in a subtle way. You eventually begin to replace the "keywords" with your own Japanese vocabulary. I've memorized 500 meanings and forms this way, and I'm already starting to (quite natually and effortlessly) replace some of the English with Japanese. Because of the first 500 characters this book, I'm able to write a good portion of my Japanese 101 vocabulary in Kanji. All in all, it does everything it promises, nothing it doesn't; it's a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Yeah, it works
Review: The people who complain about the definitions being "wrong" or the lack of readings missed the point. If you're looking for a one-shot course that will give you a natural progression though a vocabulary of complete words then you picked the wrong book. But focusing on a goal such as that will only drive you insane (trust me, I tried). The point of this book is to do exactly what is says in the introduction, to give you an equal footing with litterate Chineese native speakers in learning the Japanese writing system. In other words, you will learn an "English reading" for each character. This is helpful, but in a subtle way. You eventually begin to replace the "keywords" with your own Japanese vocabulary. I've memorized 500 meanings and forms this way, and I'm already starting to (quite natually and effortlessly) replace some of the English with Japanese. Because of the first 500 characters this book, I'm able to write a good portion of my Japanese 101 vocabulary in Kanji. All in all, it does everything it promises, nothing it doesn't; it's a good book.
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