Rating: 
Summary: A really weird book, very highly recommended
Review:
This book uses a mnemonic teaching method, which one does well to be skeptical about. And the mnemonics used by Mr. Heisig in this book are positively weird (see the page for "sa" as an example).
The odd thing is, I discovered that when I took these weird mnemonics seriously, I learned quickly and the learning stuck for days. When I did not take the weird mnemonics seriously, my learning was more hit-and miss. I often find the mnemonics coming back into play now to help me quickly remember how to read or write a phoneme that had temporarily slipped away from me.
This book flies in the face of common sense, but I think that the author is actually onto something about how the human brain works and learns. I'm not sure what -- it might be the fact that the brain is a great associative engine and pattern-matcher.
In any case, this approach really worked for me, much better than the Tuttle approach that I had previously given up on.
Rating: 
Summary: 20 years old & summer break = learning the hiragana
Review: Being, at this point, I've only completed the Hiragana portion of the book, I otherwise can't comment on the Katakana half. As for the hiragana, I will say, Heisig, though rather unusual in his imagery (i.e. "Mi = It begins with the 7 dwarves, who are throwing boomerangs at kangaroos, and then carving them up for steaks with their little daggers,") has a superior book in regards to learning the Hiragana. Heisig sometimes seems to come off as a condescending intellectual - but if any of you have been to college, you'll meet professors with that very same attitude, and you just have to deal with it regardless
I wouldn't say I possess any additionals gifts for language above anyone else (I sure didn't finish the hiragana in a day, and know how to read/write them fluently as some declare) - but I found this book rather uselful and a lifesaver. I spent maybe 3-5 days on it, spending about 15-20 minutes per lesson - sometimes doing two lessons a day (one day, I did skip lessons completely)
My suggestion: stick with one a day - make some flash cards, and flip thru them. Don't be embarassed to make up some words as well, using what you know - it helps give you a feel and a confidence for reading it. Also, say them out loud, write little post-it notes everywhere to label things: i.e. there's a note for sakana on my fish aquarium, and pan on my bread door (maybe that's abit excessive). I suggest have fun with it - thats sorta what I did, and I think I remember about 80% of them correctly every time. Some of the characters do appear differently written in the example words then I remember them appearing on their pages (i.e. sa and ri), or they do to me anyhow.
Good luck! Don't give up!
Rating: 
Summary: Teaches Hiragana great, but Katakana...
Review: I bought this book after a recommendation from a friend and I have to say it works great. Now I'm not sure if there is any 'proper' way to learn Japanese or any language for that matter, but I feel if the approach works and its easy than that should be considered the proper way and this method certainly works! The Japanese textbooks I use offer mnemonics to help remember the characters but those are often farfetched and unhelpful, Heisig's approach teaches you the characters in the order that is easiest order possible and you really will finish in three hours or less. Now with that said, I must confer my disappointment of "Remembering the Katakana" to you. I had high hopes for that portion of the book after finishing "Remembering the Hiragana" but I was disappointed to find that it doesn't even compare. In the first half of the lessons in "Remembering the Katakana" they teach you the Katakana most similar to the Hiragana and they also teach you the Katakana that most resemble each other. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but learning to distinguish the Katakana from the Hiragana is alittle hard for me and this book tells you to remember the Katakana by comparing them to their Hiragana counterparts! It approaches this as if confusing the two shouldn't be a problem at all, and it offers even less help on distinguishing the Katakana that look alike (example: so, tsu, shi, and n are nearly identical the book admits this and it offers no help to distinguish them). The book also says that if you have trouble remembering a character, to 'create your own' mnemonic for it! The things this book says makes me wonder if Morsbach even read Heisig's far superior book in the first place. But what really gets me is that "Remembering the Katakana" assumes you've already learned the Kanji and often advises you to remember a Katakana character by the fact that it is identical to its Kanji counterpart. I mean obviously, if we're studying the Hiragana and the Katakana we should already be familiar with the Kanji, silly me it looks like I was studying in the wrong order. What mnemonics it does offer require alot of imagination and you're better off creating your own, however I found that the examples it offers make better mnemonics than the ones it gives. "Remembering the Katakana" is better than repetition but just barely. Buy this for "Remembering the Hiragana" and maybe you'll get more help out of the Katakana than I did.
Rating:
Summary: Think you have a bad memory? So did I until I got this book!
Review: Names, phone numbers, addresses and dates. All of these are bits of information that folks pass along to me and which are usually forgotten within hours (sometimes minutes!). I always thought I was just scatterbrained. I had no trouble remembering complex calculus formulas or the name of every obscure movie by my favorite director, but when it came to simple rote memorization, I was a goner.
So, when I became determined to fulfill my goal to learn the Japanese language, I shuddered at the horror stories I had heard of people trying to learn the kana. The tales of hours and hours of boring memorization drills did not give me a good first impression of the learning experience involved with Japanese. Fortunately, I discovered this book.
Utilizing imaginative memory techniques and positive reinforcement, Heisig has stripped down learning the Hiragana into an absolute joy. I was skeptical before I began, but even after the first 2 lessons I was able to retain, recognize, and write about 15 Hiragana and after completeing the remainder I was able to do the same with the others.
Now I am able to read and write well enough that I may continue my studies of Japanese with confidence. If you are at all serious about learning Japanese, do yourself a favor and try out this book, it's worth every cent.
Rating:
Summary: BEST book I have ever seen
Review: Positives: A few gifted persons can simply see and remember - they do not need this book. The other 99.999% of us do need it. I lived an entire year in Japan an struggled to learn the kana (Hiragana and Katakana) with almost no degree of success. The author claims you can learn either set of kana in 3 hours, and he lets you time yourself on each lesson to prove it, and he is correct. Anyway, even if it takes 4 hours, won't you be absolutely ecstatic? What some see as "gimmicks" are nothing more than mnemonic devices ("memory aids") to learning - and THEY WORK as every memory expert knows. I did one more thing he did not do - I linked a set of words (ma-mi-mu-me-mo) together with the "memory aid" (mama-meat-moon-maypole-mow). Thay way, if I cannot remember the symbol for "mi" or it's "memory aid" (meat), but can remember ma (mama), then I can see mama throwing a hunk of meat at the moon, and then quickly links meat to mi. All this sounds "strange" to people who have never used a "learning aid" of some sort. The brain learns in pictures. All I can say, is that this book is the most FANTASTIC book of it's kind I have ever bought, bar none. If you do the practice words he writes on each page, covering up the English, you will give yourself excellent repetition, and you will LOVE this book. Negatives: No book is prefect. As others have pointed out he did a (somewhat) better job on the hiragana than he did on the katakana, but learning the katakana is still quite EASY - AFTER you have learned the hiragana. The "extras" - like adding the special marks added to the basic words - could have been covered in more depth. However, if you know the 46 basic characters, that is 99% of the battle. Bottom line: As an ex-teacher, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being tops), I would give this book a 15. You can buy a workbook to learn the few things he does not cover in detail. Do not even think of buying any other book to learn the kana - until after finishing this one - unless you want to be frustrated. What I hoped to learn in a year in some yet-to-be-determined painful manner, I learned in 2 days!!!
Rating:
Summary: BEST book I have ever seen
Review: Positives: A few gifted persons can simply see and remember - they do not need this book. The other 99.999% of us do need it. I lived an entire year in Japan an struggled to learn the kana (Hiragana and Katakana) with almost no degree of success. The author claims you can learn either set of kana in 3 hours, and he lets you time yourself on each lesson to prove it, and he is correct. Anyway, even if it takes 4 hours, won't you be absolutely ecstatic? What some see as "gimmicks" are nothing more than mnemonic devices ("memory aids") to learning - and THEY WORK as every memory expert knows. I did one more thing he did not do - I linked a set of words (ma-mi-mu-me-mo) together with the "memory aid" (mama-meat-moon-maypole-mow). Thay way, if I cannot remember the symbol for "mi" or it's "memory aid" (meat), but can remember ma (mama), then I can see mama throwing a hunk of meat at the moon, and then quickly links meat to mi. All this sounds "strange" to people who have never used a "learning aid" of some sort. The brain learns in pictures. All I can say, is that this book is the most FANTASTIC book of it's kind I have ever bought, bar none. If you do the practice words he writes on each page, covering up the English, you will give yourself excellent repetition, and you will LOVE this book. Negatives: No book is prefect. As others have pointed out he did a (somewhat) better job on the hiragana than he did on the katakana, but learning the katakana is still quite EASY - AFTER you have learned the hiragana. The "extras" - like adding the special marks added to the basic words - could have been covered in more depth. However, if you know the 46 basic characters, that is 99% of the battle. Bottom line: As an ex-teacher, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being tops), I would give this book a 15. You can buy a workbook to learn the few things he does not cover in detail. Do not even think of buying any other book to learn the kana - until after finishing this one - unless you want to be frustrated. What I hoped to learn in a year in some yet-to-be-determined painful manner, I learned in 2 days!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good book, but not by iteself
Review: Pros: Heisig's approach works as promised. His mnenomic devices are great for at least half of the kana. (I don't use the others.) He introduces the kana in a logical order, which is NOT the standard order. This will ultimately help you write faster.
Cons: Many of the kana require you to remember a whole story to draw them, which is annoying and slow.
Recommendation: Use this book in conjunction with Michael Rowley's more visual approach (available in either of his Pict-o-Graphics books -- you might as well buy the kanji one, which is beautiful and also includes the kana). Work through this book in the order specified, but look up Rowley's device for each character and use whichever you like better (or make up your own). If you are a visual person (like me), you will often prefer Rowley's.
Rating:
Summary: It actually works!
Review: This book claims to be able to teach you the Hiragana in 3 hours. It actually works! Flip the book over for part 2 and you'll learn the Katakana.
The author's writing is very personal. While reading, I felt as though he were speaking to me, one on one. He gives a description of each character, instructions about the proper way to write it, examples of the character in other fonts, practice examples to test yourself as you move along and tells you the english approximation of the sound each character makes. The lessons are broken down into 30 minute segments, so you don't have to set aside 3 straight hours to get through it. I did one lesson a day at my desk on my lunch breaks.
If you get this book, start with the introduction, not lesson 1. You'll get to know the author and about how to use the book properly.
Rating: 
Summary: Remembering to buy another book to learn Japanese
Review: This book has a "creative" (if not downright silly) approach, there is no doubt. However, I wouldn't advise using Heisig's back-of-the-napkin approach. Far too dated (this book came out in 1978), far too gimmick-y. You are better off buy something from Hiroko Storm, Michael Rowley or Peter X. Takahashi. This way, you know you are at least learning Japanese in a really Japanese way...
Rating:
Summary: This book works
Review: This book helped me learn the Kana in one week, and that was on part time study only. Heisig's method uses "imaginative" memory as opposed to "visual" memory and is much more efficient in drilling in characters. I think most of the criticism against his books comes from people schooled in the traditional approach of rote memorization, who cannot conceive of a better way to learn Japanese. I am a bloody beginner, but having successfully completed this book and beginning his book on Kanji, I will wager against anyone that this will be a lot easier to learn with Heisig's method that others call "gimmicky". Wanna learn Hiragana and Katakana in a couple of days and have them burnt into your image? Buy this book. Good luck!
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