"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

Hey there! Good question, haha.  

So I basically just picked up this book called Japanese in Mangaland (I forget the author) back in early high school–pretty much on a whim–and thought, “Hey, this looks cool!” The book basically teaches you by using manga panels; it’ll have a few pages of lesson material, then shows it in action before giving you some exercises to try–definitely a good start for learning from scratch.  I kept renewing it and had a notebook I used to take notes from it in with me, even sometimes using it when I should’ve been focused on my Italian classes haha (logic being “Hey, I’m doing so well anyway, so…” [and I pretty much aced it for 2-3 years; forgotten much of it now haha]).  Then, I just took classes once I got to college, which really helped cement things, and that was when I was really picking up with my subbing, leaning less on summaries and more on my listening/Google-fu for phrases I could make out; even had one of my professors help me here/there!

So, yeah, that book would definitely be a good start! I’d also look into the Genki series of textbooks; those were the books we used in class, which were also great, with a lot of exercises, and they also come with CDs of dialogues to practice your listening comprehension.  Watching dramas and other such shows in Japanese is also helpful; when I’m not subbing, I keep my Japanese in check basically with the new ARC-V episodes (seems I know enough to get about 80% of what’s being said, save for any words I don’t make out in a first listen).  It’d also be helpful. once you get used to hiragana/katakana and basic kanji, to look into Japanese newspapers to read.  something i’ve actually been meaning to do whoops

Following that, there’s a masterpost I’ve tagged for reference on my blog here that’s sure to help too: http://kaiowut99.tumblr.com/post/70863167452/nadinenihongo-guide-to-self-studying-japanese

Hope that helps! :)