Anyone studying Japanese language?

I've been trying to learn myself for a while, I got hiragana and katakana down but kanji is a whole different story. No idea where I should even start with vocab and grammar. I want to at least get to the point where I can have conversations and read light novels xD

I concur, after watching anime for half my life, I feel I get the gist of what's going on in anime without the subtitles.

I took Japanese as part of enrichment at Sixth Form and did a year at University where I also learnt about the culture as well as the language. I know how Hiragana and some Katakana (I'm a bit wobbly, but that's because I'm rusty) and some Japanese phrases. My handwriting is alright, I'm wobbly again with sentence structure and I only know a handful of Kanji (a lot less than I'd like).

I took a semester my first year in college. I've pretty much forgotten everything except the alphabet and the words I recognize when I watch anime lol. I'll probably brush up this winter in preparation for my trip in March.