Learning japanese

So i've recently finished learning hiragana and im moving on to katakana, but what i wanna know is do i really have to learn kanji afterwards?Everyone says it's extremely hard and that no matter how long i keep learning i will never truly master it, is it really mandatory if i wanna know how to read and speak japanese?Or can i skip it

Not to speak but to read yes, that is my understanding of it. And there are a lot, but not even Japanese people need to know them all to be considered literate. There are about 2000, so if you break it Into around 40 character sections, and try to learn each 40 character section 1 week a piece (I'd use flash cards personally) you could; in theory, learn all of them in 50 weeks. Also start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%8Diku_kanji, makes sense to follow their educational method for it Whatever you do, be diligent, and enjoy learning.

You don't have to learn Kanji to speak but you do if you want to be able to read.. Don't listen to what everyone says, some people actually find it pretty easy, it all just depends on the person and even if you don't master it, you can learn ENOUGH to be functional.

Practice more on speaking japanese rather than writing it. Sure it is almost more important to read it and understand the grammar in order to fluent. But still, it is a hassle to pronounces it correctly and whiteout stuttering so speaking it is in my opinion underrated when it comes to people that wants to learn japanese. Maybe it is hard to find somebody that you could have a conversation with but it is rewarding as heck.

Yikes, i don't think i can find someone like that.But do you reckon watching/listening to japanese media(youtubers/tv shows etc) would be a decent alternative?

GOOD LUCK WITH KANJI PepeHands Some of the readings are nice enough to breakdown the kanjis to kata or hira. But yeah...