I use "Essential Kanji" to learn the correct stroke order for writing kanji. The skillfully rendered brush and pen written characters are invaluable, and the "english names of radicals" appendix is pure gold. HOWEVER, this book desperately needs to be rewritten without any ROMAJI. Romaji is a curse which should be reserved for "Instant Japanese" tourist guides and the like. The starting point for learning kanji must certainly be the hiragana and katakana symbols, a trivial task by comparison. To use romaji in such a book makes no sense at all.

I was amazed at this book and the ammount of effort P.G.O'Neil and everyone who helped him put into it! This book is very good for people who want to study Japanese Kanji, but you have to have a basic knowledge of the langauge first. Serching for Kanji won't help if you don't know the amount of strokes in a ideogram. If you are for example reading a manga, and you have the kanji in front of you then this book can be helpful. It even gives you tips to remember the ideogram, which I find very helpful. Each kanji is written in 3 different ways, to give you a better feel of how to write it. It's written with the computer, with a ball pen and with a typical Japanese brush. Thats about all I have to say. Ok, I hope that was helpful. :-)

This is the best Kanji book I know of, and I have seen quite a few. The book is sturdy and compact, yet it is still one of the most extensive, with 2000 characters. The characters are arranged neatly, eight per page. It shows the major readings and meanings, as well as a BRIEF explanation of why the characters are shaped the way they are. It also shows the chinese pronounciation and 2 compound words using already taught kanji. The characters are presented in a general learning order and are indexed by stroke count and readings. My only complaint is that it represents both "ou" and "oo" by using an o with a macron over it. This book is excellent for learners and is also good as a reference book, but I would reccommend Ntc's New Japanese-English Character Dictionary for anyone who wants solely a reference book.