Learn Japanese
Learn Japanese - Nihongo.3Yen.com - Japanese Language
And look on amazon or another online book source for either the Genki (げんき） or the Minna No Nihongo (みんなの日本語） series. The MNN can be a bit daunting if you don't already know hiragana/katakana though. I found a mix of both to be useful.
Personally, I think learning the basic scripts above is the first step. The best material doesn't use roman characters very much.
There's also a useful game for practicing what you've learned:
Kanji Page
As said above, anime isn't a good place to learn from, but it can be used to supplement your listening skills.
As a last note: Stay away from any of those "LEARN JAPANESE IN 10 DAYS" style books. They are utterly worthless =p