im learning japanese as well and i started off by learning all of the hiragana and katakana symbols because if you know them you can then write in japanese (then learn the kanji later on) and i also have lots of japanese penpals who teach me words and slang etc plus when you exchange letters you get to know about japanese culture!
One of my penpals told me that anime's and that are ok at teaching you the language but she said you have to be really careful of the pronounciation because in anime's etc they tend to speak in high voices and its not always how its pronounced. but i recommend watching japanese movies that arent anime (because its how they talk! :P)
Hope that helps! its a hard language to learn! (^^)
Good luck with it! (*-*)
