and as far as kanji, the idea i got from wanikani is: just learn one reading, whichever you deem most important, and simply include that in your mnemonic story. it doesn’t require ANY extra work and you then have a name for the kanji plus can guess at it’s pronunciation in vocab.

then later on as you learn vocab, you learn the other readings. and just mix that in with kanji studying, along with reading sentences and paying attention to music lyrics. like there was this song i’ve listened to since i was little, called Nagareboshi. i’m just a beginner so i didn’t pick up that much, but the first line: “Sora wo miagereba” “if you look at the sky” i understood that and was like “whoa!!! (*ﾟ∀ﾟ)=3”

i think that reading can be very rewarding and should be done as much as possible.

In my humble opinion, I would recommend you start by setting yourself up to make the kanji go by as quickly as possible (ie check out Heisig’s books, set up an SRS, try to utilize pre-built decks).

Perhaps more controversially, I would also recommend that you just worry about the peripheral aspects of a Japanese immersion environment for now. So things like music, background noise, Japanese posters, chopsticks, etc. Save the active learning for later.

Of course this is only my advice from my own experience, so it may not work for you, but then again, you asked the question, so I hope you find the answer useful 😀

My opinion – which I think Khatz shares – is that Japanese audiobooks are great for Japanese immersion and study.