So I'm sure at least some of you have seen those tiny advertisements that say something like "PLAY GAME LEARN JAPANESE" and thought nothing of it, because, well, it's a fucking banner ad, and we've all be acclimated to largely ignore that shit.
Well, it turns out the people (or person) who own(s) those banners seems to actually be on to something.
http://lrnj.com/
There's a downloadable free game thing there, that's kind of a take on the familiar CRPG shit going on, and it's pretty fun both as a language learning instrument and as a CRPG (however basic it may be). If you're at all interested in learning to read kana and a little bit of basic kanji, I highly recommend you check this shit out--firstly because reading katakana alone is unbelievably useful, and secondly because, well, this thing is fun.
The only thing that it lacks, and necessarily so, is a way to practice writing the characters in question. I'd love an in-game way to see the stroke order for some (well, okay, all) of these kanji. But I'm an obsessive motherfucker.
DOWNLOAD. PLAY. EAT BACON. NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER.