Konnichi wa! ~hello~
I am not a sensei just to say right here and now but I do have a lot of handy sites to get beginner students started. But not just beginner either really. Well here it goes. mrgreen

THE SITES:

The Kanji Site
http://www.kanjisite.com/
The Kanji site is a wonderful place to get a good basic understanding of kana and kanji. It doesn't show you the proper way of writing kanji and kana but it is a very good site to begin.

Easy Japanese.com
http://www.easyjapanese.org/index.html
This site is extremely useful with learning all that kanji and kana.
On the front page it even has a word of the day in which it shows the word, the word in Japanese and then the meaning. It's very handy.

The super handy About.com:Japanese language

-katakana
http://japanese.about.com/od/howtowritekatakana/How_to_Write_Katakana.htm

-hiragana
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm

-culture
http://japanese.about.com/od/japaneseculture/u/Japanese-Culture.htm

This is very similar to the Kanji site but has a lot more to add to your learning and it is very easy to read and understand.


Jcollector
http://www.jcollector.com/Japanese-Paintings-s/81.htm
I haven't spent much time with this site but it is very promising to have a lot of Japanese Art and Paintings.

I might had more to the website section.

LITERATURE:

The Tale of Genji
This is one of the first novels of recorded history. It's size is really daunting and some of it's content but for the most part it is very good piece of Japanese literature. The Tale of Genji was created around 978(?) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu.

Japanese Literature-Trilogy
The First thousand Years
The Years Of Isolation
The Modern Years

This set of books talks about, well, Japanese Literature. Shuichi Kato Critques almost all important works of literature of Japan go over what was happening in Japan at that time and why that piece of literature was made. This trilogy of Japan's literature gives you a good deal of understanding of Japan.

I seem to have lost my research somewhere in the midst of the basement so I haven't been able to get more literature/websites for this ref. Please make do with what I have. sweatdrop