Mojibakeru

From the 17th of May, Bandai are to release a new series of trading figures in the form of kanji that transforms into its animal counterpart. The product is called "Mojibakeru" [もじバケる] which is a compound word of "Moji" [文字] meaning "character" and "Bakeru" [化ける] meaning "to change into."
Me thinks these would be useful to help folks remember kanji - they just need to make more.
There will initially be 6 kanji to collect and will cost a mere 105 yen each - they also comes with some gum to chew on while you figure out how to transform it. Each kanji comes in 3 colors giving a total of 24 different combination's.

First up we have "Inu" [犬] meaning "Dog."

And this is is what Dogotron looks like after transforming. Dont let his cute face fool you - he will pee seven shapes of poo in your face in no time.

Tora [虎] is Tiger.

Tigertron Kanji ver.

Sakana [魚] is Fish.

Kuweeqookukoo. Fishobyte.

Uma [馬] is Horse.

Ponygator after transformation.
While today's kanji evolved from simplified drawings, the animal shapes that these kanji transform into may not necessarily look like the original form.

Tori [鳥] is Bird. Yakitori is grilled chicken on a stick ^^;

Kuqookuweekukooku > Birdominus.

Ryu [竜] is Dragon.

You may be able to find pre-order info at one of these following trusted onilne stores.
http://www.amiami.jp/shop/?set=english
http://toylet.net
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/
http://hlj.com
http://archonia.com
http://hobbystock.jp
http://kidnemo.com
http://jlist.com

The Japanese Ministry of Education came up with a list of kanji called the Joyo Kanji - a list of 1,945 kanji that you need to learn in order to effectively get about everyday life in Japan.

Me didn't have the opportunity to go Chinese school so had to start from scratch self learning from magazines and dictionaries that I picked up from the Japan Center in London. To speed up my learning I didn't bother to learn the stroke order of the Kanji because I thought that as long as I could write then it didn't matter in what order I did the strokes.
Sure enough I did learn kanji quick and pretty much know all of the Joyo kanji now but I'm terrible at using the handwritten kanji recognition systems ^^;

How many of you learning Japanese and how many kanji do you think you have mastered?

Mojibakeru news and photos from Mycom.