I got this book as an early learner of Japanese hoping it could help me learn kanji. After a very short time, I realized that it wasn't going to help. It's basically 1000 kanji arranged by category with strange pictures for each one with no real explanation of why certain pictures appear where. As one reviewer mentioned, many of them are even creepy and disturbing. There's also a short English phrase with each one that's supposed to work as a mnemonic device, but rarely seems to bear any relation to the picture so it's really just a way to remember the English word by itself. The book also gives the reader no idea how to write the characters, and they have the kanji written in some weird style, with the pictures provided to further confuse the issue.

Even learning the kanji by rote is better than trying to use this book. If you really want to learn kanji, go with Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1 by James Heisig. It costs twice as much, but it's 100 times more useful.

I highly suspect that most of the people who gave this book high ratings did not actually use it, or else they would not have rated it how they did. One reviewer who gave it 5 stars even says, "I wish I had it in college." Let's get real. This book is a novelty, not a way to learn kanji.