The primary impediment to literacy in Japanese is kanji proficiency. The ostensible reason kanji present such a formidable challenge, especially for the second language learner, is the combined effect of their quantity and complexity. Research into the cognitive processing of logographic characters, however, indicates that the main obstacle to kanji acquisition is the opaque relation between graphemes and phonemes. A pedagogical focus on establishing links between form and meaning at the expense of pronunciation, therefore, puts the L2 learner at a distinct disadvantage, thereby reinforcing the belief that Japanese is a difficult language to master. What is needed, instead, is an approach that foregrounds grapheme-phoneme correspondences while establishing meaningful links to orthographic representations. Due to their pictographic pedigree, kanji readily lend themselves to the use of mnemonic aids as witnessed by their inclusion in most textbooks and study guides. A review of these learning materials reveals a general misapprehension of such memory-enhancing techniques. In contrast, the method introduced herein is an attempt to bring much-needed clarity to the kanji learning process while abiding by mnemonic principles.