I took japanese 1 in highscool and I absolutely loved it.
We just finished all of the Hiragana and we started to get into katakana. I really wish I could take it without all of the other courses that I had. Someday I would really like to study it farther in depth.
If anyone is interested we learned through a program called Irasshai (Welcome). Their homepage is here..
http://www.gpb.org/peachstar/irasshai/homepg.htm
Its a pretty fun course. You watch a video one day along with a sheet that you fill in as you watch the movie. The next day you have an AI lesson with a real japanese instructor through the telephone, AI = Audio Intereaction, with whom you go through a book with. Its actually quite fun. And while the video's are corny you learn very fast and its very effective.
It really sucks though, because when you dont use it for a while, like any language.. you tend to forget some things. Its been a few months and I can still remember a lot of stuff though.. so I guess the class worked well.
Sayoonara!