Thanks for the comforting welcome. So, the only Japanese speaking IRL friend I have talked me out of learning Katakana. He said I should learn more vocab/grammar/verbs before bothering to confuse myself with another Kana.

Koichi saves it for Chapter two as well, so I’ll hold off. But I used “Remembering the Kana” by Heisig for Hiragana, and I think it really helped, I was anxious to start on Katakana.