A mastery of written Japanese comes not through rote memorization, but by developing your inductive reasoning so as to nurture a "kanji-oriented thought process."

Soon after I began my study of kanji I acquired a book titled "Pictorial Chinese-Japanese Characters: A New and Fascinating Method to Learn Ideographs," by Oreste Vaccari and Enko Elisa Vaccari. The Vaccaris' illuminating approach fascinated me. Below, I have excerpted a passage from page 155:

23-STROKE CHARACTERS