ok here's my effortpost
1. Learn hiragana and katakana.
You can brute force this. Look up a chart with all the readings and make flashcards, write over and over or whatever works for you. You just gotta match the character to the sound. Most important thing is to read it as much as you can so it sticks.
2. Read through a grammar guide, you don't have to memorize it all at once but refer to it as needed. Research elseware if you need more examples/explanations.
3. learn some words. There is a flashcard software called anki that lots of people use but I think it also burns a lot of people out. Give it a try with this deck:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pMlJvSrKQOSaiN8sPLdNDvWP31EClxDO/view but don't give up if you cant make it through. I ended up just making my own deck instead.
4. start fucking reading!!! It will suck a lot at first but the more you keep recognizing words the easier and more fun it will get. If this is too frustrating, consider working through a textbook like Genki 1 or 2. Those will give you a pretty good foundation too and are easy to find online for free.
Once I got comfortable enough to start reading, my general workflow became: See word I don't know > look it up > add it to my anki deck > keep reading
resources:
grammar guide
https://gohoneko.neocities.org/grammar/taekim(this website has a lot of useful stuff so look around)
online dictionary (my best friend)
jisho.orgbrowser extension with popup dictionary (my second best friend)
https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/website with a lot of manga with selectable text for easy search
https://catalog.mokuro.moe/reader for above website
https://reader.mokuro.app/If you'd like I can go into some more specifics feel free to @ me anytime. 頑張れ! :shittyMajime: