Learning Japanese

I have been recently teaching myself Japanese. So far, it has been a slow journey. There are several common methods of learning a language. For me, I have taken the approach of these:

1. Reading books
2. Writing
3. Watching Youtube
4. Watching anime
5. Watching TV series

Yes, there is clearly a lot of watching. Since I don't know any Japanese personally, the way to improve oral understanding is through watching. Several people I know have learned a language from just watching TV shows in that respective language. Now, there has to be an intentional effort though. For instance, I have watched Japanese anime for years and have barely learned a lick. This is because I barely paid attention to what the characters said; I was purely focused on the entertainment and the English subtitles.

Here are a few sites where one can watch anime or jdramas:

https://www.viki.com/
https://www.crunchyroll.com/