You're not the first person in the history of Japanese learning who had this idea. While the idea may seem sound and plausible, anyone who has actually spent any time learning Japanese will tell you that it is the single most impractical and unworkable approach to learning Japanese that you could possibly come up with. It simply will not work. Yes, it is entirely possible to have success teaching yourself Japanese in the comfort of your own home...just not the way you propose to go about it.
Put aside the apps and the reference books for the time being. What you need are good
textbooks. One of the most widely used is the
Genki series, but there are others available, which other members will be happy to recommend to you if you wish. Get the textbooks and whatever workbooks and audio materials go with them. If you can't afford them or are too cheap, they exist online as pirated PDF files. Spare us the same nonsense
every special snowflake gives us about "I'm special and I learn differently than everybody else"; we've heard that until it's coming out our ears. You're not
that special and you're not going to have the least bit of success learning Japanese by attempting to
decode (not
read) a Japanese book.
Finish the two volumes of
Genki first before you attempt to read anything (and even then you'll be amazed how incredibly far you are from being able to read anything with any speed or facility or without having to stop to look up 3/4 of everything on the page).
Consider this.... you've never had any success learning a language with your method, much less one which is as different from English as Japanese is. People who
have had some success learning Japanese are trying to spare you some pointless anguish and gnashing of teeth out of the kindness of their hearts.
The conductors are trying their best to give warning of the dangers ahead. Try to follow the example of the wise driver instead of being bullheaded and insisting on plunging blindly into the chasm.
