cool that that works for you some at least. there should be a course specific to listening to anime and reading manga -- there are some materials (the now defunct magazine "mangajin" was really fun), but nothing spoken that i've found, and mangajin never struck me as useful for beginners; i get much more out of it now than when i first picked it up.

that pimsleur method would drive me nuts; it's exactly the wrong way around to how i learn to sound out words. i guess they must have found that it works for a lot of people though. interesting.

i've got myself a transcription program last week -- it's meant for dictation, but i use it to slow down sections of drama cds with which i have trouble. it doesn't change the pitch, and has variable speed adjustment, which is really great. i wish i had had some of these tools when i learned previous languages.