Thank you for your reply. 
Yeah, I’m also looking for conversation practice, so I’ll look for a community tutor.
How long were your first lessons? I’m pretty sure my brain will be cooked and boiled if I start out with 60-minute lessons. 
And is skype used for lessons, or some other service?
Many tutors offer varying lengths (30,45,60 I’ve even seen up to 90 minutes), and when you sign up you get three trial lessons that are shorter but cheaper, so you’ll likely be able to use those for half-hour lessons to begin with.
I’ve always used Skype, but depending on the person they might also have other means available (such as hangouts or similar)
EDIT: I used my three trial lessons on three different people in order to shop around a bit before committing to a full hour with someone.
aaaaaaaah so many helpful replies ;;
i feel a little insecure tagging everyone here, so i’m just answering in the void and maybe someone sees it!
first of all: i’m so thankful and relieved so many people made good experiences with self learning and probably even consider themselves as fluent. it’s giving much motivation! as for me i’m absolutely happy when i ever reach a level where i can have simple conversations and be able building own sentences when i learn new words. i also want to be able to understand people out of context. f.e. when i read a book in english i often don’t know every word, but reading the whole sentence and scene i still understand what’s going on.
i absolutely understand it’s unrealistic to hope for being super fluent and understanding everything without putting a lot of time and effort in learning. since i don’t have this time i learn a little everyday (30 to 60 minutes) and do little steps forward each a week. so i’m very slow and need to repeat a very lot, because for now i can’t use my knowledge much.
thank you for your advices! totally will start watching japanese dramas again so i stay immersed. as a reading training i read out japanese tweets out loud. same goes for every japanese text that catches my eye. i already noticed i can read hiragana a little faster now! and very very rarely i even understand some words! that’s already a lot for me!
since i still remember how hard it was for me to understand english people talking when i was younger, i know it will take a long time and a lot of training to be able to undertstand fast spoken japanese. but for now i’m looking forward to it! thank you so much for your motivating words! let’s all do our best to get better!!
If you look around, there are some posts from people living in Japan (I’d link one if I could remember which it was) who say that living in Japan definitely does not make you fluent on its own. I’m sure it helps to be surrounded by casual conversation and colloquialisms all day every day, but you can still get that online. Everything from watching Japanese Twitch streams to joining a language exchange will aid in that, and there are places with voice chats for practicing Japanese verbally.
Yes, if you go to Japan one day and have only practiced online, I’m sure there will be some kind of shock and nervousness, and you may fail to understand many things, but you would definitely be better prepared than someone who just dove straight in to Japan hoping to become fluent over time merely through exposure because they heard “you only become fluent if you’re in Japan.”
That site looks awesome! Signing up now 
Millions of fluent non-native english speakers all around the world would like to have a word with your friend.
As a self learner for about 8 years (on and off) I’d say it has been much easier for me to build listening and reading skills than speaking skills without living in Japan. I have improved my speaking abilities through shadowing but I think that an immersive environment would really help me take my skills to the next level because I comprehension way more Japanese than I can speaking. With that said I do believe that if one puts in the hours then they can reach conversation level outside of Japan/Japanese speaking environment but it will just take longer.
Edit: if you have the time the AJATT method is something to look into.
“having the time” might be a euphemism…
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