Well, yeah, those 6 year olds are learning kanji for the first time. For instance, I saw lessons for 日 and 月. By the time they’re 7 they’re probably gonna get kanji lung from all the time in the kanji mines.
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That really depends on how much you plan to integrate yourself into the community. Yes, to simply live, you mainly just need those, but coordinating with people in the community, especially older members who don’t or sparingly use cell phones, requires writing ability. I sometimes attend or coordinate adding an “American” twist to classes other than English, and, most of the time, I have to leave notes for them as they are too busy to talk. I guess you could write in hiragana for everything, but that takes up a ton of space.
I do agree though, that, with cell phones so prominent now, just recognizing the kanji to utilize it in texting, LINE, etc. makes it much less a priority than any other of the skills (reading, speaking, and listening).
Make up your own kanji. Freestyle. The sky’s the limit. Eat the entire cheese including the rind.
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While doing WK? Depends if you want to have a life…
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I second this.
Haha, yeah I’ve seen 6 year olds write. It does look like caveman scratchings. 
My point was that if you never write, your kanji will look unbalanced and not fluid enough. Btw, now I’m going to and forth Japan and China a lot, and while Japanese handwriting is usually decipherable for me, I’m having a real trouble with Chinese…their handwriting seems somehow more fluid.
Yeah, I guess they were just a-holes. I was attending university in Japan and I usually got these from teachers (not the language teachers, but other faculties). But sure, Japanese mess it up a lot, too. Use maybe a wrong radical even, or miss a few strokes. It happens with the technical words mostly in my field (astronomy), probably due to the widespread use of katakana words.
I’m throwing in my vote for yes, you should practice writing the kanji.
The purpose of writing them out isn’t just learning how to write them, it’s also helping you memorise them. While you’re writing them, your brain is thinking about them and filing them away.
I recently reset my account. I’d gotten up to level 20, lots of burns, but I felt it was all a bit shaky. I spent a month in Japan and was really frustrated by how many kanji I kind of recognised but couldn’t properly read. This time around I’m doing lots of writing and I feel much more confident.
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You deleted your progress after being a little shaky on readings? That’s not a lack of writing kanji, that’s a lack of reading practice to apply your kanji knowledge. Try these Graded Readers!
You deleted your progress after being a little shaky on readings? That’s not a lack of writing kanji, that’s a lack of reading practice to apply your kanji knowledge.
Of course you need reading practice to reinforce what you’re learning, but my point was that writing the kanji is an aid to memorisation. I wasn’t going to claw my way out of my dilemma with more reading practice as I was building on poor foundations. Thanks for the link to graded readers though 
If you want to enrich your learning journey and help memorize the kanji then yes.
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