If associating stories and pictures with the kanji works for you you might want to take a look at Remembering the Kanji. It won’t teach you how to pronounce the kanji or what words they appear in but if you just want some help remembering the basic meaning of the 2000+ most common kanji and radicals it might be just what you need.
The book starts off with solid example stories and mental images for a few hundred of the most basic kanji. The rest of the book then just gives you the hints and suggestions to need to make up your own personal memory images for the rest.
Transcript
言語ガールズ #119
Plot Twist!
Blue: When memorizing complicated kanji you might want to try making up a little story that ties all of its parts together.
Blue: The story doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to help you remember.
Blue: The kanji for “bomb” or “explosion” includes the kanji for “fire”, “sun”, “well” and a variation of “water”.
Blue: So I think of a “fiery” explosion brighter than the “sun”.
Blue: And then everyone runs to the “well” to get “water”.
Yellow: Let me try: It was a dark and stormy night and someone had just been murdered.
Blue: What does that have to do with the kanji?
Yellow: I’ll get to that part in chapter three.