ryanloveyukie wrote:

what is the total # of letters in hiragana and katakana?

There's 46 basic characters, here's a chart:http://www.manchaca.com/~sradowski/japanese/chart.html

If you click "next chart" at the lower right, it will send to the variations on the basic characters. Hope this helps.

this is the best Katakana and hiragana learning device I have ever found.
Turn of the checkmark at the top of the columns so only the column you want to learn has a check mark.

http://www.chipchat.com/NihonGo/protect/KatakanaDrill.html

http://www.chipchat.com/NihonGo/protect/HiraganaDrill.html