How much Japanese do you recommend taking before attending KCP?

You will succeed much better in this rigorous program (even at the lower levels) if you have one year of university Japanese under your belt. If you have had no Japanese, or if it is unavailable where you live, you can pick up a good book on Japanese and at least memorize the hiragana and katakana.

See Kana page.

See Learn Japanese online.

Those who already have a good command of Japanese will be likely be placed in a higher level where you can polish your language proficiency.