Actually, I started studying Japanese some 10 years ago or so (time sure flies...), and I don't think Skritter was around then. And actually, I didn't find them when I was looking around lately. My app tries to be as close as possible to real handwriting on paper, so you get nothing more than a blank space to write. For me, it needs to be touchscreen based instead of mouse, but maybe you could get a similar feel with Skritter on a tablet?