There are many gaijin who get by in Japan able to speak fairly well but being nearly completely illiterate, kanji-wise.
Nonetheless, don't sell yourself short. Yes, learning kanji is a big job, but it's not the nightmare people make it out to be. On top of that, one can become semi-literate with a fairly small number of kanji.
And if you learn the radicals and study them in context, you'll find it's much, much easier to memorize than it initially seems. Just by themselves, it would be very, very hard, but as you recognize their patterns and are able to map it to the spoken language, the rocky road becomes a good bit smoother.
But even if you decide to shun kanji, at least learn kana. It's not that hard, and it will pay off tremendously.
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