Those 'alphabet' are called hiragana (used for Japanese words, grammar, sentence structure) and katakana (used mostly for foreign words)

here is a complete list
http://www.saiga-jp.com/img/character/japanese_language/hiragana_katakana_list.gif

the second is the most frequent ... at least for Japanese.

it's certainly easier for Europeans to have them placed like roman letters (from left to right) if they are not used to the Japanese reading direction.

I learned them with the second way orientation (up to down, then right to left).

the order is the same either way; it's just that traditional japanese is read top to bottom, then right to left, while english and most european languages are read left to right, then top to bottom. obviously for things like computer text where it would be inconvenient to use the traditional japanese system, they've adopted the western reading direction.

That graphic helps a lot.  Thanks!



The first ways is used in a lot of games like Advance Wars Dual Strike, in western style. 

Text flows (read) left to right, start new line below, text flows (read) left to right. 


The traditional way Japanese usually display text is the second way, a perfect example being Ouendan 1 and 2:

Text flows from top to bottom, start next left to the left near top, text flows from top to bottom. 


Anyway, I can easily rip the katakana as it's the symbols used when entering a maps name.  Also, Advance Wars Dual Strike (Famicom Wars DS) uses uncompressed, one byte, half width symbols so I should have something like:

｠    ｡    ｢    ｣    ､    ･    ｦ    ｧ    ｨ    ｩ    ｪ    ｫ    ｬ    ｭ    ｮ    ｯ
ｰ    ｱ    ｲ    ｳ    ｴ    ｵ    ｶ    ｷ    ｸ    ｹ    ｺ    ｻ    ｼ    ｽ    ｾ    ｿ
ﾀ    ﾁ    ﾂ    ﾃ    ﾄ    ﾅ    ﾆ    ﾇ    ﾈ    ﾉ    ﾊ    ﾋ    ﾌ    ﾍ    ﾎ    ﾏ
ﾐ    ﾑ    ﾒ    ﾓ    ﾔ    ﾕ    ﾖ    ﾗ    ﾘ    ﾙ    ﾚ    ﾛ    ﾜ    ﾝ    ﾞ    ﾟ

Of course, the above symbols appear in a similar order in the game. 




While looking at the hiragana symbols in AWDS, I notice a strange symbol on the bottom line, the one with a triangle on top of a I looking letter:



I can't see it in the hiragana alphabet anywhere.  Unless I'm looking in the wrong place. 

全　that one I think meaning all, whole, everything, every, entire, full, complete, overall, total. Well at least that's the deffination from an online dictionary, it probably means something completly different in context 

There are several thousand.

Hehe give us a min I'll type up the ones not on the picture above. (that's a joke btw)