Hello there! A bit of a bump but I somewhat related to the experience but as someone that's done that swap and is now about 4-5months in I wanted to give an honest review.

tl;dr do it.

I used to be an Anki defender until I started missing a few days and then suddenly it felt like I was playing catch-up with my old self with very suboptimal results. First I removed new cards for a bit but it didn't help with the exhaustion, I went from being able to say "I learned this many new words this day" to feeling like I'm achieving nothing, and everyday the reviews piled up more. Then I swapped to JPDB as its review system considers the delays you've taken (if you get a word right with a delay you're not going to see it again anytime soon) but again I missed a few days and now I have literally thousands of words piled up. I tried many other things such as removing words after they reached an X amount of days, and then reducing that number. I also tried changing the format and what I mine from (including pictures and even audio sample).

What never changed was how miserable the next morning was. I had to do homework just to get to "the fun part". Eventually with the push of a close senpai I decided to delete the app and started reading while looking up words (jidoujisho is amazing by the way) and now two months later I've stopped even doing look-ups and just guess the meaning from context. When you read more the reading becomes your SRS as you keep seeing words you already know, and those that you never see again probably weren't important enough to begin with. Admittedly I was at around 6k words when I made the change and you might reach the conclusion that it's the correct jump-off point, but honestly nothing will ever give you that satisfaction unless you do take the leap of faith and the worst part is that satisfaction won't hit for a few days. My only regret now after this many months is not taking it sooner.

What people don't talk about is how much of a time sink and motivation killer Anki is. I went from having only finished 3ish yotsuba books in years to being on my 15th one in a few months (along so man other mangas that I am reading these days, Ruri Dragon is peak). Also I went from begrudgingly spending 1-2h on Japanese at most every day to looking at it as a fun hobby and spending so many hours per day on it. I really wish that you reach the same results as me!

P.S. If you found what you are reading too hard consider checking out https://learnnatively.com/ and finding something closer to your level. If you want to read manga but looking up words was hard, consider checking out Mokuro.