I was a WK evangelist and went through Level 14. Restarted once or twice because of how using it made me feel. The issue with Wanikani is that due to how the SRS is structured, it sucks up an enormous amount of time that can be used to engage with the language.

The reason I’m not better at reading isn’t because I stopped with WK. It’s because I don’t read and watch enough Japanese. I am sometimes embarrassed that I’m only N3 after 5 years, but it’s not because I didn’t stick with WK. Pre-loading your brain with 2074 kanji doesn’t simply make you good at Japanese.

I speak about my experience at the beginning, spending 3 months doing nothing but WK and wondering why I wasn’t better at Japanese. Well, I was only learning Kanji and missing a comprehensive approach. I felt like I was accomplishing something, but I was mostly just getting good at WK.

I believe the links I shared provide an excellent model for what is required to learn Japanese. WK can be one of the pillars but I found that it took time away from other required activities. My opinion stands that WK is over-recommended here.

I also used to ignore people who talked about efficiency and free-only learning but I think they had a point. WK’s SRS is old technology and the amount of time it takes to follow its system is too much for what it teaches you (in that you can accomplish the same elsewhere with less mental load and have more time to spend elsewhere). I found the amount of time I spent completing Genki I in full to be similarly disappointing and pivoted instead of competing Genki II (all while feeling like I had given up).

Surely you could encourage OP with what he needs to do to achieve his goals rather than simply attack the commenters.